Adding CrossFit To A Regular Fitness Routine
Adding CrossFit To A Regular Fitness Routine
CrossFit is defined as constantly varied, highly intense functional movement. It is comprised of functional movements meant to build strength and to improve functional performance and its hallmark is the WOD, which stands for Workout Of The Day.
Why Should You Add CrossFit To Your Regular Fitness Routine?
• Incorporating CrossFit into your regular fitness routine will make your workouts more competitive. This will give you a feel-good adrenaline rush, and cause you and your workout friends to compete against each other, in a friendly, supportive way that will help you all to achieve your fitness goals.
• It will make your regular fitness routine more varied, more challenging, and less repetitive and boring, which is a nice change if you have been doing the same exercises or sport for a long time.
• Furthermore, combining CrossFit and your regular fitness routine will help you to gain muscle while burning fat. This is because of the particular blend of CrossFit exercises which combine exercises such as squats and deadlifts– designed to develop your strength– with pushups and burpees, known to make you burn off excess fat. Furthermore, the combination of these exercises and your normal fitness routine will boost your metabolism, enabling you to burn more calories after you are done exercising, which is really helpful if your goal is to lose weight.
• In addition to this, by using CrossFit as a means of supplementing your regular exercise routine, you will be stepping out of your comfort zone. Challenging yourself by attempting something new can really help you to test your limits, and motivate you to step beyond them.
• Moreover, people tend to avoid exercises that they do not enjoy doing or struggle with, which can lead to muscular imbalances, having better coordination in one leg than in the other, or overuse injuries. Since CrossFit forces you to perform movements that you do not necessarily enjoy, thus using muscles that you do not exercise regularly; it can prevent the above-mentioned problems from occurring and even reinforce underused energy systems (e.g. the anaerobic system).
Therefore, you should add CrossFit to your regular exercise routine at least once per week. Although this may come as a surprise, CrossFit is actually easier on the body than many sports. This is because other sports tend to strain your body because they use the same body parts, muscles, and joints repeatedly to carry out the same movements.
Given that CrossFit is so varied, this does not occur. Mixing CrossFit with your regular workout routine will cause you to perform a greater variety of exercises, and intensities, which will allow your body to rest better between workouts.
How To Add CrossFit To Your Regular Workout Routine
In order to implement CrossFit into your regular workout routine, take a look at the sports or workouts that you are already doing.
• Are they very repetitive?
• Do they target a specific muscle group much more than the other muscle groups?
• What exactly do you want to improve, strengthen or use more by adding CrossFit to your routine?
Eliminate workouts that appear to be useless or repetitive. It is best to adjust all of your workouts (CrossFit and non-CrossFit varieties) so that they become full-body workouts, as this approach is more in line with the CrossFit mentality and helps you to workout more consistently.
It is also a good idea to take a rest day after every workout day, so that your body has the time to recover between workouts. Working out every single day is not the best approach, as it can lead to over-training and fatigue.
If you allow yourself to get exhausted, you may lose your enthusiasm and quit working out altogether, which is not in your best interests.
Bottom Line
CrossFit has many benefits and it really is a unique workout class that can enhance your fitness level and deter boredom in training.
Check your area for a CrossFit gym, they are called Boxes. Make sure the trainers are qualified and that the environment is a good fit for you and see if you can try a class before joining.
