What's going on here?

By Chad Cilli

 

Quite possibly the most often asked question I hear is "What is Crossfit?"  This is a question that needs to be asked, and it deserves a book, but I will try to do it justice in just a few paragraphs.  The standard answer is "functional movements executed at high intensity with constant variation."  More simply, we do full body movements quickly and rapidly with as much variety as we can.

 

To understand Crossfit, we must go back to the standard definition for a closer examination.  First, we must ask, "What is a functional movement?"  For some people, images come to mind of BOSU balls or endo boards, but what should come to mind is picking something up off the ground, putting something on a shelf, or standing up from a chair.  Functional movements are the same everyday life movements that humans have been performing since the dawn of man.  They are natural.  If you saw someone picking something up on the street, you would think nothing of it, but if you saw someone squeezing something with their arms like a pec deck, their sanity would certainly come into question.  How does that transfer to Crossfit?  We utilize functional movements because everyone needs to do them.  Some of the movements we teach our athletes are how to properly deadlift (picking something up from the ground), shoulder press (putting something overhead), and squat (standing up or sitting down).  These movements are essential to living, safe, compound, and capable of quickly moving a large load over a long distance. 

 

We perform these movements with intensity.  For some people, you may have heard of measuring intensity as heart rate, VO2 Max, or percentage of one rep max.  We define intensity as power output.  A quick physics refresher, power is equal to force times distance divided by time.  This way we can mathematically measure and quantify our intensity.  If we do the same amount of work (force times distance) in less time, then our power increases.  Intensity is a relative concept.  What is intense for a 300 pound lineman may not be intense for a 155 pound sprinter and vice versa.  For the individual, what is intense for you today will not be intense for you in a month.  Our focus is on increasing our own capacity for intensity over time.  We place this emphasis on intensity because intensity maximizes adaptation and neuroendocrine (nervous system) response.  There is a great difference between doing 100 pullups in 3 minutes or doing 100 pullups over the course of an hour, and the more intensity the pullups are performed with, the more muscle growth and neurological adaptation will result.

 

Finally, we return to constant variation.  It has been said that "we fail at the margins of our experience."  At Crossfit, we strive to extend those margins.  Nature and evolution favor generalists over specialists.  Fitness is achieved as we become well rounded, and health is our side effect.  The goal of our program is to be 80% as strong as a powerlifter, 80% as flexible as a gymnast, and 80% as fast as a runner.  To emphasize one causes another aspect to suffer.  This is why we incorporate constant variation.  By varying our movements and the duration of workouts, we are able to train different muscle groups, metabolic pathways, and skills.  This also prevents the common plateaus inherent in other programs.  Einstein once said something along the lines of "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."  This could not be truer, and our program is driven by results.  Everything we do is measurable, and we can quickly and quantifiably measure our progress from one day to the next.

 

So, that’s what we do here.  I’m sure the next question on your mind is “Why do we do this?”  Our goal is to “increase work capacity across broad time and modal domains.”  Gee thanks Chad, what the heck does that mean?  This means we are trying to increase our ability to perform work (force times distance) under varying conditions of time, weight, reps, movements, etc.  For example, there are marathon runners who are so sport specific that, despite their endurance for running, they could not jump onto a 20” box.  We would say that they have limited work capacity.  The Crossfit athlete, who can run a marathon almost as fast, is also able to jump onto a 20” box, deadlift his or her bodyweight for reps, and perform kipping pull-ups.  The Crossfit athlete has greater work capacity because he or she is capable of performing different types of work.

At Three Rivers Crossfit, we educate and instruct everyone with the same attention and commitment as we do for elite athletes because fitness is a necessity for everyone.  Our grandparents have the same needs as we do and only vary in degree.  Athletes are taught to perform the basic movements and receive daily instruction and supervision.  We treat everyone as an athlete and strive to help all of our athletes to attain their highest level of fitness.  Our athletes are like family.  Your goals are our goals, whether it’s to lose weight, build muscle, run a marathon, prepare for military or law enforcement training, or to challenge yourself.  Most importantly, we have fun.  You will not see people with their headphones on, reading magazines, running on a treadmill, watching the clock, and waiting to get off.  If you do not enjoy your fitness program, then there is little incentive to continue following it.  The constant variation part of the definition comes in here.  Learning new movements keeps the program fresh and challenging, while the varied workouts eliminate the monotony of other programs.  The bottom line is we make a program used by Olympians, professional athletes, and elite military units accessible to everyday people in an environment where everyone can work to achieve their own goals.