What seems to be a fitness revelation of high-powered workouts like CrossFit is really just a retreat to the simple concept of circuit training
By Morgan Kelly
When Kevin Sager of Hopkinton entered the police academy two
years ago, he was introduced to a different kind of fitness training. While
Sager, 25, said he was fitness driven and often worked out at gyms lifting
weights, running on the treadmill and using weight machines, it wasn't until
CrossFit that Sager said he began to see real results.
CrossFit, similar to trends like P90X and boot camp classes,
is a circuit-style workout that packs a punch. Keeping you moving through the
workout at your utmost intensity, CrossFit can be done in the privacy of your
own home or in a class-type setting.
"CrossFit is about high functionally intense workouts that
work all parts of your body, " said Sager, who is now a police officer in
Maine. "Doing the workouts as fast as you can gets you to push yourself as hard
as you can to do the best you can."
Sager said that CrossFit has become essential to not only
his job as a cop, but also his overall well-being. What was once a mandatory
part of his day in the academy, Sager now sticks to the CrossFit program by
going to the website where he finds a new
workout every day and trains three days in a row followed by one rest day.
"I had to do it," he said, "and definitely noticed a
difference in just about everything and since then, I have been hooked."
The workouts include attention to endurance, stamina,
strength, flexibility, agility, coordination and balance, just to name a few. With
special equipment like gymnastic rings or super-sized tires included in some of
the workouts, there are ways to adapt every exercise to what you have available
to you with a substitution
chart.
Sager said that while the workouts are vigorous and intense,
it was CrossFit's adjustable nature that got him hooked.
"What interested me about CrossFit is that anyone can do it,
" said Sager. "Some of the workouts, for instance, I cannot do the prescribed
weights and CrossFit allows you to scale them down and work on your
weaknesses."
For beginners, Sager said that CrossFit can be at times too
challenging. But he added students can learn the correct way to work out
safely.
"A lot of it is learning and working on form," he said.
"CrossFit involves a lot of heaving lifting, squatting and many movements. If
you do something wrong, you could seriously injure yourself."
Personal Trainer Will Gibson of the Beacon Hill Athletic
Club said that the primary problem with workout programs like CrossFit and
P90X, which is based on a DVD set, is that there is no certified trainer to
supervise someone's workout, which can lead to injury. However, he said that it
is possible to have a positive and effective experience with such programs if
you have had some personal training first to learn how your body works.
Despite the risks, Sager said he finds that the
benefits and the challenge are what keep him going back for more.
"Some of the movements," he said, "I still have a hard time
with and working on the form is enough in itself. When I started, I was not in
good shape and I gradually adapted because I stuck with it."
Circuit training is by no means a new concept. In fact, circuit training has been the basis of many fitness programs, aerobic workouts and athletic training programs for years. While CrossFit is a more extreme and intense version of circuit training, click below to watch trainer Will Gibson explain how circuit training at the most basic level can benefit anybody looking to change up their fitness regime.
Leave a comment