Jes Reynolds…Your Fitness Coach

Using a sports performance style of training is a great way to get advanced fitness results because you can use your athleticism to increase the intensity of workouts, challenge yourself, and add variety.

One of the more popular types of fitness training on the market these days is called Crossfit.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  Crossfit is a style of training that attempts to incorporate sports performance principles into it’s regimen in order to deliver a challenging and intense strength and conditioning workout.

Crossfit affiliates are individuals who have opened Crossfit training centers, usually a warehouse style facility, that provides group fitness classes (as well as some other types of services I’m sure).  The benefit of these classes can be found in the social aspect, competition between participants, and the shared passion for advanced fitness training.

Crossfit uses specific principles of fitness as guidelines for their fitness program, if you are attempting to create a sports performance training based fitness program, either for athletic development or advanced fitness results, you can use these core principles to help you develop fun workouts containing lots of variety.

• Acceleration/Deceleration
• Reaction
• Power
• Balance
• Plyometric Jumping/Bounding
• Speed & Agility

While for some this style of training may sound too intense, the difficulty of most movements can be adjusted up or down based on ability level and desire.  The truth is sports performance training (and there’s more types than just Crossfit) isn’t for everyone…it’s not even for some of us all the time.

The training can be very intense and demanding both mentally and physically.  With injuries, daily schedules, potential joint pain, and even general fatigue being factors in all of our lives, the safest way to go for us recreational athletes is to include sports performance training as a part of our training program, while also including other types of training as well.  This approach will allow you to adjust your fitness routine according to the ebb and flow of your lifestyle, schedule, and physical ability.

If you don’t have the time or desire to create your fitness routine, I recommend finding a Crossfit affiliate in your area and dropping in for a class.  Try it out and see what you find.