Five Things Personal Trainers Can Learn From CrossFit

Fitness professionals must be aware of many forms of personal training, but CrossFit is one of the most important disciplines a personal trainer can learn. The fast-growing fitness phenomenon helps weight loss, builds fitness and creates fun-filled exercise classes.

Incorporating CrossFit into your classes gives your clients a whole new way of working out and reaching their fitness goals. In this guide, we’ll reveal five essential things you can learn from the intense form of interval training.

What is CrossFit?

Developed by Greg Glassman, CrossFit is an intensive training methodology that takes a range of exercise disciplines and combines them into workouts. Participants focus on aerobics, weightlifting and gymnastics, incorporating them into a routine replicating everyday activities.

CrossFit focuses heavily on aerobic glycolysis energy systems, which defines its many elements and effectiveness.

Let’s take a look at it in more detail.

Functional movement

CrossFit focuses on performing movements that help to improve the participant’s daily functioning. For example, typical examples include:

• Lifting.

• Squatting, pulling and pushing.

• Muscle-ups 

• Gymnastics 

• Aerobics 

High intensity

While low-intensity workouts can improve stamina and slow weight loss, high-intensity exercises are more effective in less time. For example, ten minutes of intense exercise is much more effective than a slow ten-minute walk.

Variety

One of the best things about CrossFit is the variety it offers. The exercises change daily, which ensures people don’t get bored and can focus on targeting different areas of their body. Also, performing other exercises and activities enhances overall fitness.

Flexibility

While many people think CrossFit is only for advanced athletes, it’s a highly scalable workout fully adaptable for beginners. The exercises can start slowly and gradually build up, making them ideal for newbies and seasoned athletes.

Competitions

CrossFit teaches people discipline, and many enjoy the challenge it offers. There’s also the CrossFit Games, where people compete to be classed as the fittest on earth. Over several days, participants compete in complex workouts designed to challenge them mentally and physically.

Better still, winners get prize money, making it one of the most enjoyable aspects of the programme.

CrossFit WODs

CrossFit gyms often have a workout of the day designed to give people everything they need within one convenient session. These exercises combine various activities and are highly popular because trainers develop them to ensure success.

Community

Not everyone loves CrossFit, but many people enjoy the sense of community it offers. Most sessions occur in a training room, where people help one another reach their goals. CrossFit is the same as other exercise classes in many ways, but its challenging nature often results in bonding.

Five things you can learn from CrossFit

So, now you know more about CrossFit, it’s time to reveal the top five things you can learn from it. Personal trainers can apply the discipline to their classes, but you’ll need specialised CrossFit certifications to open a specialised gym (also known as boxes).

So, without further ado, let’s explore the lessons you can learn from this highly beneficial exercise programme.

Mix it up

According to research from the Mirror, nearly half of adults find exercise boring and go to the gym for its social elements. Not everyone enjoys exercising, and using the treadmill or lifting weights constantly can become tedious.

The key to success with CrossFit is giving people plenty of variety in their exercises and combining different disciplines with each session.

It’s completely different to traditional personal training plans, which usually cycle between various exercises, which makes CrossFit a great way to get clients excited about working out.

By making each session different, participants can feel more enthusiastic about exercise, ultimately leading to positive results.

Give people a sense of community

It’s human nature to want to feel a part of something, and CrossFit is the perfect opportunity to create a sense of community. The program doesn’t just exercise the human body, but it also enhances the mind and inspires people to reach their fitness goals.

Whether it’s support to complete the last bench press or compound lifts, many people go back to CrossFit because they love the support they receive from others.

Add hints of competition

CrossFit is about helping people gradually improve their fitness to reach optimal performance, but it requires a lot of dedication. To help people work harder, you’ll need to motivate them—and nothing amps people up like competition.

Training a client one-on-one gives them bespoke support, but competition helps people progress and apply their knowledge. For example, CrossFit gyms often put people’s scores on a board, which gives them a good reason to train harder and push themselves.

However, competition should always be friendly and supportive to create a positive environment.

Focus on quality

When incorporating CrossFit into training programmes, there are many exercises to consider, but the best results come with quality movements. Each squat, lift, lunge, and aerobic system exercise should be flawless to ensure participants get the most out of their training.

A single session focusing on movement quality is worth more than multiple sessions where people fail to perform the right exercises.

By taking the time to help your clients find the proper technique, you can ensure they don’t have any injuries and give them the confidence to progress with their training.

Prioritise progressions and scaling

If you’ve seen the likes of Rich Froning, consistent victor in the CrossFit games, teaching others the discipline can be near impossible. However, the key to becoming a CrossFit pro is starting slowly and progressing with each exercise.

There are many ways to make complex movements easier for people, and once they understand the basics, they’ll be able to push through.

As a fitness professional, it’s important to encourage participants to incorporate general health and fitness into their lives while also being able to motivate them to power through more complex movements.

Getting to grips with CrossFit

With its combination of speed and power, CrossFit can help you achieve incredible things, but personal trainers need to understand how to utilise it effectively. Understanding the needs of each person and developing exercises that suit their ability ensures you can deliver excellent results.

The first step in becoming a personal trainer is investing in a Level 3 Personal Training diploma. You can study in your own time, from home and gain industry insights from some of the UK’s most reputable fitness professionals.

Upon certification, you can work in a range of settings, with many of our students joining gyms like Virgin Active and Anytime Fitness. Better still, there are other qualifications you can explore that open doors to management or working with groups.

The Pre and Post-Natal Training diploma is ideal if you want to support people trying to stay fit while pregnant or lose that baby weight, but The Fitness Circle has other courses to explore.

Please contact us today if you’d like to begin your professional fitness journey.