Keeping CrossFit Inclusive and Safe

CrossFit is a sport, and just like any other sport it attracts athletes of all abilities. CrossFit is humbling and everybody needs to learn the basics and build and understanding of movement to become good at CrossFit. CrossFit is a sport that requires high levels of strength and skill in multiple disciplines including gymnastics, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, kettlebells and metabolic conditioning.  Mastering these skills takes time and loads and practice, not to mention the whipping marks from double-under.

With time, practice, good coaches and a set of balls, everyone can make progress and improve their skills and fitness levels. Recording your weights and recognising the small accomplishments is part of the journey of becoming a better athlete.

You may have noticed that CrossFit Hackney has not separated the class scheduled and divided our athletes into levels. We have however created a number of categories to help tailor the CrossFit program towards each member’s goals and skill level.  As a young box – less than a year old – our intention is to:

– Keep our CrossFit classes fully inclusive and allow “CrossFit Rookies” to work out in the same class as “CrossFit Athletes”

– Allow all of our members to attend a CrossFit class that suits their busy schedule. If we separated the classes into different levels the availability of classes would be limited

– With clever programming and experienced coaches all workouts are scaled to suit the strength and fitness levels of each individual athlete

– Multiple coaches on the floor during busy class hours to make sure everyone is gets the attention they need and performing the movements safely

One of the most challenging elements of owning a CrossFit box is designing a training program that suits the needs of every member. Every member has his or her own individual goals; be it athletic performance, weight loss, general health, sport or just checking out all the attractive bodies in the gym ;-).

We have been listening to the feedback from members and a couple of comments have been regular:

General CrossFit Member – “I don’t like the Olympic lifting WODs as I don’t feel I work as hard”

CrossFit Athlete – “Can we do more Olympic lifting and make the WODs and Capacity harder?”

One of the main aims of CrossFit is to teach everybody how to move safely and efficiently. Olympic lifting is the pinnacle of sport and requires all 10 of the general physical skills. Ideally we would like everyone to learn how to do the Olympic lifts when the time is right, but safety is always at the forefront of our business. After all, an injured athlete gets zero results.

We also appreciate that not everyone has the intention of being a “CrossFit Athlete” and they come to the gym to have a solid workout, improve their general health and fitness levels, and to escape some of life stresses.

Where is the CrossFit Hackney program heading?

The CrossFit Hackney program will continue to have four different categories:

– CrossFit Athlete
– CrossFit
– CrossFit Endurance (CFE)
– CrossFit Rookie (CFR)

These have been set out to suit the skills and goals of our members.  We plan to introduce skill levels for each group to help members get a better understanding of strength and skill required in each category.  For example:

The typical class program design contains warm-up, strength or gymnastics, capacity and the workout of the day (WOD).

– During the “Strength” element of the program we aim to continue teaching the Olympic lifting skills to all levels

–  During the “Capacity and WOD” elements of the program we aim to:

• Add more Olympic lifting for the “CrossFit Athletes” and increase the intensity of the workouts
• Offer the general CrossFit group a choice of either perform Olympic lifts or a alternative workout that does not contain Olympic lift
• Direct all “CrossFit Rookie” members (if you’ve been doing CrossFit for less than 3months) will be asked to focus on the non-Olympic lifting workouts

Note: The non-Olympic lifting workouts will contain exercises to improve your strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.  All of these skills will improve you chances of performing the Olympic lifts.

The diversity of members at Momentum Training is fantastic and we are doing our best to listen to your feedback and deliver a program that is suited towards your goals. It’s in your hands to decide what those goals are and how you would like to achieve them.  Its in the hands of our coaches to make sure you are not trying to run before you can walk. If we believe you are not ready to perform a certain movement safely we will scale your workout.  If you stick to the program, eat well, train smart and get plenty of rest there is no reason why you cannot hit your targets.

If you have any questions or feedback please let us know [email protected]