An Introduction to CrossFit Style Training

CrossFit training is a method of "functional" fitness training that has become very popular in recent years. It borrows many of the most effective training techniques from various sports -- including gymnastics, weightlifting, and track & field -- and combines them into one highly effective method for achieving great overall fitness.

One of the best things about CrossFit is that just about anyone can use it to get into better shape. According to the CrossFit web site:

"The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs."

The article below explains more about this interesting and unique method for achieving great "total" fitness...

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CrossFit Style Training
by Michael Stehle

With all the choices and methods of exercise these days, many of us are confused about what is best and what will work for them. Hopefully I can clear up some of this confusion about fitness, and talk about what methods I feel are most effective.

Being involved in the Fitness and Sports Medicine Industry for the past twenty years, I’ve seen and used every form of exercise machine, fad program, and group class imaginable. I’ve seen and done some scary things and have learned from my mistakes and observations.

Let me mention “old school” methods of exercise and training. Exercise fads may come and go, but some things still remain constant. I remember my Physical Education classes back in grade school, and playing on the playground at recess. Those were fun times. Our Phys Ed teachers actually had the insight of getting us to exercise without us knowing it. They used things like balls, bars, ropes, obstacle courses, and certain types of races to motivate us as kids. We didn’t need fancy and expensive equipment to achieve fitness. Remember the squat thrust, mountain climber, jump rope, rope climbing, push ups and sit ups? Maybe we didn’t enjoy those so much, but they certainly got our hearts pumping.

In addition to this “old school” phys ed type of training, there are other methods still going strong and yielding incredible results. Most of us have done some type of gymnastic training at some point in our lives. If you have done a hand stand, cart wheel, pull up, tumbled or have played on a set of rings, you have done some form of gymnastics. Gymnastic movements involve the entire body. You will get more “bang for your buck” with the full body movements that are required in simple gymnastics. This simply means that many of these movements require abdominal and low back (the core of your body) stabilization while the upper and lower extremities are being utilized. These dynamic movements help increase flexibility and strengthen the body as an entire unit. Don’t think that you are too old or not skilled enough to perform some of these movements. There are ways of scaling the exercise to the skill level and achieving incredible results.

Olympic weight lifting has been around for decades. Most of know this to be a very specialized and technical sport. Well, it is, and if you don’t know what you are doing you can certainly hurt yourself. Maybe this is one reason so many of us have sore backs due to improper body mechanics. Olympic weight lifters are some of the most athletic and powerful athletes around. This is just in the nature of the sport. To explain it simply the object of the sport is to pick an object up off the floor to your shoulders (the clean) or overhead position as efficiently as possible (clean and jerk or snatch). I will not bore you with the details of Olympic Weight Lifting at this time. If you think about it, you probably execute these types of motions throughout the day in life. Weather you are lifting a child, a bag of groceries, or any object for that manner. Olympic lifting doesn’t have to involve a bar with weights on it, any object can be used including dumbbells, medicine balls, stones, sandbags, and Russian Kettlebells (this in an article in itself).

Kettlebells are a fantastic tool for strength and conditioning

It cracks me ups when someone tells me their doctor doesn’t want them to do squats because they may hurt themselves. I simply ask them: How do you sit down and get up from your chair, or toilet for that matter? Is your doctor not allowing you to sit down? Is he or she not allowing you to go to the bathroom? That usually clears things up. The Squat is the most functional movement that we see in life. Functional to me means that the movement has carryover to real life situations. Another highly functional movement is the dead lift. Sounds kind of scary, right? The dead lift is simply picking an object up off the floor. How many times during the day do you do this? There is a right and wrong way of dead lifting.

The Kettlebell Deadlift can be performed with one or two kettlebells

Ok, now that I have gone over a few things, I will explain how all of these things fit together to create a multi faceted fitness program for everyone using the CrossFit method. All the things mentioned above can be performed by anybody. These are all movements that are universally scalable and can be performed at various intensities to achieve incredible fitness levels.

CrossFit is an exercise concept developed in the 1970’s by Greg Glassman of Ca, a former gymnast. He took what he knew from gymnastics and what he observed from bodybuilding to devise a program that everyone could benefit from. The CrossFit method is designed for universal scalability making it the ideal program for people of all ages and skill levels. By scaling the intensity of the workouts, elite fitness can be achieved by everyone including military special operations units, pro athletes, house wives and grandparents. For more information on the CrossFit method, log on to www.CrossFit.com.

CrossFit is designed to improve fitness in ten areas including cardio respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy. This program can be done at home, in the gym, or at your local park. There are hundreds of CrossFit affiliates around the world performing these training sessions out of garage gyms, parks, and warehouse spaces with minimal equipment.

You may wonder why this type of training is better then conventional machine based program, and I will try my best to explain why. Here it is in a nut shell. Our bodies were made to move naturally with out the guidance of artificial machines AKA, functionally. The CrossFit methods use full body motions that incorporate every muscle in the body to work as a unit. These full body movements when done at high intensities with short rest periods (metabolic conditioning) raise our metabolic rate causing our bodies to burn fat more efficiently, and train the heart and lungs properly.

To sum it up, CrossFit takes the best of the best movements including certain body weight exercises, Olympic lifts, gymnastic movements, power lifting, jumping, throwing and slamming of medicine balls, rope climbing, running, Russian Kettlebell training, rowing and more randomly combined at various intensities. The combo of all these activities will not only prepare you for the rigors of everyday life, they will prevent boredom and overuse injury.

There are hundreds of CrossFit affiliates around the world including Crossfitters as far as Australia. CrossFit Jersey Shore, Avon, NJ is the only CrossFit affiliate in the state. Jim Milkowski, and Mike Stehle, co-owners of The Training Room and CrossFit Jersey Shore LLC saw a need for this type of training and offer a full schedule of group classes and private training. They are both certified CrossFit trainers with an extensive background in fitness. They are also the first gym in the state of NJ to offer Russian Kettlebell training, a highly effective and time efficient form of training. They incorporate Russian Kettlebells into their CrossFit style workouts for a highly effective and unique blend of training that can only be found at CrossFit Jersey Shore and The Training Room. For more information, please call (732)988-1555 or log on to www.NewJerseyCrossFit.com and www.TrainingRoomFit.com.

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About the Author

CrossFit Jersey Shore, Avon, NJ is the only CrossFit affiliate in the state. Jim Milkowski, and Mike Stehle, co-owners of The Training Room and CrossFit Jersey Shore LLC saw a need for this type of training and offer a full schedule of group classes and private training. They are both certified CrossFit trainers with an extensive background in fitness. They are also the first gym in the state of NJ to offer Russian Kettlebell training, a highly effective and time efficient form of training. They incorporate Russian Kettlebells into their CrossFit style workouts for a highly effective and unique blend of training that can only be found at CrossFit Jersey Shore and The Training Room. For more information, please call (732)988-1555 or log on to http://www.NewJerseyCrossFit.com and http://www.TrainingRoomFit.com

Tags: Crossfit, Functional Fitness

Functional Exercise for Optimum Fitness

I'm a huge believer in working out to develop "functional" fitness and strength. This can only happen if forget about weight machines and focus instead on bodyweight movements as well as free weight exercises. Here's a great article about functional exercise that goes into more detail...

Functional Exercise That Makes Sense
By Ben Greenfield

Many people spend the majority of their workout time building non-functional muscles that rely on hinges and bolts to function properly. That's right - I'm talking about working out on weight machines. Weight machines have a strong application towards:

1) helping to provide stability and support for a weak muscle (i.e., just starting into an exercise routine or coming off a long break);

2) helping to provide a safe motion when balance is a factor (i.e., individuals with neuromuscular deficits);

3) assisting in fitness maintainance during an injury (i.e., performing leg extensions when rehabilitating a sprained ankle).

The rest of the time, people who work out on weight machines are simply building muscle that has no significant functional application. By this, I mean that none of the small, stabilizing muscles have to work to support the major muscle groups that are exerted during a repetition on a weight machine, because the machine is providing the stabilization. Therefore, the major muscle groups are strengthened, but when an individual is no longer supported by the weight machine, they simply have a muscle that can provide a strong contraction with little to no support from the other stabilizing muscles. While this is completely counterproductive for an athlete, it can also cause injury to the average fitness enthusiast.

Take, for example, the machine shoulder press, an exercise in which you sit your butt in a back-supported chair and press overhead two handles attached to a lever. Normally, in an everday situation, if you were to press a weight overhead, or exert a force in that direction, you would not be in a seated position and the item you are pressing overhead (i.e., a milk crate, a child, a basketball, etc.) would not be supported by a lever. Furthermore, the machine moves straight up and down, whereas a free object moves in countless planes of motion (i.e., up and down, side to side, around, etc.). The absence of multiple ranges or planes of motion basically means that you are getting a very strong contraction from the deltoid (the main "overhead presser"), while completely ignoring the rotational muscles (i.e., the rotator cuff), the stabilizing muscles (i.e., the neck), and the supporting muscles (i.e. the feet, legs, hips, torso, etc.). So let's say you're out playing catch and throw a baseball. The deltoid is able to produce a very strong force, but if the rotator cuff, or other supporting muscles such as the low back, are not in the same shape, you're either going to tear your rotator cuff or throw your low back out. And that, my friends, is why weight machines can often cause more harm than good (not to mention the fact that they burn up to 1/4 the calories of the exercises I'm going to talk about next).

I'd like to briefly introduce you to functional exercises, the alternative to working out with machines. The best way to think about functional exercises is to picture the primal man or woman (we're talking caveman type). Functional movement patterns simulate many of the same movements our "primal ancestors" would have had to perform in order to survive in an unpredictable environment, whether tracking a wild animal (or being chased by one!), lifting objects such as logs and rocks, or fighting via swinging, throwing, and pulling (such as a bow). Let's split these functional movement patterns into seven basic types.

-Squatting: Involves bending at the knees and the hips, while keeping the back straight, and lifting a weight from the ground or pushing a weight that is placed on the back or chest. Imagine your primal ancestors squatting down and lifting a heavy rock to dig for grubs, or using the legs and hips to lift a heavy log up onto a primal structure. Exercise examples: Barbell or Dumbbell Squat, Squat to Press.

-Bending: Involves flexing and extending at the waist, preferably in a standing position. Often, this type of movement would have been combined with a squatting, lifting, or rotating motion, such as hoisting a heavy rock out of a field. Exercise examples: Medicine Ball Overhead or Side Throw, Deadlifts.

-Lunging: Involves stepping forward with just one leg, and bending that leg down. This motion would have been used for either traversing terrain (i.e., carrying hunted game over a log), or stepping into a throw (such as hoisting a spear). Exercise examples: Walking Lunge, Barbell or Dumbbell Weighted Lunge, Medicine Ball Lunge with Twist.

-Pushing: Involves using the arms, chest, and shoulders to force a weight out and away or up from the body, an action that might have been used, for example, when herding animals, pushing a plow, or hoisting a weight overhead. Exercise examples: Standing Cable Chest Press, Push-up, Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press.

-Pulling: Involves using the arms, chest, and shoulders, as well as the legs, to drag or pull a weight towards the body. This type of motion would have been used to pull heavy game animals, row a watercraft, pull a bow, or quickly pull onto a tree branch for safety. Exercise examples: Standing High, Mid, and Low Cable Rows, Pull-ups.

-Twisting: Involves turning and rotating with the torso to apply a force, and would have usually been combined with most of the other primal movement patterns for actions such as pulling, pushing, or lunging. For instance, a twist combine with a lunge and push would comprise a throwing motion, such as hoisting an object like a spear or heavy rock. Exercise examples: Medicine Ball Throws, Cable Torso Twists, Medicine Ball Woodchoppers.

-Gait: Involves moving over terrain, whether walking, jogging, or sprinting. This action would often have been interspersed with other movement patterns, such as walking to track a wild animal, sprinting to hunt it down, then twisting, lunging, and pushing to throw or thrust a weapon. Exercise examples: Sprint to Medicine Ball Throw, Dumbbell Lift and Press to Power Skip.

As you can see, there are countless ways that these movement patterns could be combined to design a workout routine, but there are only a few *optimum* choices. A personal trainer is equipped with the knowledge to put these movement patterns together into a routine that allows for the ideal balance between muscle groups, efficient caloric burning, fat utilization, and metabolic boosting, and injury avoidance. Imagine how much fitter you could be by incorporating all these patterns into your routine, while only using weight machines now and then for some of the reasons mentioned in the beginning of this article.

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About the Author

Head trainer Ben Greenfield runs the online training website Pacific Elite Fitness, and holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Sport Science and Exercise Physiology, as well as certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a Personal Trainer and Strength and Conditioning Coach (NSCA-CPT & CSCS). For over 6 years, Ben has coached and trained professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes, and helped hundreds of individuals achieve their personal fitness goals. For more information on online personal training and fitness, contact Ben at elite@pacificfit.net

Tags: functional fitness, exercise, free weights, weight machines, workout equipment, strength, muscle