Natural Health Tips

Posts Tagged ‘Exercise’

What do the names Fran, Helen, Eva, and Murph mean to average person?  Probably not much unless you are one of growing number of people throughout the world that associate those four names with Crossfit workouts that produce nothing less than bittersweet agony. Crossfit is a fitness sensation that is growing in popularity all over the world. Crossfitters, as they are known to each other, can go to the Crossfit Headquarters website at Crossfit.com or to the popular social network CrossFixx.com to obtain a new workout everyday. All the workouts are free on Crossfit.com.  No membership or registration fees, simply one workout a day ready for any takers.

Fran, Helen, Eva, and Murph are just a small sampling of different Crossfit workouts.  Unlike routine gym workouts from a personal trainer or magazine, Crossfit workouts are commonly named. There are the girls, such as the ones mentioned, plus others including Annie, Nicole, and Linda.  Along with the girls are the heroes that include the likes of Murph, Ryan, DT, and JT. Several other workouts are named as well.  Named workouts that are not one of the girls or a hero include “Tabata Something Else” and “Twins”. Naming the workouts is more than just designating one combination of exercises from another; the names are part of the Crossfit culture and mystique. Crossfitters from all over the world know what is meant by “What is your Fran time?” Translated, this is asking how long it takes to complete the workout Fran.

How long it takes? Timing a workout? Yes, that is correct.  With Crossfit, the majority of workouts are for time. The idea of timing the workouts is the genius of the concept. With most weight training regimens, the rep schemes may be predetermined as well as the weight.  However the time to complete the three sets of ten for example has a loose standard or any at all. Crossfit workouts are standardized for benchmarking. Someone completing the dreaded, yet popular, Fran workout would complete reps of twenty-one, then fifteen, and then nine of thrusters and pull-ups. That is, the person would complete twenty-one thrusters and then twenty-one pull-ups before moving on to fifteen thrusters.

While the worlds of sports and fitness are intertwined, it was not until the 1970s that popular culture was prepared to accept fitness as enthusiastically as it had accepted sports. Fitness had not yet taken on its significance for improving health, and well-liked opinion likened fitness to work and manual work. In the 1940s and 1950s, few participated in fitness happily. Among those who did were Jack LaLanne, Victor Tanny, Joseph Gold, Joseph Weider, and Les and Abbye’Pudgy’ Stockton.

These fitness pioneers, among others, drew folks to the beach in Santa Monica, California-the original Muscle Beach. Visitors came to look at their deeds of strength and acrobatic displays. More and more viewers became participants, and these folk, originally on the fringe, became part of the cultural conventional.

Venice Beach in the 1970s brought with it a fitness explosion across the globe. Not only did bodybuilding become conventional, but the favored opinion of fitness changed dramatically.

Sports and athletics grew in the 1970s too. A landmark law was passed in 1972. Not only were women becoming more active and more physically fit, a law now existed that requested equal funding and equal opportunity for female sportsmen. On 21 Sep 1973, female tennis star Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the very first winner-take-all’Battle of the Sexes’ tennis match. The hoopla surrounding this event-and its outcome-provided even more motivation for women to become involved with sports and fitness. By 1977, a record 87.5 million U.S.