Intro to CrossFit Post 2 + Another Beginner Workout

 

 

If you read my last post about CrossFit you know that it's a lot of functional movements at a very high intensity. In other words, you workout as hard as you can as quickly as you can. It's tough, and we haven't even been to our first full class yet!

 

 

Our second class included learning more moves that we would be using during our regular sessions. We learned how to properly do a dead lift (turns out it's NOT a back exercise like I originally thought - whoops!), cleans, wall balls and burpees. All of these moves were very hard and took me a while to get a hang of. After we went through the movements with the coach several times to work on form, he let us loose to do a modified WOD that incorporated these movements.

10 Reps for Time

5 Dead lifts

5 Cleans

5 Wall balls

5 Burpees

 

It took every ounce of effort and energy for me to finish. At about rep 7 I was struggling and knew I had to stay mentally strong to finish. It took me 21:11 to get through it (a lot slower than I hoped) but I finished. I'm proud that I was able to do that and now have a goal time to beat for next time we do a similar workout.

 

I know there are a lot more CrossFit moves that we didn't cover during our introductory classes but I am looking forward to learning more as we go. Our first real class is tonight and I can't wait! I'll report back soon -- that is if I can still type.

 



What is CrossFit + Intro Workout

 

Jay and I recently bought a Living Social deal to try out a local CrossFit gym. I've been wanting to try out CrossFit for a while and this was the push I needed to do it. We went to an introductory class last night and although we did 1/4 of what we normally would do when we are there, my butt was still kicked. I loved the high energy and how quick the workouts are. I left there a sweaty mess and I can't wait to go back to see what more is in store for us.

 

Not familiar with CrossFit? CrossFit is constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity. Basically, you bust your butt and work really hard in a short amount of time for an extremely effective form of exercise.

 

We practiced form for the 5 moves we would be doing later during our Workout of the Day (WOD). Our trainer had us do a 400 meter run around the building to warm up and then we got into the moves for the day. We focused on squats, push ups, sit ups, box jumps and kettle bell swings. Turns out, I was doing most of these moves incorrectly before and didn't even know it! It was nice to have someone checking on my form and letting me know what I was doing wrong so I can work to correct it. After we got our moves down it was time for our WOD. Here's what we did

 

10 minutes AMRAP (as many reps as possible)

5 Squats

5 Push ups

5 Sit ups

5 Box jumps

5 Kettle bell swings

 

 

This is a fraction of what they normally do for a workout and I was toast! It was nice to put the moves we learned into action to see how much we could push ourselves. I was able to get 8.4 reps in (almost through the squence 9 times in 10 minutes). The box jumps were killer at the end!

 

I can't wait to go back tomorrow night to learn some more moves to apply to our routine. I will keep sharing these workouts with you on the blog so you can try CrossFit out too! Just make sure to watch videos online for correct form and don't push yourself beyond what your body can handle. It takes time to work up to what the experts are doing!

 

What do you think? Have you tried CrossFit before? Would you ever give it a try?