This one’s going out to our older generations, but we all need to read it. If you’re in your 60’s or 70’s, this is urgent news. If you’re in your 40’s like me, this is maybe a rude awakening – you’re getting old, bro! – and also a call to action.
Imagine yourself way beyond what we would call our “athlete years”, in your 80’s. What do you look like? What do you feel like? Are you going on cool vacations to Hawaii, or Iceland? Are you sitting on the couch every day because you can’t get up and do anything else? Are you looking forward to those years, or dreading them?
CrossFit started as a workout regimen for the Fittest on Earth, to become – Fittest-er? Greg Glassman moved from training his local gymnastics squad to training the Santa Cruz police force to training Navy SEALs and it blew up from there. It blew up for a reason – because it’s AWESOME. But I realize as I type this that not everyone thinks it’s awesome for the same reasons that I think it is. We have barbells and protein shakes and pull-up bars. Most other gyms or fitness routines do not. They have machines, and tight-fitting shorts, and saunas. All very cool, mind you – but not the best overall plan if you want to become and stay fit into your 80’s, 90’s, and beyond!
Here are a couple of reasons why you should do CrossFit as you get older:
CrossFit makes you strong, and the opposite of strong is weak.
Going back to your earlier visualization of your older years. What do you look like? Are you strong?
We train with barbells and dumbbells and sandbags and all kinds of fun stuff because getting strong and staying strong is super important as we all get older. It’s as simple as this – if you’re not strong, you’re weak.
CrossFit makes you functionally strong.
I know lots of older people who go to the gym on a regular basis, but are not fit in the way that I would hope they would be. Can they walk for 50 minutes on a treadmill? Yes. Can they pick up their 50-pound dog that needs to go to the vet? Absolutely not. At a CrossFit gym, we train endurance, like walking, rowing, biking. But we also train other functional movements so that we can all stay functionally healthy. Squats, presses, pulls. Can you imagine not being able to do that stuff in your regular life?
Thanks for reading, and for passing this on to your friends and loved ones – let’s all get more fit and strong as we get older!!
Ryan