A Beginner’s Guide to CrossFit / Crossfit workouts for beginners
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| A Beginner’s Guide to CrossFit / Crossfit workouts for beginners |
Is it dangerous?
In short, yes it can be. But that could be said of literally any sport or exercise.In the wrong situations, with the wrong coaches, and a for person with the wrong attitude, CrossFit can be very dangerous.
1) During a CrossFit workout,
you’re generally told to complete a number of strength training or
endurance exercises as fast as possible, or complete as many repetitions
as possible in a certain amount of time. For that reason, it’s
REALLY easy to sacrifice form in exchange for finishing the workout
quicker. If you don’t have somebody spotting you or telling you to keep
your form correct, then you’re in trouble.
When it comes to strength training,
improper form (especially at high speeds with heavy weights) is the
FASTEST way to get seriously injured. If a CrossFit gym is run by
inexperienced and unproven coaches – which definitely happens – then
things like this happen and they happen frequently.
2) CrossFit attracts a certain type of person – namely folks who push themselves so hard they actually do bodily harm.
Ask any CrossFitter if they’ve met “Pukey the Clown” and they’ll
probably tell you yes. Due to the nature of competition, the motivating
atmosphere, and people’s desire to do well, many people in CrossFit
often push themselves beyond their personal limitations (which can be a
good thing)…but oftentimes they push themselves too far.
I totally get it. In my first CrossFit
experience three years ago, I almost made myself puke because I wanted
so badly to finish with a good time. Last year, I did another CrossFit
workout that I hadn’t properly prepared for and cranked out 100 pull ups
quickly…and I ended up walking around with T-rex arms for a WEEK
because I physically could not straighten them. Not kidding.
3) In some extreme cases with a
VERY small portion of CrossFitters, an incredibly serious medical
condition called rhabdomyolysis can take place. When people
push themselves too hard, too much, too fast, their muscle fibers break
down and are released into the bloodstream, poisoning the kidneys. At
CrossFit, some coaches refer to this as “Uncle Rahbdo,” though it’s not
something funny or enjoyable. You can read all about the condition and issues it can cause here. This
typically occurs with (primarily male) ex-athletes who have not
exercised for a while and come back trying to prove something, and end
up working at a higher intensity than their body can handle.
Personally, I find these issues to be more with individual people than with the CrossFit system as a whole, but it is the nature of CrossFit that attracts these people and encourages them to behave dangerously.
I’ll let you make your own decision here.
If you like the idea of strength training, but are a bit worried about starting with CrossFit, I hear ya. It’s why we made our massive Strength Training 101 guide so you know exactly how to get started and even provide you with specific workouts to follow! Get it free when you sign up in the box below and Join the Rebellion!
Who is CrossFit for?
According to the CrossFit site, this 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.”
What that means is that every day there is a particular
workout prescribed (you’ll often see this written as Rx’d) for everybody
that comes to CrossFit. Rather than having one workout for
older women and another for hardcore athletes – there’s ONE workout each
day that is completely scalable based on your skill.
For example, if the workout calls for squats with 135 pounds but you
can only do squats with the bar (45 pounds), then that’s where you’ll
start. If you’re injured and can’t do squats at all, a similar movement
will be substituted, and if the number of reps is too many for your
current ability, that will be reduced. As you get stronger and more
experienced you’ll work your way towards eventually doing the workouts
as prescribed.
Now, although CrossFit can be for everybody, it certainly ISN’T for everybody. In this blogger’s humble opinion, CrossFit is perfect for a few types of people:
- Beginners to weight training – If you have NEVER weight trained before (or trained only on machines), CrossFit is a great place for you to start (provided you have a great coach, which I’ll cover shortly). You’ll learn how to do all of the important lifts in a super supportive and nonjudgmental environment. You might even find that…GASP…you love strength training!
- People looking for support and community – This is the appeal to CrossFit for me: every CrossFit gym has a really tight-knit community feel to it. You’re not just a membership payment to them; you’re a person that needs support. When Nerd Fitness gyms start popping up (don’t think it won’t happen!), I’ll be drawing a lot of inspiration from CF as to how members are so supportive and inclusive of each other.
- Fitness fanatics – You know those people that love to work out every day and feel like something is missing if they don’t? The way CrossFit is structured, you are working out with regular consistency. The general protocol is 3 days on, 1 day off, but many CrossFitters end up at the gym more frequently. It’s addicting.
- Masochists – I mean that in the nicest way possible. CrossFit often rewards people for finishing workouts in the least amount of time possible. This means that you’ll often be in situations where you are using 100% of your effort to finish a workout, exhausting yourself, and forcing yourself to push through the struggle.
- Former athletes – CrossFit has built-in teamwork, camaraderie, and competition. Almost all workouts have a time component to them, where you either have to finish a certain number of repetitions of exercises in a certain amount of time, or the time is fixed and you need to see how many repetitions you can do of an exercise. You get to compete with people in your class, and go online to see how you did against the world’s elite CrossFit athletes. There is even an international competition for those that become truly dedicated.
There are a few people for whom I don’t think CrossFit would be as beneficial, but this doesn’t mean they won’t enjoy it:
- Specialists – CrossFit prides itself on not specializing, which means that anybody who is looking to specialize (like a powerlifter) will not get the best results following the standard CrossFit workout schedule. If you want to be good at a specific activity, that’s where your focus should be.
- Sport-specific athletes – Like the specialists, if you are an athlete training for a sport, you’d be better off finding a coach that is trained in getting great performances out of athletes in your specific sport. Every sport has special movements that require certain types of power in specific muscles. CrossFit prepares you for everything, but won’t improve your specific sport skills unless you are training for those specific sport skills! Many athletes choose to combine CrossFit with sport-specific workouts in their off-season for conditioning, but that’s up to each sport’s coach.
- Solo trainers – Some people, myself included, love to work out alone. CrossFit is group training, which means you won’t have that opportunity to get your stuff done on your own.
