What Goes on Inside?

When I first started coaching CrossFit the biggest challenge was that no one knew what CrossFit was. Today the biggest challenge is that everyone thinks they know what CrossFit is. But do they?

“It’s when you have a whole lot of stations, isn’t it?” Is what I hear most frequently. Well, yes – sometimes.

The problem is that CrossFit breaks away from known training paradigms and introduces an approach to fitness for which there is no prior model. So when people try to envision what we do inside our CrossFit box their imagination is limited by what they have seen done before.

So what is CrossFit anyway?

Well the movements come from various athletic modalities:

Sprint sports (including running, rowing, swimming, cycling, etc)

Weightlifting – the Olympic Lifts and their supplementary lifts

Power Lifting – the Back Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift and their supplementary lifts

Gymnastics – a very broad field of skills

And then we throw in some other highly effective supplementary training tools like kettle bells, medicine balls, skipping ropes, plyometric boxes, etc.

All these movements are mixed together in an infinite variety of ways with differing volume and intensity and duration.

So how do you describe CrossFit? How can you communicate how fun fitness can be?

If all you’ve known is boring old bicep curls and tedious treadmill work then exercise occurs like a chore to be endured. In CrossFit we’re swinging on bars, hanging on rings and clambering up ropes like kids in a playground. We’re proving that staying fit can be fun!

If you step through our doors on Dunbar Street in Vancouver you might observe:

Showtime Sprinting and Shine Skinning-the-Cat

BFG chasing Fast Feet and HHH bullying Codex

Doc Disc Somersaulting and Go & Benevolent playing patty-cake

Road Warrior upside down and MK & Aquagirl doing Push Ups & Squats