Crossfit Craze

One day at the gym, I heard a girl talking about CrossFit. She was discussing how her and her boyfriend love to do these work outs together. Of course I became intrigued yet skeptical. It's very difficult to find workouts that compromise both female and male body parts. Crossfit is a 'universal scaleability' workout. This means this workout can be done by anyone e.g. your grandma, significant other, or rehabbing patient. The theme of CrossFit is that it provides 'functionality, intensity, and variance'.
It was founded by an ex gymnast, Greg Glassman, and used to train police back in the late 90s. He opened his first gym in 2000 in California. However, CrossFit didn't really start to catch on until the late 2000s. Currently there are more than 3400 gyms nationwide with the number growing daily.
CrossFit workouts are mirrored after functional movements. You learn to snatch, clean overhead squat, jerk, and muscle-up. These movements mimic natural efforts like standing, throwing, lifting, pulling, climbing, running, and punching. The movements are commonly done in a compound fashion with short high intensity cardiovascular sessions. 'Performing compound or functional movements and high intensity is radically more effective at eliciting any desired fitness result' says CrossFit's journal. CrossFit is a movement that even has it's own website and journal that you can subscribe to.

More specifically within the CrossFit workout the high intensity movements are commonly called "workouts of the day". A typical session will include a warm, a skill development segment, WOD, and stretching. CrossFit is commonly done in a class in order to encourage competition and track individual progress.CrossFit can be adapted to anyone by altering the skill development segment and decreasing the intensity of the work out of the day. The idea behind the creating a developmental skill, is that life presents us with unpredictable demands. We dont know how heavy our grocery bag is going to be or when the elevator at work will stop working. But we have to have the ability to handle these tasks. By testing our functional competencies with CrossFit we should be able to complete these real-life tasks with ease when presented.
Contratily there has been criticism about CrossFit. Risk of injury can outweight the benefits if exercises are performed with poor form. Getting proper guidance from a skilled professional is very important for this exercise program.

I personally have not participated in a CrossFit class yet but I plan on beginning a program this month. So stay tuned to my response to CrossFitting ;) If any readers have done CrossFit before and recommend a class, please shed some light!
References
http://www.crossfit.com/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrossFit