Crossfit has been around for almost 15 years now, and has gained a huge amount of traction in the fitness world in that time. It has also managed to attract a lot of people to strength and conditioning type work outs, people that typically might have spent a lot of time in spin classes or on a treadmill, are now giving dynamic resistance training a try.
So with 15 years of history under its belt, it seemed like a good time to review the benefits Crossfit can have on your life.
It should come as no surprise that doing a lot of strenuous exercise can have a positive effect on your body composition, so this study on Crossfit won’t shock you much. The study on 23 men and 20 women which spanned 10 weeks of crossfit style training, saw men decrease their bodyfat percentage by an average of 5%, and women saw a decrease of just over 3%. Which is great news for Crossfitters the world over, as losing weight is the #1 reason for people to take up exercising. However, lowering body fat was not the only positive benefit, as you’ll see in point 2.
V02max is essentially a measure of your aerobic capacity, or how well you could perform at endurance tasks. Crossfit is largely anaerobic exercise, but as the study shows, it will help you with endurance anyway. That is a great benefit, that you can improve your aerobic capacity by doing anaerobic exercise as that aerobic capacity will help you in all manner of pursuits outside of Crossfit such as recreational team sports. There is another team sport that it can help you with as well, which brings us to point 3.
It is official, Crossfit helps your sex life. In a study run by Match.com it was found that singles who do crossfit have more sex than singles who do any other form of exercise. And it wasn’t just sex, Crossfitters also went on more dates than singles who did any other form of exercise.
If you listen to the reasons behind it though, it all makes sense. Resistance exercises such as in Crossfit will raise testosterone levels in both men and women, and testosterone is said to be the single greatest aphrodisiac known to humankind. A Dr Fisher was quoted as saying “Testosterone is the hormone of sexual desire. It is the only true aphrodisiac.”
Add to that the decreased body fat and increased muscle mass, which will lead to greater body confidence, and you’ve got a great recipe for romantic team sports for two (or more).
Crossfit tends to go hand in hand with the Paleo diet, which has been shown across numerous clinical studies to improve basically every health marker we know is important. Not only that, but it is also delicious if you enjoy a good steak. Cutting out grains will be hard, but the health benefits are so numerous that it is worth the effort.
We’ve saved the most obvious for last, but it really is a doozy. Strength just helps your life. It will help your performance in basically every physical sport in existence, you’ll never meet a jar you can’t open, and moving house is all of a sudden a breeze. For parents the benefits are even more pronounced as you’re now carrying multiple children and shopping with ease, you don’t tire so easily playing games with the kids and every single physical activity you undertake is all of a sudden a bit easier. Strength doesn’t get enough of a mention with regards to quality of life, but the benefits are numerous.
So there you have it. In a nutshell Crossfit will help your strength, endurance, diet and your sex life. The one caveat is that you really need to be careful with your instructors, especially if you’re a beginner. Never fall into the ‘a rep at any cost’ mentality that some trainers espouse, as that is the short road to injury which leads to the long road to recovery.