Definitely. The CrossFit program is based upon the fact that your needs and the Olympic athlete's differ by degree, not kind. Increased power, strength, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, coordination, agility, balance, and coordination are each important to the world's best athletes and to our grandparents. It's amazing that the very same training methods that elicit optimal response in the Olympic or professional athlete will optimize the same response in the elderly.

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We recommend three distinct approaches for beginning the CrossFit Program:

1) If you are largely familiar with intense exercise, then starting with Group Class setting is a perfect place to start. If you've had exposure to Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and gymnastics, this is the recommended approach to beginning the CrossFit Program. This is often the best starting approach for athletes with an extensive experience in athletic strength and conditioning - jump right in. Your CrossFit Trainer will determine your readiness during your Initial Fitness Assessment.

2) If some or many of the exercises are unfamiliar to you and you are only modestly acquainted with elite athletic training, then we recommend that you enlist in Personal Training Sessions with a CrossFit Trainer until you are ready for the Group Class setting. Your CrossFit Trainer will help develop your skills and fitness level to participate in the CrossFit Program, completely.

3) If many or most exercises are relatively or completely unknown to you, then we recommend that you begin learning the movements for a month or two through the Elements Training and Personal Training Sessions until you can either perform our common exercises or have substitutions worked out for those movements under development. This is a great place to begin for anyone with little or no experience with serious weightlifting or gymnastics.

CrossFit uses the bare essentials to complete functional training. This is reflected by the functionality and limited number of our exercises and the simplicity of the equipment we use compared to most commercial gyms.

In any case, it must be understood that CrossFit workouts are extremely demanding and will tax the capacities of even the world's best athletes. CrossFit Trainers will ensure that you carefully and cautiously work towards completing the workouts comfortably and consistently before "throwing" yourself at them 100%. We will counsel you to establish consistency with the workouts before maximizing intensity.

We do things in an endless variety of drills. Jumping, medicine ball throws and catches, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, handstands, presses to handstand, pirouettes, kips, cartwheels, muscle-ups, sit-ups, scales, holds, the clean & jerk, snatch, squat, deadlift, push-press, bench-press, and power-clean. We make regular use of running and rowing machines, Olympic weight sets, rings, parallel bars, free exercise mat, horizontal bar, plyometric boxes, medicine balls, and jump ropes.

There isn't a strength and conditioning program anywhere that works with a greater diversity of tools, modalities, and drills.

According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, an athlete is a "person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring strength, agility, or stamina".

The CrossFit definition of an athlete is a bit tighter. The CrossFit definition of an athlete is "a person who is trained or skilled in strength, power, balance, and agility, flexibility, and endurance". The CrossFit model holds "fitness", "health", and "athleticism" as strongly overlapping constructs. For most purposes, they can be seen as equivalents.

Can I achieve optimal health without being an "athlete"?

Nope. Athletes experience a protection from the ravages of aging and disease that non-athletes never find. For instance, 80-year-old athletes are stronger than non-athletes in their prime at 25 years old. If you think that strength isn't important, consider that strength loss is what puts people in nursing homes. Athletes have greater bone density, stronger immune systems, less coronary heart disease, reduced cancer risk, fewer strokes, and less depression than non-athletes.

So, bottom line, become an athlete today.