Una, I am a crossfitter and absolutely love it! As a matter of fact, it is through Suz that I got the idea to add this to my workouts and I joined a group in my gym back in January. It is my favorite form of workouts, by far! I had always been athletic and worked out 6 times a week, but felt that I kept doing the same stuff, a combination of cardio and weights (running outside when the season allows). I used to be pretty content to do 20-30 push-ups (real ones) etc., now this is what we do in the warm-up.
I am sure you have looked up what crossfit typically consists of. They are always varied, rather short high-intensity workouts combining / alternating cardio and strength training. It's the toughest thing I have ever done, but the satisfaction factor is also the highest I have ever had. I am the type of person who wants to be exhausted after a workout, otherwise I am just not happy. The boot camp classes I had tried didn't do that to me, crossfit does.
I didn't need to join a crossfit gym, as a personal trainer in my own gym is offering a class at 6am, 9am and 6pm on M/W/F. The groups are pretty small, which is perfect. I don't think he has ever repeated an exact workout since January, thus you never know what's coming. However, there are classes that focus nearly entirely on the upper body (using weights), or the lower body, to the point of really exhausting your arms or legs. And then there are routines that combine both of them. One workout, for example, is called the Angie (this one is kind of a measuring tool to give you an idea where you stand and how your strength level is progressing): You do 100 pull-ups (assisted with a rubber band chosen according to your strength level), then 100 push-ups, then 100 squats followed by 100 butterfly sit-ups. All of this for time, i.e. as fast as you can possibly accomplish this.
A more typical example of a normal workout (we did this one last Friday): A short warm-up, then 4 rounds of
- 20x throwing a big 20lb medicine soft ball from squat position above a line really high up on the wall, catch and back into squat (these are called wall balls)
- 10 burpees
- 20 standing lunges for each leg.
20 minutes or 4 rounds, whatever comes first. This was super tough. It may not look like it, but those wall balls are killer.
To end we did 4 sets of sprints, long side of gym, 4 lengths, each time touching blue line on floor, 20 seconds rest in between (thus 16 lenghts in total). Then I biked home and I can assure you, I slept really well that night!
Hope this helps!
PS: In our groups (I fluctuate between the 6am, 9am and 6pm groups, depending on my work schedule) the majority is in the 20-30y group, then there is a woman who is 40, I am 50 and one tough yogi who is about 60. But I can tell you that we are keeping up with the younger crowd without a problem, if you are used to exercising and are a tough cookie, which I am sure you are! Let me know how things go for you.
