More than just a sport: CrossFit, a lifestyle revolution

Less than a minute left–you hear your coach scream. The giant red clock seems bigger, it looks like it’s trying to hunt you. People are screaming with what seems to be the last oxygen they have left. Every rep is harder than the next one, the sweat tears are making you blind, your legs are shaking. Are you going to make it?

You look around and everyone is waiting for you. You can’t let them down.

With strength you didn’t know you had, you push out your last rep as the clock runs out. You collapse on the floor, chest heaving. You just did it.

This is more than a workout. This is more than a sport. This is Crossfit.

Crossfit was created in 2000 by a gymnast and celebrity fitness trainer in California, Greg Glassman. Glassman came up with the idea while creating a new type of training for police officers that would prepare them for anything. After seeing the positive results of incorporating free weights, gymnastics and sprinting all together, he decided to open his own gym.

CrossFit is a fitness program that delivers measurable results through lifestyle changes, focusing on training and nutrition. The workouts are varied, intense, and involve practical movements. Each session is varied and targets ten key aspects of physical performance, including cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, power, strength, stamina, speed, balance, agility, coordination, and accuracy.

A typical CrossFit class includes a mobility warm-up, a segment focused on strength and skills, the workout of the day, and a cooldown to bring the heart rate back to normal.

However, the magic isn’t rooted in the complexity or the effectiveness of the military-type of training. It’s the essence. It’s heart, it’s its people.

“CrossFit is a community. CrossFit is family,” said Tracy Raflowitz, a Crossfit Liger member.

Ro Scott, elite CrossFit athlete and Liger’s head coach shared that CrossFit significantly transformed her life, particularly after struggling with severe body image issues as a former ballet dancer.

“CrossFit gave me a large portion of my life back… growing up as a ballet dancer I never fit in well, from a physical standpoint.” She detailed her struggles with severe body image issues, eating disorders, self-harm behavior, and depression that came from feeling inadequate when she was growing up.

People who had never done a Crossfit workout before might feel intimidated by the complexity of the terminologies and techniques that are required, or the impressive capacity of the elite athletes. But Crossfit is always adaptable because its main goal is to make individuals push their own limits. The execution varies only by degree, not kind.

Liger’s coach Vida Vetterkind, who is also a CrossFit athlete who dedicates at least four hours of training a day, believes any age, gender, or level should join the community.

“We are always able to adapt everything for everyone. Is a matter of just joining and enjoying the community. Or as I call it, be with people to embrace the suck together,” she said between smiles.

It doesn’t matter what Crossfit affiliate you join, where or what exercises you have to scale. When your coach is counting on you to show up for class, when you’re determined to beat your last performance, and when the community supports you through your final 10 reps, quitting becomes impossible.

Wherever there’s a team, a clock and a desire to maintain fitness over a lifetime, there’s a CrossFit family ready to time every victory. Wherever there is persistence and interest in being better every day, there is Crossfit.