What makes our gym different?
Staff:
Our staff is not only certified, but knowledgeable and experienced. A trainer’s lack of knowledge and experience can set you up for failure in reaching your fitness goals; or even worse, leave you injured. Our trainers are not just “3,2,1…GO!” cheerleaders. Our trainers are competitive athletes both inside and outside of the scope of CrossFit competition. Our trainers don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Our staff’s number one concern is making you better. Our passion for quality training is what will fuel your results.
Gym:
We understand that our brand of fitness is unique and therefore requires a unique environment in which to train. Commercial gyms are not outfitted to suit our training needs. Our gym is 2400sq feet of functional fitness heaven. From power racks and GHD’s, to rowers and climbing ropes, we have your Strength and Conditioning bases covered. We use implements such as slosh pipes, kegs, conditioning ropes, farm tires, etc to bring an added note of difficulty and excitement to your training. Once you train the way we train, the tread mill and pec dec will never satisfy the same.
Program:
We are not a “one size fits all” CrossFit gym complete with stringent class times and group warm-up. We don’t “turn and burn” our athletes: in one minute and out the next. We strive to educate our athletes on all things strength, conditioning, and nutrition. We provide individualized programming and individualized training.
Our program is designed to make you better, not make you so sore you can’t train for days after. Soreness is NOT the indication of improvement. Soreness is inflammation and although soreness is to be expected when embarking on a fitness program, debilitating soreness is not the desired result. We scale our workouts and program our efforts to enhance your quality of life, not detract from it.
Community:
Our family of athletes supports one another in training and competitive endeavors. We encourage our athletes to think outside of the box, challenge conventional wisdom, and discover what they want out of their fitness program.
Why does our program look different than Mainsite CrossFit?
CrossFit Amarillo used to employ a program quite similar to that found on www.CrossFit.com. We would run either single, double, triple, or multiple (chippers) exercise “WODs” each day according to CrossFit’s programming protocol. And just like CrossFit.com we would run a heavy load day at least once a week (i.e. 3 rep max on Deadlift) which people generally used as rest days. (Some of you older CFAMA’ers might remember the heavy load Wednesdays; notably the slowest day of the week.) We have since changed our program and here is why:
CrossFit.com is a website, not a gym. Although we are crossfitters, we recognize that unless an individual has come from an athletic/strength background, the weights/movements that are prescribed (Rx’d) for most CrossFit WODs are too heavy or too difficult. We also recognize that fitness is about stress and adaptation. As your body is stressed, so will it adapt. That means if all you do is conditioning work (high heartrate activities also known as met-cons) then your body will adapt to handling heartrate intensive activities. BUT No amount of conditioning is going to make you stronger. That is why strength training is needed to increase strength (e.g. stress/adaptation). Of course if you take a brand new person with no former strength background and start him/her doing daily CrossFit met-cons, the athlete’s body will respond with a positive adaptation. (This is true of any program that a completely untrained person may begin, whether it’s the latest and greatest from Muscle and Fitness, or even P-90X. A complete novice can increase their bench press by riding a bike.) However, over time the athlete will plateau and fail to continue to make progress. And the slight and random gains that were found are minimal compared to those that a regimented and directed program could have achieved. Furthermore, we have observed that athletes with previous training experience who were placed on a CrossFit-only program with no supplemental strength work will actually LOSE STRENGTH and overall performance will DETERIORATE over time. Consequently several of those same athletes also sustained over-use injuries.
We have seen the “plateau/deterioration/injury” scenario play out time and time again, not only in our athletes, but ourselves as well. Based on these observations we incorporated regimented strength work into our CrossFit programming and the results were phenomenal. Our athletes not only improved strength, but these changes also resulted in improved barbell technique (since they were working on movements repeatedly over time without the pressure of a conditioning clock), reduced soreness, less incident of injury, and faster CrossFit benchmark times. With the increase of raw strength, our athletes have discovered that the CrossFit exercises or prescribed weights that once seemed impossible were now manageable, if not, easy.
Despite the noticeable change in sentiment of CrossFit community over time, our gym still holds firm to our passion for increasing both performance and general health and fitness. We have a no-frills approach to strength training and we understand when and in what capacity conditioning is appropriate. Furthermore, our approach to nutrition is simple: consume foods high in protein, moderate carbohydrates, eat real food. No gimmicks, no false hype, no peddling or pushing products. Our trainers keep focused on the task at hand: MAKING YOU BETTER. Its that simple.