CrossFit Southlands

What is Crossfit?
CrossFit is a core body strength and conditioning program of “functional movements that are constantly varied and done at high intensity.” The CrossFit Program was developed to enhance our athlete’s competency at all physical tasks. Our athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and varied physical challenges. CrossFit is a training philosophy that coaches people of all shapes and sizes to improve their physical well-being and cardiovascular fitness in an accepting and encouraging environment. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but is designed to deliberately optimize physical competence in each of eight recognized fitness domains. They are as follows:
Balance
Coordination
Agility
Accuracy
Strength
Flexibility
Endurance
Stamina

Who is CrossFit for?
It can be for everyone to be honest. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true. Parents, teachers, college students, adults (from ages 16 to 86), teenagers, youth (with the right programming), professionals and elite athletes are all participating in the CrossFit Program. Prize-fighters, cyclists, surfers, skiers, tennis players, football players, wrestlers, tri-athletes and others competing at the highest levels are using the CrossFit approach to advance their core strength and conditioning, but that’s not all. CrossFit has tested its methods on the sedentary, the youth, overweight, pathological, and elderly and found that these special populations met the same success as our stable of athletes. We call this scaling. If our program works for Olympic Skiers, the overweight and sedentary homemakers, then it will work for you. CrossFit is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve 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 don’t change programs.

Commercial Gyms vs. The CrossFit Method
First of all we are not talking about personal trainers which can be found in gyms and generally cost a lot more than CrossFit, but we are talking about gyms and health clubs throughout the world that typical workout consists of isolation movements and extended aerobic sessions. The fitness community from our government, old gym teacher and to the magazines has the exercising public believing that lateral raises, curls, leg extensions, sit-ups and the like combined with 20-30 minute stints on the stationary bike or treadmill are going to lead to some kind of great fitness. Not to mention the fact that when you walk in any commercial gym the first sight to be seen is the sea of machines that come with little to no directions. Learning how to use them, when to use them, in what order, at what intensity can be a mystery and quite overwhelming to even the best fitness enthusiast.
At CrossFit Southlands we work with compound movements and shorter high intensity cardiovascular sessions. We’ve replaced the lateral raise with push-press, the curl with pull-ups, and the leg extension with squats. For every long distance effort at a gym our athletes will usually do five or six at short distance efforts. Why, because functional movements (compound movements) and high intensity or anaerobic cardio is radically more effective at eliciting nearly any desired fitness results. Startlingly, this is not a matter of opinion but solid irrefutable scientific fact and yet the marginally effective old ways persist and are nearly universal. Our approach is consistent with what is practiced in elite training programs associated with major university athletic teams and professional sports. CrossFit endeavors to bring state-of-the-art coaching techniques to the general public and athletes who haven’t access to current technologies, research, and coaching methods.
CrossFit is based on a team/group workout environment. Very different from the commercial gyms; there are very few open gym times and almost no traditional machines. The complete program is based around maintaining a low client to coach ratio and one of the most important characteristics is the fitness programming. Each member chooses a time that he/she can attend a scheduled class. All participants in that class warm-up together, work on skills together and perform the workout of the day. As a team, as a family, as a unit, they start and end the workout together. Pushing, encouraging, and helping each other along the way; similar to that of a professional sports team or military unit.
Another one of the biggest problems with commercial gyms is the lack of training and knowledge passed on to the client. Teaching correct form and technique from day one and educating all members on how to perform every movement they will encounter in the CrossFit environment can mean the difference between an injury and a forever healthy and limber athlete.

Foundations Program
The education of proper form and technique is offered through our mandatory Foundations Program. This program will be 6 sessions long, held 3 days a week for the first 2 weeks of membership. Each 1 hour session will focus on proper form and technique in warming up, cooling down and the workout itself. There are 18 CrossFit foundational movements and skills that each athlete must learn and prove basic competency in before moving on to the main group class environment. Each client will have to successfully finish the Foundations Program or in the case of a seasoned CrossFitter, they have the option to test out.