How you feel about crossfit?

My husband and I love cross fit. We've been attending for over two years, and consistently.
The sense of community is fantastic and we've made some great friends there.
How many people do you have at your gym where you know their first and last name? Have met their spouses, know the names of their kids?

I know that many people say it's expensive. However, we live in LA (where it's pretty damn expensive) and we pay around $5 a day per person. (That's the same as getting a daily latte at Starbucks.) So, we forgo the latte in favor of getting stronger. That, and since I AM paying so much, you're damn sure I'm going to go every day. I had a 24hr fitness membership for three years, wanna know how many times I went? Twice.

Doing crossfit, I've gotten stronger, more confident, and actually enjoy my time at the gym.

So, I'd just like to clarify, the point of Crossfit is to expect the unexpected?
...
My "what's the point?" is exactly questioning this "throw lots of *kitten* at a wall and hope some of it sticks" approach. I believe you are wilfully misconstruing my post. You cannot truly train all the qualities listed to their highest level. You have to pick which one's you want (and hope they don't conflict with each other) in an effort to achieve what you set out to do.

Yes, I think their stated goal is to be fit for any unexpected scenario.

I was not wilfully misconstruing your post, I didn't realize with the first post that you feel that it's impossible to achieve what crossfit has set as their goal. I think their goal is a high level of achievement in every dimension, but not necessarily the highest possible in any single dimension. Their materials imply that it is better to achieve a high level in every attribute than to specialize and do better in any single attribute.

I am not qualified to comment on whether it's possible to achieve their goal (or even if it is the right one). All I can say from seeing it happen is that people get better at tasks that they have not practiced via crossfit - when they return to a benchmark workout months after having done it last time, they successfully execute that workout better than before even though they haven't done that specific workout recently.

Does that translate to being ready for anything? Who knows!

Osric

Fair enough!

You make a reasoned and reasonable case. It's what used to be called GPP. It's super important to have a solid base of GPP if you want to go on to excel.

As long as you understand that some qualities compete with each other and therefore you can only take them so far before they start to eat into your performance in other areas. So a base of GPP can only be taken so far and then you must specialise to go any further.

Started Crossfit for the first time about 3 weeks ago(Beginning of December)

For me, it beats the hell out of working out alone. I used to go to the gym alone, warm up on the bike for 5 min, then go lift weights for 40 min - 1 hour, then hopped on the treadmill or elliptical for another 30 min or so. It was routine.

I was able to skip the one month mandatory 'training' session where you learn about crossfit, techniques, terms, etc; however on hindsight I probably should have done it. I just had prior knowledge of power lifting(basic) so I took a few tests and passed them.

3 weeks in now, I've gone to about 4-5 sessions/week for a total of 12 - 15 sessions and it's great so far.

The community is awesome. You get to meet the same people over and over again and get to know them pretty well. You only push to your limit (scaled down or up) and nobody 'asks' you to keep going until you get injured.

The workouts can be awesome depending on your body composition. There are many girls that come and do crossfit. They don't go 'heavy' with the weights but they crush most of us men in time with body weight movements + olympic weight lifting(Snatches etc). Obviously I lift a lot heavier than they do but I also probably weigh close to double their weight!

Overall, you will become stronger, more mobile, and flexible. Just make sure not to jump into workouts that you're not strong at(for most people, handstand pushups, over head snatches, pullups) and to scale them first. There's no shame in 'scaling' down so that you can eventually work up to the full workout.

Most people /athletes takes many months/years to develop the proper core/shoulder/back strength to execute those movements properly and even then, many strong athletes can't do gymnastic movements due to the lack of small 'stabilizer' muscles.

Go check out your crossfit gym and see if the trainers are knowledgable and caring! No matter what exercise or gym you join, the #1 thing to be aware of is having a knowledgable and caring trainer who will know your limits, strenghs/weaknesses and guide you along your journey of being more fit!

I would love to try crossfit. We do have a crossfit box where I live in the uk but it is a 30 minute drive away so not really convenient. I would love to do the induction course to get the proper form on deadlifts etc, we have a home gym so if I get the form could continue at home. The problem is the induction is over a weekend and as my husband and I work weekends there is always one of us at work and we have 3 kids. I would also feel guilty spending a whole weekend away from my kids. Hopefully one day I will get the time as I love the idea.