About Crossfit

(I figured I should do a general-purpose explanatory post or two about the things I mention every day, just in case someone other than my mother ever encounters this blog. Hi, Senpai Amy!)

I don't remember where I first encountered Crossfit - probably ask.metafilter.com - but at first glance I was wildly intimidated. The workouts, as written, are HARD. They're aimed at professional athletes, firefighters, Marines, and the like, and my doughy little ass is not of that caliber. But as I read more about the philosophy of it, I decided I liked it.

I've been lifting weights since my freshman year in high school. I've always done some variation of a bodybuilder-style workout - moderate reps, heavy weight, either a three-day split or a full body workout three times a week. It always worked out reasonably well, if I stuck with it, but as I got older (and didn't have regular athletic competitions to keep me motivated) I found it harder and harder to stick to it. I'd been following John Stone's site (worth checking out - his accomplishments are pretty incredible) but I wasn't really finding that philosophy of diet and training to be that successful with my no-longer-teenage body.

Enter Crossfit - a very different style with very different goals. Where John Stone is a bodybuilder, with aesthetics being his primary motivation, Crossfit preaches functional fitness - which is why it's so popular with military and law enforcement types. Instead of worry about "symmetry" and "definition," Crossfit talks about "power" and "endurance." After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I was much more interested in being fit than looking fit, and started doing scaled-down versions of the workouts back in October of last year.

They were hard. No, REALLY hard. But I discovered that I looked forward to the challenge every day, and the variety kept me from getting bored. I worked out consistently through the end of February, and really enjoyed it. I wasn't worrying about diet at all, but I was happy to see my times go down and my weights go up every morning in the gym, and that was good. Then I went out of town for a week, joined a WoW guild, and proceeded to order way too much pizza and drink way too much caffeine through March and April, and lost my rhythm.

There was no question, though, when I set my current goals in May, that Crossfit would be my conditioning program. It challenges me, keeps me interested, and it's also really efficient - I'm in and out of the gym in 20 minutes, most mornings. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to get into shape.