We believe CrossFit is the most effective training system available today. It’s used by people around the world whose lives and work require them to have amazing fitness, such as police and fire services, special forces, and professional athletes. But the programme is designed to make it scalable and therefore suitable for any committed individual, regardless of experience or current fitness.
It’s built around 3 principles: Functionality, Variation and Intensity
Functionality: If you go to most gyms and watch what movements people are performing, you’ll often find them using resistance machines or performing isolated exercises. Isolated exercises come from Bodybuilding regimes and are designed to focus on only 1 muscle group at a time (Bicep Curls, Pec Flys, Lateral Raises, Leg Extensions, Hamstring Curls etc.). The trouble is, your body doesn’t work in this way and therefore these movements don’t teach you how to use your body the way it’s designed. Likewise, resistance machines dictate the path of the movement and therefore don’t teach you how to use your body properly either. CrossFit relys on Compound movements (such as squats, lunges, rowing and pressing exercises) , which work multiple muscle groups, teaching you to synchronise them. These movements are natural, being ones you’ll use in everyday life or sport and teach you how to use your body properly.
Variation: Going back to the average gym, you’ll find people doing the same tired old routine each time they go, and they’ve probably been doing it for the past 3 months / year / 5 years or more. The body adapts to new stimulus, but if you just keep providing the same stimulus over and over again, you won’t get any fitter. The key is to constantly vary your workouts. This type of programming best prepares you for life, by always keeping the body guessing and working on ALL areas of fitness. Most programmes are too focused on a single area of fitness at the expense of others.
Intensity: Studies have shown this to be the single variable most strongly related to optimizing results from workouts. High Intensity means simply getting the work done in faster times than normally seen in the health club environment. You may have seen people in the gym sitting around a lot between sets or possibly having so little focus on what they’re doing that they are able to watch the television or read a newspaper. You will find that many of our workouts are relatively short (typically between 5 and 20 minutes) with as little rest as possible. We work against the stopwatch to motivate our athletes to increase intensity. However, High Intensity is relative to each individual, and we will scale the workouts to suit the person. So, an elite athlete, an average exerciser and a first time elderly participant will be found doing the same workout, but scaled down (or up!!) to suit their own abilities. This means our training is suitable (and in fact, ideal) for all.
Have a watch of the videos to get more of a clue what we do,. Call Cathie for more information 07795 361797 or e-mail us at info@crossfitavon.com