01 Oct The G-Force Source: top 5 tips for newbies to CrossFit
“Stick to the basics and when you feel you’ve mastered them, it’s time to start all over again; begin anew–again with the basics–this time paying closer attention.” — Greg Glassman, CEO and founder of CrossFit Inc.
Being a newcomer to CrossFit can be scary and intimidating. You walk into a CrossFit box (what we call our gyms) and see a bunch of sweaty and ugly men with their shirts off, throwing a barbell around whilst screaming and yelling like they’re charging into war. You also see some fit women throwing themselves around pull-up bars and climbing ropes leaving you standing there thinking, “How the hell am I expected to keep up with these crazy humans?”
You have to keep in mind that all CrossFitters were beginners—just like you—at some stage. No one is born an athlete, they’re made into athletes, and that’s achieved with dedication and commitment. Additionally, one of the core practices of CrossFit is scaling workouts and movements to a person’s ability. We don’t expect anyone to do anything beyond the realm of possibility, but we will push you to your limits and get you achieving new and great things you never thought you could do.
At G-Force, we’ve had a recent influx of newcomers to CrossFit from all different walks of life and levels of fitness. It’s important that as a newbie, you don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by some of the madness. Instead, get amongst it and have fun.
To help newbies to CrossFit, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 tips to get you through the first month of your new training regime. They’re all equally as important and they all coincide with one another. Don’t neglect one to make room for the other.
1. Turn up & be consistent.
To get results, you must first turn up. It’s really that easy. Second to turning up is staying consistent with your training. The CrossFit training week consists of WODs (workouts of the day) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with a rest day on Thursday, followed by training on Friday and Saturday with a rest day on Sunday. Turn up consistently for five days each week and see yourself start to make leaps and bounds in your overall health and fitness.
2. Remember the fundamentals.
The fundamental movements of CrossFit are the basic movements everyone is required to know and be able to perform to progress. They teach you the basics of technique to assist in ensuring that there is no compromise of form under fatigue. Practice to make the fundamental movements perfect; that goes for everyone across all levels of fitness.
3. Mobilise and stretch every day.
Mobility and stretching have two different purposes; mobility works towards the movements of your joints whilst stretching works on the flexibility and length of your muscles. Both are important and both require work. For newcomers, however, we would suggest that mobility should be your focus because your lack of mobility may very well affect your flexibility. See your coaches about mobilising the different parts of your body.
4. Sleep and have sweet dreams.
The body goes into recovery mode whilst you sleep and therefore, a lack of sleep is going to affect the recovery of your body physically and mentally (and most likely emotionally, too). Eight hours is the magic number and routine in your sleep will help with your recovery. Routine simply means going to sleep at a certain time and waking up around the same time each day (for example, asleep at 10pm and awake at 6am). Unfortunately, shift workers get the crap end of the stick because routine is the enemy. Shift workers need to do their best to ensure they’re well rested.
5. Eat, you must.
Doing CrossFit requires more energy than many other sports. If you’ve recently converted from doing bicep curls in front of a mirror to doing CrossFit, you’re most likely going to need to increase your food intake. We work our bodies hard and as a consequence, they need to be fed the fuel to perform. Ensure you’re eating enough food to sustain your fitness regime otherwise you’ll become susceptible to injury or other health ailments. See your coaches about eating advice. But please for the love of whatever god you worship: uppercut anyone that tells you a low carb diet is the way to go.
They’re our top 5 tips for newcomers to CrossFit. They’re the absolute basics but if you ensure that none of those points are neglected, results will start coming your way.
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