The popular new sport Crossfit defines itself as the sport of fitness.
“It’s huge now. It was developed in 1995 by Greg Glassman in California. He was fed up with training regimes and took the best from powerlifting, gymnastics and endurance training,” said Jeremy Meredith, a former welding inspector, who started Crossfit to help train in martial arts three-and-a-half years ago.
“I was so impressed with the results that it was all I wanted to do. It’s constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity.”
He liked the sport so much that he got certified as a trainer in 2009, opened a business, CrossFit Vernon, last summer, and has been competing in Canada for two years. His goal is to go to the Crossfit World Games in July.
He also has his national coaching certificate in Olympic weightlifting.
The CrossFit program is used by police academies, for training for firefighters, military special operation units and professional athletes.
The CrossFit program includes cardio and respiratory endurance, stamina, physical strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, co-ordination and accuracy.
Each are of fitness is measurable. The same program, scaled for load and intensity can be used for people of all ages and physical conditions.
Merdith’s gym looks simple — weightlifting equipment and some bars and rings hanging from the ceiling. Then he shows what he can do with them. At 24, he’s at the top of the sport but people of all ages do CrossFit for health and competition in various age categories.
“Many people like CrossFit for general fitness. People have a lot of weaknesses in general fitness but anyone can do it,” said Meredith.
“My dad is 63 and he’s doing it to help recover from an operation.
“People start without having done anything in fitness.”
CrossFitness gyms require that people do an introductory course to learn how to do the basic movements safely and correctly. After that, they can do as much as they want and it is a year-round sport.
“It’s infinitely scalable. There is always something you do better. The movements can even be adapted for people in wheelchairs. There’s always a challenge,” said Meredith.
“This is what I love to do. It makes me happy to see people coming in here, some of them every day and getting in better shape. They say they feel better, look better and lose weight. It’s all pretty rewarding.
“I took a leap to make the business happen and I’m going to keep competing. It’s like competing in any other sport, you have to be focused in your sport and dedicated to following your sleep, diet and training plan.”
