Crossfit Craze

Twenty-five sit-ups. Twenty-five burpees. Twenty-five single arm kettebell overhead lunges. All done in rapid succession, pausing on the minute to do five “wall balls” which involves a front squat and a medicine ball.

And that’s just the pre-workout designed to stimulate your nervous system. Or, the “buy in” as Level One Certified CrossFit Coach Robert “Robo” Mantovani calls it.

CrossFit, or cross-training, is a style of fitness that combines cardio, weight lifting and core training to promote general fitness in contrast to specialized training. The workouts are short, intense and varied. One day it might be pull-ups and back extensions; the next it might be deadlifts.

“I used to do a lot of triathlons,” says Mantovani. “People get stuck in thinking that more is better. They run 5 miles, then they want to run 8, then it’s 10. There is such a thing as over training. There is a point of diminishing return.”