I can’t tell you that this is typical of all Crossfit Gyms, I’ve only been to one. But this (slightly tongue in cheek) account might give you an idea. For reference, Crossfit is all about short guided exercise routines that are high in intensity, but scaled to your capabilities. It’s not a free for all, each person is assessed by a trained coach, and they determine what exercise is right for you in that 1 hour session:
– Mill around for a bit whilst others turn up.
– Generally abuse the coaches and moan about today’s workout (it’s posted up on the white board)
– Negotiation can happen here as to what exercises will actually be done if personal circumstances dictate.
– Negotiation usually fails at this point, and various accusations of “shady quaff”, and “I *know* it’s heavy!” and other aspersions are cast.
– Warm up starts with a jog round the block, and usually 2 rounds of 10 each of press ups, sit-ups, squats and pull ups.
– More negotiation can happen during the warm up, if the first round has proved to yield unsatisfactory results.
– The days workout is introduced, and where necessary demonstrated by the coaches.
– Last round of negotiation occurs now, whilst equipment is collected, usually this is about weight allocation.
– Group workout starts (most workouts are timed) and the following 10-30 mins disappear in a cloud of pain and occassional profanities.
– 5-10 minutes of post workout exhaustion result in the gym being littered with groaning, sweaty, near corpses (well that’s me anyway).
– Slowly conversation creeps in as people recover enough to talk about how they did.
– 5-10 mins of recovery is allowed, then there’s focus work, usually learning something new, practising some exercise or doing a mini 4 min workout.
– Examples have been “Get upside down for 1 minute, don’t care how you do it: hand stand, hang from gym rings etc”
– Or “How many pull-ups can you do in one set?”
– Or Tabata Squats (which seems to be a painful favourite of the evil master mind coaches).
– The whole thing lasts usually just less than an hour, unless it’s a heavy day, for some reason fewer reps take longer!
However I’ve missed out the most important bits that you may not realise about (at least my) Crossfit gym: There are no posers! There are no mirrors. And everyone checks their egos at the door. You’ll never find a bunch of warmer, more friendly people, willing to do anything to see you succeed, congratulate you on your successes, and on occasion, commiserate with your (infrequent) failures.
Anyway, it’s getting to that time, I’m off to the gym!
