CrossFit causes so much debate between people. Some people hate it, some people love it, some people don’t have an opinion. What I thought I would do is try a few “CrossFit” things and see what I thought and see what I may or may not learn, I feel I will then be able to form an opinion on it. Also, I tried to keep an open mind with everything. Making sure I spoke to some CrossFit people and got some workout, I got some tips and some advice. I was surprised to find that I did learn a few tricks from it, which I have started to use more in my workouts. Here are the main three things that I have learnt while trying out CrossFit.
Workout Types
The first thing that I learnt was they have some fun and creative workout type. They don’t tend to do the standard, Back and Bi’s or Chest, Shoulders & Tri’s. Now I was aware of workouts of the day and a few types, but it wasn’t until I tried some that are discovered how intense some of them can be. I have walked away with a few new favourite workout styles. The first style is EMOM.
EMOM Workouts:
EMOM stands for Every Minute on the Minute. The basic principle is that you perform certain exercises with a set amount of reps at the start of a minute every minute. So a quick example of this would be something like:
EMOM –
- X6 Press Up
- X6 Military Press
So what you do is start a timer then you complete 6 press ups on the first minute, then once you have finished you have the rest of the minute to rest. At the start of the second minute you perform 6 reps of military press, again, once you have finished you can have the rest of the minute off. You do this for the chosen time, For the example above, you might do it for 10 minutes. The great thing about this workout style is it starts easy, and get so hard so quick. The harder it is, the harder it gets. What I mean by this is that as it starts to become more challenging it takes more time to complete, This means you get less time to rest.
What you do have to be careful on is that you chose a Rep range and a weight that you know you can complete the workout with. I will start very easy, but as we said, as it starts to get hard your rest will start to decrease and in turn, only get harder. Give one a go and see how you feel.
Luckily for you, because I enjoyed EMOM Workouts so much, we have developed a EMOM workout generator for the Sets & Reps application. This tool will generate you a free EMOM workout. Download the app now to give it a go.
AMRAP Workouts:
You may see the anagram AMRAP pop up in bodybuilding. It is very similar in Crossfit except it has a slightly different meaning. In bodybuilding it mean As Many Reps As Possible. Meaning, you do a chosen exercise for as many reps as you can. In Crossfit it tends tome As Many Rounds As Possible.
You will get a set of exercises and reps to complete which will count as one round, then you will get a time limit. You have to complete as many rounds as possible in that time limit. An example of this would look something like this:
20 Minute AMRAP –
- X10 Burpees
- X8 Deadlifts
- X5 Pull Ups
This workouts are great because they are high intensity, timed and also very tactical. As you are in full control of how long you take to complete each round and also how long you rest for. These are good for group workouts and can add a fun competitive side to working out.
These are great as a workout finisher. So if you were doing a back day, or a pull day you could do the workout above for like 10 minutes (Maybe swap out deadlifts for something else). Very simple and fun way to add some conditioning onto the end of any workout.
Time and Measure
Moving on, the next tip that I learnt from CrossFit is to time things. Timing things give you another variable to help increase progress, you can increase your time or you can lower the time. The main thing I time is my rest periods, by timing your rest periods you are controlling how much time your muscles have to recover. I tend to start at around 30 seconds per rest, but for bigger lifts you may want to increase that to 1-2 minutes, Then you can chose to decrease or increase the rest time, just keep in mind the lower the rest the harder the next lift will be, so if you are planning big, personal best lifts, you will want to increase your rest time.
Other things you can time is your actual lift. For example bench press you can do something like a 3:1:1, this being a popular example that you have a 3 second negative, with a 1 second pause then a 1 second positive. This will put your muscles under more load and also pausing it will help build control and put the muscle under more load.
There are also other workouts you can do which involve timing, such as setting yourself a set amount of Reps to complete and seeing how long it takes you to do it, so a quick example would be:
As Quick as Possible –
- X30 Pull Ups
- X30 Press Ups
Perform these 60 reps in as many sets as needed, but set a timer on and see how long it takes you to complete. After you have got your time, work on each exercise then try to beat that time next time you do it. Things to remember is to make sure you keep strict form and be strict on yourself about what counts as a rep. Enjoy.
Variety! Mix things up
Another important lesson that I learnt trying CrossFit is to switch it up. Most people get stuck in their program or routine. They hate straying from it, however sometimes it can be very beneficial to stray from your program. I learnt this when I was trying various workout types. I like most people will do an Upper/Lower workout with some HIIT on the end! (If you want to try a HIIT workout download our free app here) or the standard Bro split, however forcing myself to do CrossFit style workouts pushed my outside my comfort zone.
Going from doing Bench, Deadlifts and Military press and swapping them from Clean and Press, Squat Press and Kettlebell workouts. It made it enjoyable and tested me in ways my other workouts couldn’t which kept it interesting and gave me new goals to work to, How much could I Push Press? How much could I Clean and Press?
So what next?
So what I took from this is that I can still do my standard workout but I can mix up the exercises, now and then swap out an exercise for a workout like the one above. This keeps it fresh and exciting. Remember gym is a hobby and you have to enjoy it. If you are finding yourself starting to get bored or motivation dropping, then I highly recommend that you try some different workout styles and different workouts (I can’t recommend EMOM workouts enough) to spice things up.
Another advantage is that if you show up to gym and find that it is really busy, you have a few more workouts and exercises to fall back on. To do most CrossFit workouts you only need 2-3 pieces of equipment. Perfect for those busy gyms. Give a workout a go and see what you think! Make sure to tweet us with your opinions here!
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, you can see that I learnt 3 key things. Overall it thinks it was good to spice things up, try something new and fresh, a new challenge, but I also learnt how to improve my current workout style. That is what made the gym so fun in the first place is having a challenge, well now I have that feeling all over again. Like we have previously said if you want a few workout ideas, you can download our free workout app and use our WOD workouts or our EMOM Generator to get you started. If you have any more questions then please let us know over on our advice page.
Written by Kieran Blacker
Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.