Oct 12, 2011 - Day 12 What is Crossfit?

It's been a drag since Saturday. Congratulations to Mike and May on their wedding! I messed up my back pretty bad. I've been resting it since Sunday. Finally got back to the gym today.

The WOD was: 6 HSPU, 12 Pullups Chest to Bar, 24 lunge walk with 35lb DB. 5 Rounds for Time.

My time: 20 min.


Here's excerpt from crossfitstorm.com

What is CrossFit?

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies, tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

Our program delivers a fitness that is by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Life, combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, more commonly punish the specialist.

The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.

The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. Our hunters, skiers, mountain bike riders and housewives have found their best fitness from the same regimen.

CrossFit is a program designed to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. It is not a specialized fitness program, but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains:

1. Endurance - The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance).

2. Stamina - The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy. (capacity to maintain repetitive muscular movements)

3. Strength - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.

4. Flexibility - the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.

5. Power - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.

6. Speed - The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.

7. Coordination - The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a single distinct movement.

8. Agility - The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.

9. Balance - The ability to control the placement of the body’s center of gravity in relation to its support base.

10. Accuracy - The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.

The CrossFit Program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. Our athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical challenges.

5 reasons why CrossFit works

1. CrossFit is hard, first and foremost; deal with it. It is physiologically impossible to obtain significant weight loss, strength gain and true cardiovascular endurance with easy workouts. Period. If anyone tries to convince you otherwise, walk away. It’s a boldface lie.
2. CrossFit uses a variety of movements – repetition is boring. And worse, less productive than utilizing a wide range of movements from a variety of athletic disciplines. CrossFit keeps things interesting.
3. Most top athletes CrossFit, and they may not even know it – or call it as such; but, CrossFit is nothing new with regards to the exercises and intensity. Instead, it offers a varied mixture of a wide range of specific training methodologies that create strong, capable athletes such as boxers, gymnasts, weightlifters, and runners.
4. CrossFit utilizes the sport of fitness – Healthy competition associated with fitness training helps drive individuals to push a little harder and attack a workout a little stronger, all in an effort to perhaps be a little better than the next guy – or, improve upon the individual’s last performance. The ego is a terrible thing to waste [sic]
5. CrossFit works – the most important element of all. No other current methodology around the exercise and fitness scene today is producing more fit athletes and trainees than CrossFit.