Greg Glassman, a former gymnast, founded CrossFit®, Inc. in 2000. In his years coaching elite athletes, Coach Glassman found that the best way to achieve optimal fitness was not through specialization but rather through “constantly varied, functional movement, performed at high intensity.” In short, this means combining elements of Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, sprinting, rowing and core conditioning to improve overall flexibility, strength, speed, endurance and agility.
What is fitness? How do you define fitness? How do you measure fitness? According to an online dictionary, fitness is defined by one word: health. Historically, fitness has been a very subjective term. Well CrossFit hopes to change that by moving fitness into the objective realm. The definition of fitness, according to CrossFit, is your work capacity across broad time and modal domains. In CrossFit there are 10 general physical skills (physiological adaptations) that make our fitness list: cardiorespitory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, agility, and balance. Excessive capacity in anyone of these 10 skills, hinders/hurts the rest. You want a nice balance. Thus, CrossFit’s commitment is to INCREASE your work capacity across broad time and modal domains. In other words, CrossFit is committed to increasing your real world capacity. How? Through constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity. That’s the difference.
Ask yourself this: How many times have you found yourself doing the motion of a “pec-deck” in the real world? My answer: Not too many times, actually, not at all. Next question: How many times in life, have you found yourself having to deadlift and then thrust a heavy object (and I’m not talking about a dumbbell) from the ground to overhead? My answer: Almost everyday, or at least every time I buy a case of bottled water. Last question: How many times have you hurt your back, hurt your shoulder, or gasped for air doing something as easy as taking a couple of cases of water up a flight of stairs? A flight of stairs, that is actually a great measurement of fitness. How do you measure FITNESS?
Constantly Varied
“Constantly Varied” means that every day brings a different workout (or “WOD”), incorporating any combination of these elements. At CrossFit Hawaii you will jump rope, climb ropes, swing kettle bells and flip tires. You will work at pull ups, squats, dips, deadlifts, rowing, box jumps and more. Each day will bring different exercises specifically designed to work on different muscle groups and/or cardiovascular strength giving you a well-rounded workout to tone and strengthen various parts of your body.
Functional Movement
“Functional Movement” refers to maintaining the safest, most-efficient position to power through a movement. There are plenty of misconceptions out there about CrossFit; the truth is much of what we do in our workouts mirrors activities in our daily lives. To the uninitiated, flipping a tire looks like crazy, “he-man” work. But moving a mattress up a flight of stairs, utilizes the same movement. CrossFit Hawaii will help you maintain the correct position in a workout – both to keep you and other safe as well as to maximize efficiency.
High Intensity
“High Intensity” is a concept that at first can be difficult for new CrossFitters to grasp. For many people, a workout’s efficiency is only proportionate to the amount of hours spent in the gym. You will never hear a CrossFitter say, “I had a great workout; I was in the gym for four hours!” You are much more likely to hear, “I finished in 8 minutes.” People come here skeptical that a high-intensity workout, done in a fraction of the time as they are used to, can lead to faster, better results. But results don’t lie.