CrossFit Is…
…A Strength and Conditioning Program:
CrossFit went live on the internet in April of 2003 and quickly became the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Our approach is consistent with what is practiced in elite training programs associated with major university athletic teams and professional sports. CrossFit endeavors to bring state-of-the-art coaching techniques to the general public and athlete who otherwise would not have access to current technologies, research, and coaching methods.
…The Sport of Fitness:
In implementation, CrossFit is, quite simply, a sport—the “sport of fitness.” We’ve learned that harnessing the natural camaraderie, competition, and fun of sport or game yields an intensity that cannot be matched by other means.
…Evidence-Based Fitness:
CrossFit is empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed. The methodology that drives CrossFit can be supported only by measurable, observable, repeatable facts. We call this approach “evidence-based fitness.”
…Constantly Varied, High-Intensity, Functional Movement:
- Variety: The CrossFit program embraces short, middle, and long distance metabolic conditioning, and low, moderate, and heavy load assignment. We encourage creative and continuously varied compositions that tax physiological functions against every realistically conceivable combination of stressors. This is the stuff of surviving fights and fires. Developing a fitness that is varied yet complete defines the very art of strength and conditioning coaching.
- Functional: Functional movements mimic motor recruitment patterns that are found in everyday life. These natural movements typically involve multiple joints. Squatting is standing from a seated position; dead-lifting is picking up an object off of the ground. The bulk of isolation movements are non-functional movements. Functional movements are mechanically sound and elicit a high neuro-endocrine response, meaning your body gets stronger, faster.
- High-Intensity: We work with shorter high-intensity cardiovascular sessions. Why? Because compound or functional movements and high intensity or anaerobic cardio is radically more effective at eliciting nearly any desired fitness result.
…The Capacity to Move Large Loads Over Long Distances, Quickly:
No aspect of fitness is more important than the capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. This is our definition of Fitness. By this definition you are more fit if you have a greater work capacity. Work=Force x Distance / Time.
…Increased Work Capacity Across Broad Time and Modal Domains:
What this means is that you have functional capacity in all different types of movements at a variety of durations of effort. If you are increasing this broad work capacity, you will be competent at both short bursts of activity and extended longer workouts.
…A Broad, General, and Inclusive Fitness Program:
Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist. We sought to build a program that would best prepare our athletes for any physical contingency—prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable as well.
…Optimization of all Ten Fitness Domains:
We have designed our program to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.
…Gymnastics Crossed with Weightlifting:
We train our athletes in gymnastics movements teaching both dynamic and static body control while maximizing strength to weight ratio and flexibility. We also place a heavy emphasis on Olympic Weightlifting having seen this sport’s unique ability to develop an athletes’ explosive power, control of external objects, and mastery of critical motor recruitment patterns.
…Universally Scalable:
The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. Your needs and the Olympic athlete’s differ by degree not kind. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs. Increased power, strength, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, balance, and coordination are each important to the world’s best athletes and to our grandparents. The amazing truth is that the very same methods that elicit optimal response in the Olympic or professional athlete will optimize the same response in the elderly. Of course, we can’t load your grandmother with the same squatting weight, for example, that we’d assign an Olympic skier, but they both need to squat. In fact, squatting and dead-lifting are essential to maintaining functional independence as we get older and improving fitness in general.
Is CrossFit For Me?
Absolutely! If our program works for everyone from Olympic skiers to those that are looking for general fitness and improved health, then it will work for you.
