You may recall that back during the Monkey Bar Gym experiment, Reader Andrew challenged me to try CrossFit. I believe his exact words were “Your average CrossFit-er could run circles around your average Monkey Bar Gym-er.”
I love a challenge:)
What Is Crossfit?
Basically CrossFit (every time I type that it just looks weirder) is a combination of heavy weight lifting and short, intense cardio with a few long days of cardio thrown in. It’s similar in structure and length to the Monkey Bar Gym except it focuses more on traditional weight exercises (chest press, deadlift, clean, etc.) where as the MBG focuses more on functional weight training. There is a lot of overlap in the types of exercises.
According to the Crossfit site, their program is the premier training regimin for police academies, the armed forces and elite professional athletes. You can’t get any more fit than that, right? Andrew summed it up for me by saying “The critical difference is that CrossFit is for making elite athletes whereas the MBG is not.”
How To Crossfit
Crossfit posts a WOD (workout of the day). You take it to the gym and do it. Simple, right? In theory. The workouts are grueling but more on that in a minute. The official Crossfit warm up is pretty much a workout in itself:
3 rounds of 10-15 reps of
Samson Stretch (do the Samson Stretch once each round for 15-30 seconds)
Overhead Squat with broomstick
Sit-up
Back-extension
Pull-up
Dip
Another thing to note before starting is that Crossfit assumes you already know the basic lifts. They are going to ask you to lift really heavy so you want to make sure that you know what you are doing first so you don’t get injured. It would be worth it to have a personal trainer (they recommend a Crossfit-affiliate trainer) to help you train all the lifts. This is mandatory if you are new(ish) to weight lifting.
The website also has some instructional videos, set to the cheesiest 80’s butt-rock I’ve heard since middle school, and a great FAQ page. Definitely check both out before starting the WOD.
The Experiment
So starting last Monday (Feb. 25), Gym Buddy Allison and I embarked on the great CrossFit experiment. The first day the WOD was short – just 5 reps of 3 different shoulder exercises. I must admit, we were dubious. We warmed up by doing the MBG workout and then went to Crossfit. We did as heavy a weight as we could manage. (Crossfit often recommends a certain weight – and they make no concessions for girls. So it’s best to just start with what you know you can handle and work up from there.) It was hard. Really hard. But short – so when we finished, about 15 minutes later, we just kinda looked at each other and shrugged. “That was… fun?”
And then we both bit the dust that afternoon. I’m not kidding. It didn’t feel like much of a workout doing it but that afternoon I felt like I’d run 15 miles. I literally laid down on my (wood) kitchen floor and fell asleep while my kids ran circles around me and ate an entire box of fruit snacks. The next day I discovered that Allison had had the same crash and ended up going to be at 9 o’clock that night. I’m not sure why that happened (explanation, Andrew??) but, boy howdy it did something. We took Crossfit seriously after that.
Over the past week, aside from the days I took off for being sick, we have consistently got our butts kicked by the WOD. So I’m looking forward to the next three weeks:) I’ll let you know how it goes!
PS> I’m feeling mostly recovered from my run-in with the flu. I took it easy at the gym today. Thank you for all of your advice and well wishes!!
S glad you’re feeling better!
I’m gonna go to that website now.
Mwa ha ha ha! Good luck with this experiment. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
I’ve been readin a lot about CrossFit from some running blogs that I frequent. I think I’ll give it a try! Glad your such a willing guinea pig and glad you’re feeling better!
I am also very curious about cross fit and even got a kettlebell a few months back to gear myself up. Sadly, it now sits in the corner of my family room waiting for some love.
maybe someone can inspire me to use it? 🙂
I’ve never heard of Crossfit … but it sounds evil … and fun … will have to go check that one out. Have discovered that I really enjoy intense physical fitness … forget regular aerobics … I like Turbo and its kicking and punching. A nice walk? Nah … gotta be a hike … A nice swim in some placid water? Definitely not. I’m a wave jumping body surfer … that way there’s a little bit of danger involved … something to do besides just walking or swimming along … something to get me to engage … I like my activity with a little adventure thrown in … crossfit sounds like it could be addictive and fun.
I have heard of CrossFit before but now I’m wondering about your monkey bar thing. I just came across your blog and will definatly link you! Great Blog!
Hey Charlotte – I’m sorry this comment is going out of context to your post. I came across the guy who calls himself Mango. And he is a fruitarian – that’s right he eats purely fruits! But it’s his insights to ‘surviving’ in a world full on non-fruitarians that I find useful and inspiring i.e. the cravings etc. I don’t know if you’ll like it, though. Give him a try at mangodurian.blogspot.com, but only if you want.
To all of you that said you are going to try it, if you do your own experiment make sure and E-MAIL me with your results! I will post your thoughts with mine when I do my write up in one month. (It doesn’t matter to me if you stick with it the whole 30 days, if you try it all I wanna hear about it!!)
Workout Mommy – I’m doing my best girl;)
Sarah – you sound like my kind of exercisers! Why mess around? Go big! I’ve already copped to this but in Turbo I really pretend I’m killing people;)
Shellie – Welcome girl! The Monkey Bar was my last fitness experiment. You can see my results here Try it, I LOVED it!
Bob – you KNOW I love anything you have to tell me! I’m going to check it out right now:) Thanks for the tip.
man, I so need this.
SO NEED THIS 🙂
I shall grant myself another day or 2 o’recovery from flu time (read: continue my weaka** workouts) and then shall follow you down the primrose path.
M.
I did crossfit regularly last year for about 6 months (?) or so. I wasn’t really tracking much then – the WOD didn’t need writing down! I may have tracked my body stats – I’ll check my notes. Anyway, a few thoughts:
1) my strength increased quite a bit;
2) my endurance increased quite a bit;
3) I learned some new lifts (the O lifts); and
4) I can now do pull ups (never could before) and will always and forever maintain that skill.
Thanks Charlotte 🙂 I may take you up on the CrossFit challenge … I’m just setting new goals for the next 12 weeks … so trying Crossfit might be a fun new one to add in! I’ve been looking for something besides BodyPump … I like it, but it doesn’t engage me the way Turbo does … maybe CrossFit is it!?
I looked into doing Croosfit but I have to admit I was intimidated! it really is as Charlotte says: you ahve to know what you’re doing, no kidding around. And they don’t give lighter options, so in case you can’t bench press 200 right now, you have to sort of figure everything out. Not that big of a deal but definitely not for the beginner!
I love how MBG gives reasonable progressions. although I think Andrew might be right – crossfit seems more challenging…