Fitness should be accessible and available to everyone. Unfortunately not everyone knows how to work out or improve their fitness levels beyond what they could do themselves. There are many different fitness services out there that's available to the general public, including personal training, bootcamp classes, yoga, pilates, aquafit, or even a gym membership.
In this article, I will explore the pros and cons of each of these modalities and explain what is the best option. Personal training would be the best option because a trainer can assess your fitness levels and prescribe a workout program that's suitable for you. However, personal training is very expensive, ranging from $50-$100/session. Unfortunately, that is not very affordable for a single mom, student, or anyone with a minimum wage job who still needs to get fit.
A more economical option would be to join some sort of bootcamp class. These classes are becoming much more popular as more and more classes are popping up all over the city. It is much more affordable than personal training. However, in my experiences, I have seen too many people being asked to do exercises outside of their physical capacities and also too many people doing the exercises with poor mechanics.
Yoga and pilates are also two great ways to increase flexiblity, core strength, and coordination. However, they don't train for real world enviroments (ground reaction, momentum, fast eccentic movements, 360 degrees of freedom), they also don't train for functional movement patterns you see in everyday life and sport, high intensity and power movements.
A gym membership costs anywhere between $20-$100 a month, however, you are basically on your own without any expert advice. If you don't know how to work out. Good luck because you won't be seeing any results.
That leaves us with CrossFit. CrossFit is cheaper than personal training and can provide a lot more. A CrossFit Coach is more qualified than the average personal trainer. I say this because I have learned a lot about improving one's fitness form CrossFit than I have from any University Professor, Physiotherapist, or Personal Trainer I have ever met. CrossFit focuses more on form and mechanics than any other fitness program I've ever come across and I've tried them all! The cheapest personal trainer you can find will cost you $50/hour. For $150, you get 3 sessions. CrossFit classes are $150/month for unlimited classes.
You won't get any added benefit with any modality that you won't get from CrossFit. CrossFit trains for maximum specific movement strength, endurance, total body coordination, flexibility, rehabilitation, core strength, gymnastics, and everything in between!
But personal training will give you a tailored workout that CrossFit won't.
Wrong, CrossFit can be universally scaled to your fitness ability. We have the elderly and Olympic athletes in the same program. We can scale the exercise, load, and intensity according to your capacity.
With all these considerations, it's amazing how so many people are still working with personal trainers when they can be working with CrossFit coaches who are better trainers with proven, better programs, and more cost effective!
2 comments:
What a silly article. A cross fit coach can get certified in 2 days. Nice! lol
You are correct. Allow me to explain myself. Yes, just because you have a Crossfit certification (which is just a piece of paper that everyone who registers gets after 2 days) doesn't mean that you are a qualified trainer. If it came across differently in the article, then I am mistaken.
However, the amount of free information that you can get from the Crossfit website and the Crossfit journal is more than enough for a foundation to become a good trainer. Furthermore, the CrossFit principles and methodology form a strong base on the path of being a good trainer. CrossFit has the most accessible information on biomechanics and how to learn the proper mechanics on almost every functional exercise (squat, deadlift, press, etc.).
I've been through 5 years of learning kinesiology at UBC and 2 different personal trainer certifications (CSEP and BCRPA). From my experience, I have learned more from studying the free information (articles, videos) on the Crossfit.com website and from the 2 day Crossfit Level 1 cert than my education at UBC or my 2 CPT certs. The information I'm talking about is practical knowledge, knowledge that can applied to training other people, teaching them proper movement mechanics, and what exactly clients need to do to get fit.
Finally, although anyone can get a CrossFit Level 1 Cert in two days. The Level 2 Cert is much more reliable as only 40% of registrants pass the first time. You actually get tested on teaching the 9 fundamental movements.
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