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If you want to lose weight and unwanted body fat, as a part of being fitter and healthier, you will eventually have to address the real causes of excess weight. And you may need to be deprogrammed. At a minimum will need to unlearn the social and cultural habits of eating you have become accustomed to. I got to the point where I wanted to reclaim peak fitness, but I was only giving an average effort and becoming more and more trapped in the one-dimensional world of weight machines and treadmills that didn't satisfy my need for balance, flexibility and full-body exercises.
In order to kick myself into gear, I made my way to a local CrossFit gym. I wanted an intense workout, but I worried that maybe CrossFit was a little too extreme for me.
CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program that relies on intense workouts comprised of all-body exercises, many of them explosive. Many classes will include kettle bell swings, pull ups, push ups, squats, dead weight lifts, plyo-jumps, jump roping and weight lifting. According to CrossFittecnica.com, the program is used by military special operations units, champion martial artists and elite and professional athletes worldwide.
I am not in a military special operations unit; I am not a champion martial artist; and - sadly - my varsity women's tennis in high school never launched me into the ranks of Wimbledon. As I went in for my first class, I wondered if this gym was really made for people like me.
By the end of my first workout, I was sweating, slightly dizzy and more than a little tempted to stagger outside and let go of my breakfast. In other words - I loved it. Working with a good Personal Trainer Tampa Fl. would be best to get good results.
It turned out that my class had more women than men and that every exercise in the routine could be modified so that each individual was working up to their capacity. That doesn't mean the workout was easy. The entire point of the class was to shock the body by putting it through a variety of simple exercises that incorporated multiple muscle groups and challenged form, flexibility and balance.
This type of exercise is not for everyone. The workouts are punishing on purpose. If you don't feel a little queasy by the end, then you're not doing it right. The program tries to play up the fact that the workouts are scalable, but I think, realistically, exercisers should have a healthy body that can handle loads on ankles, knees and back, and they should also have at least a basic foundation of fitness.
The program has a few other drawbacks. Equipment in most gyms is minimal, and workouts take place primarily in a class format. This is not the place to drop by for fifteen minutes on the elliptical machine. If you sign up for CrossFit, you are committing to go all out on a consistent basis. Weekend warriors need not apply. The class-based workout format means that you are getting a workout overseen by a certified CrossFit trainer, which can do wonders for motivation and form. It also means gym fees tend to be significantly higher than t big box gyms like LA Fitness, Gold's or 24 Hour Fitness.
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