Students and faculty members now have the opportunity to increase their physical performance through CrossFit Sessions led by English instructor Brian Ellender.
Ellender has scheduled sessions every Wednesday until Nov. 16 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. in the dance studio on the second floor of Shaver Gymnasium, and he welcomes everyone to participate.
So what is CrossFit? What makes it different than other workouts? According to an article entitled “What is CrossFit?” in The CrossFit Journal, CrossFit is a strength and conditioning system built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional movements executed at high intensity.
CrossFit does not focus solely on strength. Instead, it focuses on 10 recognized general physical skills to make the perfect, all-around athlete: endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.
“Each of those give you another piece of the puzzle,” Ellender said. “If you’re really strong, but you can’t tie your shoelaces because you’re not flexible, that’s a problem. If you are an athlete, you need a mix of everything.”
According to Ellender, CrossFit offers a different workout every class, which teaches total fitness. He will teach basic exercises such as proper push-ups as well as more advanced movements involving weights if participants are interested.
“There is a bank of like 100 different exercises, and we just pull them out and mix that up,” he said. “Sometimes we will run a 5k, but the next day, you’ll be deadlifting or doing something else.”
A big factor in CrossFit is the fact that workouts do not need to last long, but they need to be intense. The workouts can also be modified for all fitness levels.
“If you were to come here, we would give you a 45-pound weight bar for the actual workout,” Ellender said as he turned his attention to some cleaning supplies in the corner of the room. “If you brought your grandmother here, we’d give her that broomstick. That’s a piece of CrossFit equipment right there.”
The first CrossFit session was on Wednesday, Sept. 14 and consisted of only a handful of people, but Ellender said he expects more people to show up over the next few weeks.
Linda Stanga, English instructor, began CrossFit two years ago, and she was one of the few members of this semester’s first class.
“I absolutely love it, and I wish I could do it every day,” Stanga said.
She went on to say that she began looking for something to strengthen her muscles after seeing her mother and sister fall.
“Even though I’ve exercised most of my life, I’m feeling less agile, and I don’t want to fall down,” she said as she began to laugh. “If I do fall, I want to be able to get back up gracefully.”
Another person at the first session was Olabisi Akingbola, nursing sophomore from Nigeria.
“For me the toughest thing is pushups,” Akingbola said. “It’s something I never did because I always thought it was for guys.”
This is Akingbola’s first semester in CrossFit, but she has worked out with Ellender before.
“The easiest thing is having Mr. Ellender here to encourage me and get me to keep going,” she said. “I’ve tried a couple of times and stopped, but he just kept telling me to keep going.”
