CROSSFIT—A GREAT FIT FOR ANY AGE
I’ve wanted to try out CrossFit, the famous fitness training program, for a couple of years. But I kept hesitating because I thought it would be way beyond my capabilities—especially being 70+ years old. Finally I decided to chance it. I checked out the websites of the 4 CrossFit facilities in Ventura. C Street CrossFit looked the best for me—one, they were the closest to my house, two they had a special $198 deal for a 2-month membership and three, once I signed up I’d get a 2-hour private session covering the essentials.
On a Saturday morning in February I showed up at C Street CrossFit. It’s located in an industrial part of Ventura in what used to be a warehouse. It had a high ceiling and mostly bare walls. There, I saw 12 men and women (about the same number of each) working out on various pieces of equipment—cardio bikes, rowing machines, weights, pull-up bars. They were mostly in their 20s and 30s and looked pretty darn fit. I was soon greeted by one of the CrossFit coaches and asked if I wanted to join in a free group class that morning. Still hesitant, I told him I’d rather just watch the class. During the hour the group ran around the block a couple of times, hefted kettle bells, bounced medicine balls off the wall, did some awesome weightlifting, scooted across the floor on hands and feet, and jumped on crates. I thought to myself that I’d been smart not to join that class! The coach told me not to worry if I couldn’t do everything I was seeing because each participant can “scale” at his or her own load and intensity and even perform alternate exercises.
I took note that everyone in the “box”—which is what CrossFit gyms term themselves—was having fun. A few folks even made a point in saying hello to me and asking if I planned to join. Right away, despite my age, I felt welcome. Next, I took a short tour of the box and plainly saw what was “missing.” Commercial gyms (24hour Fitness, LA Fitness, etc.) all have rooms of machines, a juice bar, locker rooms and showers and often a pool. This gym had none of that! (And I didn’t care.)
Okay, I was ready to jump in and paid for the 2-month membership. A couple days later I took my 2-hour “Mechanics of Movement” session. Jade, a charming and attractive woman just finishing college, gave me the private introductory session. Jade is not only an extremely fit CrossFit coach, but also knew how to explain and demonstrate each of the basic exercises. She had me do a short run, use the rowing machine, perform pushups, squats, planks and lunges—gently commenting on and correcting my form in each. Next we worked with weights. I told Jade I had very little experience lifting, but she assured me that with practice I’d learn the proper techniques. I spent more time with a PVC pipe than I did with actual weights. “We” did deadlifts, clean & jerks and snatches. Jade then moved on to my attempting a burpee, jumping onto a 2-foot high box from a standing position, pull-ups and the rope climb. I actually couldn’t do any of them properly. “Not to worry,” said Jade. “You can work on these while also performing alternative moves, which we’ll show you.” Finally I did some wall balling (throwing a medicine ball as high as possible up a wall), gymnastic rings, bench presses and skipping rope.
My body was sore all over from just the 2-hour introduction, so I didn’t show back up at C Street until 3 days later for my first group class. To me, one of the essential and terrific things about CrossFit is the smaller classes—allowing the coaches to give individual attention. There were 6 of us that morning—3 guys and 3 gals—all comparatively young (25-40 years) except me, the old man. Cody, one of the coach-owners, gave the class. Cody is, of course, exceptionally fit. He’s ultra friendly and very encouraging of everyone. And Cody took time to help me do each of the exercises correctly.
Every day there is a different 1-hour exercise session, but all consist of a warm-up, a “strength” segment, and a high-intensity “workout of the day” (WOD). Today’s warm-up was a half-mile run—jogging around the entire block twice followed by a spider crawl (From an up position, raise one foot off the floor and bring your knee up towards your elbow. Pause. Then return to the starting position and repeat on the other side.) The “strength” segment consisted of box squats (lifting a bar sitting on your upper back from sitting on a box to standing and back down again). Then came the WOD, which usually consists of a MetCon (which is short for metabolic conditioning), repeated AMRAP (as many rounds as possible). Today’s circuit was 50 double-unders (fancy jump roping), followed by 25 kettle ball swings, and 5 cleans (lifting). Cody helped me with my form and performance on all three. I was hopeless on the double-unders, but was able to do a couple rounds each of the kettle ball swings and cleans.
Another day began with 1,000 meters on the rowing machine (which I liked), followed by the “Cindy” (20 minutes of 5 pull-ups, 10 pushups and 15 squats) as the WOD. As I mentioned, each day is different—each day is challenging! But finishing the hour felt great, especially after the other members cheered this old guy on with high-fives at the end.
Greg Glassman in Santa Cruz California created CrossFit in 2000. In the years since, it had caught on big time, and now there are over 13,000 affiliated boxes (gyms) roughly half in the United States. To further explain the CrossFit philosophy, I’ll give some excerpts from an article Glassman wrote in 2002 called What is Fitness?
“There are 10 recognized general physical skills. They are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy. You are as fit as you are competent in each of these 10 skills. A regimen develops fitness to the extent that it improves each of these 10 skills.
Fitness requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even unfamiliar tasks and tasks combined in infinitely varying combinations. In practice this encourages the athlete to disinvest in any set notions of sets, rest periods, reps, exercises, order of exercises, routines, periodization, etc. Nature frequently provides largely unforeseeable challenges; train for that by striving to keep the training stimulus broad and constantly varied.”
The essence of CrossFit’s philosophy is continually mixed functional movements performed at high intensity. It includes a mixture of metabolic training (cardio), interval training, gymnastics, weightlifting, throwing and nutrition.
“The question regularly arises as to the applicability of a regimen like CrossFit’s to older and deconditioned or untrained populations. The needs of an Olympic athlete and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. One is looking for functional dominance, the other for functional competence. Competence and dominance manifest through identical physiological mechanisms.
We have 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 do not change programs.”
For these two months I’ve come to C Street CrossFit usually just twice a week, whereas most member come 4 or 5 times a week. One reason is that my older body needs a couple days break between workouts. But the main reason is that my first love is still triathlon and I need to fit in my swim, bike and run hours as I prepare for the Ironman Arizona 140.6 in November. Plus I still have my job! Yet, I’m thoroughly enjoying CrossFit and would recommend it to any senior who wishes to rapidly increase his or her all-around fitness while having a load of fun.