The Foundation - What is CrossFit, Really?

Fundamentally, CrossFit is a strength-and-conditioning program. It is also a health program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response, physiologically and mentally, as possible. It (CrossFit) is not a specialized fitness program. It is not a sport, fundamentally, but an intentional attempt to pursue the development of physical competency and athleticism in the 10 recognized fitness domains. These fitness domains include cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.

CrossFit was developed and designed to enhance and progress an individuals competency and capacity at physical tasks, not specific tasks. Our athletes and participants are trained to perform at multiple, diverse and random physical challenges. This broad, well-rounded level of fitness is what life demands of us, whether you're operating in the military or as a first responder, a sport or athletic pursuit, or managing the daily demands of life as a normal citizen. The complete physical fitness and functionality required to maintain independence, freedom and competency is best served and developed by a broad fitness program like CrossFit.

In addition to the broad and well-rounded fitness that the CrossFit program provides, it's uniquely capable of maximizing a neuroendocrine response, developing strength and power, using a variety of training styles to maximize change and fitness development, practice and develop functional movements while understanding, teaching and implementing successful diet strategies.

Those that train CrossFit are trained to bike, run, swim and row. We train sprints, moderate and long distances, which guarantees an exposure and competency in each of the three main metabolic pathways (creatine-phosphate, glycolytic and oxidative).

CrossFit places a much higher emphasis on gymnastics from rudimentary to advanced movements than any other fitness program, garnering great capacity at controlling your bodyweight both dynamically and statically while maximizing strength-to-weight ratios and flexibility. CrossFit programs also place a heavy emphasis on Olympic weightlifting, having seen the sport’s unique ability to develop an athlete’s explosive, fast power, control of external objects and ability to engage maximal muscle activation with full body movement patterns. And finally, we encourage and assist our athletes to explore a variety of sports as a vehicle to express and apply their fitness. In other words, it's not enough to just workout but we need to get out into the real world and use our fitness for fun, community and connection!

An Effective Approach

In traditional gyms across the world, strength training to build muscle and tone consists of isolation movements and long cardio (aerobic) sessions. It's normal to spend 60-90 minutes wandering around the gym doing an elliptical and dumbbell curls to get "fit". The fitness community from influencers to unprofessional trainers to the W.H.O has the general public believing that lateral raises, dumbbell curls, leg extensions, crunches combined with 20-to-40-minutes on a treadmill or stationary bike while watching netflix are going to lead to some kind of meaningful development in their fitness. Well, at CrossFit we work exclusively with full-body functional movements and shorter, high-intensity cardiovascular sessions. We’ve replaced the lateral raise with the push press, the curl with the pull-up and the leg extension with the squat.

When doing CrossFit, we only do really long workouts once or twice a week, the other 5-6 days are short, fast and more intense. Why? Because compound or functional movements and high-intensity or sprint-style cardio is dramatically more effective at delivering results than anything else. Startlingly, this is not a matter of opinion but solid, irrefutable scientific fact — and yet the minimally effective classic workout detailed above persist and is nearly universal.

CrossFit training and our workouts are consistent with what is implemented and used in elite training programs associated with major athletic teams and professional sports. Our program strives to bring world class and up-to-date coaching to the general public and athletes alike because they work.

If done correctly to include the fitness program consistently, in-hand with nutrition strategies that are proven effective, CrossFit will bring about world-class physical changes to anyone that does it with intention and dedication, no matter how old.

In Health,

Coty Bradburn