In high school, I had an economics teacher that said: “When thinking about what is a better purchase you always buy tacos over ice cream.” At the time I remember thinking, this guy is crazy, but now when I talk to members about the importance of attending class vs open gym Mr. Warner’s lecture pops back into my head. Well, let’s think about it, tacos are tasty, they have your carbs, protein, veggies, and fats. That’s everything you need to sustain yourself and keep your taste buds happy. Now ice cream, it’s tasty, it’s cool and pretty, but it does not give you the sustainable nutritional value. The same thing can be said of classes and open gym.

Tacos (Class)

What you get when you attend a CrossFit class:

• Programming
  • You are told exactly what to do every day. The program is written for the best and scaled (by your awesome coach) for the rest. Following general physical preparedness, programming assures you will work on your weaknesses and fine tune your strengths.
  • There will be an appropriate ratio of training days vs benchmark day. Training days are days you put in work and get better. Benchmark days are when you test your training.
• Instruction
  • Your coach will lead you through every part of the class. Warm up, skill, strategy, targeted stimulus, wod, and cool down.
  • Proper Scaling. Adaptation occurs when you hit the correct stimulus. How many reps should I do? How much weight should I load? How long should this wod take me? Those are all great questions and your coach will have answers to all of them.
  • Immediate feedback will be given on your movements and advice to get you to the next level. You will receive multiple corrections to your movement per class.
  • Your coach is a wealth of knowledge and they are working on their weaknesses just like you. Ask them questions if they don’t know the answer right then they will work to find it.
• Group Accountability
  • The people you meet through CrossFit will become your best friends. You will find that the 60 minutes with these people is your favorite part of the day.
  • You work and sweat together. No one wants to do tough wods alone, you are supported and driven by the people in class with you.
• So much more
  • It’s hard to wrap everything you get by attending a CrossFit class into words. If you’re interested, reach out to me [email protected] and I will get you in to observe a class!

Ice Cream (Open Gym)

Valuable activities for open gym:

• Pre-class
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • Skill Progressions
  • Additional Warm-up
  • Additional Work for Competitive Athlete. If you are coming to the gym for lifelong fitness you do not need to spend an additional hour and a half doing extra work. The first three bullet points are for you.
• Post Class
  • Crossover Symmetry Recover
  • Mobility
  • Skill Progressions
  • Additional Cool Down
  • Additional Work for Competitive Athlete
  • Completing a personal challenge (Reading 100 hours while AB, or https://log.concept2.com/challenges)

As I start adding open gym times they may overlap group classes. Remember that group classes always take priority, ask the coach where there will be space for you. The time is here for you to get extra practice and work on your weaknesses. For more ideas on what to do at open gym check out this blog.

Tacos and ice cream are tasty and we can have both (check out healthy ice cream recipes here) just make sure you aren’t giving up your tacos to only eat ice cream.