Just discovered the folks at www.crossfit.com recently - really interesting approach to fitness.
Their view is that real fitness isn't simply cardio - but includes a whack of different kinds of conditioning to be above-average competent for most real world tasks. Endurance, strength, agility, balance, quickness, etc. etc. They've got 10 different aspects of physical ability they train for. Their point is that specialists (e.g. world-class bicyclists or marathon runners or weightlifters) are too specialized to be truly fit in an all-round way. Someone who's a competent novice weightlifter, gymnast and 800 meter runner is more all-round fit than a world-class athlete in any one of those disciplines.
And apparently, there's a sub-culture out there that's been onto this for a while - their website posts a "workout of the day" every day, that folks do and then perhaps go online about on Crossfit's forums. The workouts draw from Olympic weightlifting (NOT bodybuilding!), gymnastics, climbing, running, plyometrics etc. etc.
They're brutal.
Today's Workout of the Day, for instance, is to record your time to do:
100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats (unweighted)
In the last few weeks, they were doing power cleans (Olympic weightlifting training), intervals on a rowing machine, handstand pushups, cardio work through jumping on plyometric boxes, rope climbing, medicine ball ... etc. etc.
I can't do this stuff yet as directed ... got to scale up. But my kids and I are taking a kick at it, 'cause it makes a whole lot of sense to me. To a whole lot of others too - increasingly, police forces and some military folks are adopting either CrossFit or tweaking their own programs in line with CrossFit's science-based approach, 'cause it does what they need. At the CrossFit website, I just read how NATO's forces in Afghanistan have worked with Crossfit's people to design effective workouts in places where you've got precious little equipment ...
Any closet CrossFit people out there?
Their view is that real fitness isn't simply cardio - but includes a whack of different kinds of conditioning to be above-average competent for most real world tasks. Endurance, strength, agility, balance, quickness, etc. etc. They've got 10 different aspects of physical ability they train for. Their point is that specialists (e.g. world-class bicyclists or marathon runners or weightlifters) are too specialized to be truly fit in an all-round way. Someone who's a competent novice weightlifter, gymnast and 800 meter runner is more all-round fit than a world-class athlete in any one of those disciplines.
And apparently, there's a sub-culture out there that's been onto this for a while - their website posts a "workout of the day" every day, that folks do and then perhaps go online about on Crossfit's forums. The workouts draw from Olympic weightlifting (NOT bodybuilding!), gymnastics, climbing, running, plyometrics etc. etc.
They're brutal.
Today's Workout of the Day, for instance, is to record your time to do:
100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats (unweighted)
In the last few weeks, they were doing power cleans (Olympic weightlifting training), intervals on a rowing machine, handstand pushups, cardio work through jumping on plyometric boxes, rope climbing, medicine ball ... etc. etc.
I can't do this stuff yet as directed ... got to scale up. But my kids and I are taking a kick at it, 'cause it makes a whole lot of sense to me. To a whole lot of others too - increasingly, police forces and some military folks are adopting either CrossFit or tweaking their own programs in line with CrossFit's science-based approach, 'cause it does what they need. At the CrossFit website, I just read how NATO's forces in Afghanistan have worked with Crossfit's people to design effective workouts in places where you've got precious little equipment ...
Any closet CrossFit people out there?
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