Friday, December 25, 2009

Update on Crossfit

I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was thinking about starting up at a Crossfit gym. Well, I went ahead and made that move about 4 weeks ago and the verdict so far is that it is really, really awesome. It's changing the way I work out completely. Right now, I'm going twice a week and paying the rate they have for that. Then I'm going to my regular gym on other days and using a lot of what I've learned to make my workouts that much more effective.

My plan for the new year is to up my membership to unlimited, which means I can go as many times per week as I like, which for me will be 4-5 days. That's actually a $200/mo commitment, but my feeling right now is that it will be totally worth it. I never worked out like this when I was in the Marine Corps. In fact, the big thing that boot camp did for me back then was it just took off a bunch of weight. Yeah, my overall fitness level was better back then, but youth helps a lot too. If we had worked out like this in boot camp, guys would have been a lot better off. Instead, what happens is guys lose a bunch of weight in boot camp through restricted diet, running, marching all day, and all the other training we do, then gain half or more of it back within a few months. I was at about 160 lbs when I finished boot camp, but for most of the rest of my 4 years, I stayed right around 190. Then I got out and ballooned up to about 215 within a year or so, and onward and upwards from there. My height is 6'1".

One thing I wish is that I could find the time to do a Step Aerobics class once or twice a week, along with the Crossfit. The problem is there just aren't enough hours in the day/week for that. Step really is pretty awesome. As I've said before, I don't know why more guys don't do it. What I might do is dedicate January to doing Crossfit 4-5 days/week and then move back down to twice a week in February and try to get some stepping in. Have to think about that.