Try This CrossFit West Yorkshire
Lucy Adlard tries an intense exercise course – perfect for those with new year's resolutions
Try This: CrossFit West Yorkshire
Other Recent Try This Articles
It’s the new year, you’ve eaten your weight in Quality Streets, you want to fit back into clothes that don’t have elasticated waists. Now you could go to the gym, fanny around on the treadmill, do a few sit ups and go home. Or, you could go hell for leather like we did and attend a session of CrossFit.
I’m not going to lie to you; it is not easy, not by any means, but it does the job. You will go away from it feeling like you have somehow done the work of about five hours in the gym in one (relatively) painless hour.
Held in a unit of an industrial estate, it may not look much from the outside but the inside it’s a fairly large space with mats and equipment and plenty of keen looking people ready to get going. I am greeted warmly by Rakesh, co-owner and head coach at CrossFit West Yorkshire who explains some of the principles behind CrossFit. He tells me: "the exercises at CrossFit are meant to mimic movements that you do in real life and are designed that anyone, no matter what ability or age can do them". Encouraged by this, I prepare myself for an hour of fairly moderate exercise.
We start with a warm up, some jogging, sprinting and jumping in pairs across the length of the room. So far, so manageable. Rakesh then explains that we will practice three different exercises and then for the final 15 minutes we will do these exercises in sets as many times as we can. The three exercises we are performing this session (they will change each time to challenge your body each session) are walking lunges on alternate legs, jumping up onto a wooden box with both feet and raising a bar with some small weights on above your head with a small dip (weight-lifting style).
We go through each exercise in quite a lot of detail, working with a partner to make sure we are getting it right. My partner came because her boyfriend had been coming for a while, and so she thought she would see what the fuss was about. Even only after coming for three weeks about three times a week, said she has noticed the difference already especially in her strength and stamina.
The final 15 minutes is where the real work comes. Working again in pairs we do alternate sets of each exercise and depending on ability you can decide to pick up more, or in my case, less of the slack. When it comes to the lunges my legs start to feel very jelly-like about half way through so my partner does 20 repetitions while I do ten.
This is probably the most intense exercise I have ever done and afterwards I feel absolutely shattered. But I also feel like I pushed myself a lot further than I would have ever done by myself.
CrossFit is certainly not for those who give up easily, you have to be determined and be prepared that your legs will hurt for a few days after. But for the right sort of person the challenge of it all and the people and instructors will make it worth the pain.
Memberships from £29-£59 per month. For more information go to www.crossfitwestyorkshire.com
Posted on Wednesday 11th January 2012
Sending you to Twitter, hold on... 
