CrossFit: the ideal training for military and law enforcement

Functional training or cross-training, better known by its commercial name Crossfit, is a sport that combines different disciplines. Very comprehensive, this sport is frequently used in the preparation of military personnel, police officers and gendarmes. In this article, let's discover the history, values, physical and mental benefits as well as tips for starting crossfit without getting injured.

Summary:

• Presentation

  • History

  • Values

  • Lexicon

  • Session structure

• Benefits

  • Physical

  • Mental

• How to start crossfit?

  • Find a club

  • Tips for beginners

• VET SECURITE, your crossfit partner

Coming straight from the United States, crossfit was developed by Greg Glassman in the 1970s. With his wife Lauren, this former university gymnast transformed his garage into a training room and developed his program. In 1995, he opened his first CrossFit center and was hired to train the Santa Cruz police services. The commercial name CrossFit was registered in 2001.

In current crossfit practice, we find this "garage" aspect in training facilities as well as the appetite of law enforcement and military personnel for cross-training.

If CrossFit appeals so much to law enforcement and military personnel worldwide, it's not just for its health benefits. Indeed, crossfit shares common values with the military world, such as:

• Discipline,

• Team spirit,

• Self-improvement,

• Respect,

• Resilience. 

    

Like elite units, crossfit demands a commitment to excellence. The objective of this sport is to surpass oneself, give one's best and constantly seek improvement to achieve ever higher performance. Moreover, functional training allows for achieving harmonious musculature and working on cardiovascular endurance, essential assets for law enforcement and military missions.

An uninitiated person can quickly get lost the first time they enter a "box" to do their first "WOD", composed of exercises like "push-ups", "kipping", "snatch" or "pull-ups" to be performed in "AMRAP". Crossfit is a world apart! Fortunately, beginners are never left alone and will also end up adopting this vocabulary. Here's a small lexicon that can help novices see things more clearly:

• WOD: stands for "Workout of the Day". This is the daily training program offered in a CrossFit box.

• Box: The term "box" refers to the place where CrossFit is practiced, usually a training space dedicated to garage-like environments.

• AMRAP: stands for "As Many Rounds As Possible". It's a type of training where you must perform as many rounds as possible of a given set of exercises within a determined time frame.

• EMOM: stands for "Every Minute On the Minute". It's a training format where you must perform a certain number of repetitions of a given exercise each minute, using the rest of the time to recover.

• Reps: abbreviation for "repetitions". This refers to the number of times you perform a specific exercise.

• RX: abbreviation for "as prescribed". When you perform an RX workout, it means you're doing it according to official standards and recommended weights for that exercise.

• PR: stands for "Personal Record". This refers to your best personal performance on a given exercise.

• Metcon: abbreviation for "Metabolic Conditioning". This is a type of intense training aimed at improving cardiovascular and muscular endurance.

• Kipping: technique used for gymnastics movements, such as pull-ups or muscle-ups. It consists of a combination of swings and explosive movements to generate momentum and facilitate exercise execution.

• Snatch: weightlifting movement where you lift the barbell from the ground to overhead in one fluid motion.

• Clean and Jerk: weightlifting movement that consists of lifting the bar from the ground to the shoulders (clean) then pushing it overhead (jerk).

• Wall Ball: exercise where you throw a "medicine ball" against a wall, then catch it and repeat the movement.

• Double-Unders: jump rope exercise where the rope passes twice under your feet with each jump.

    

Every day, crossfit practitioners learn about the "WOD" imagined by the coach. Always present, the certified trainer ensures session safety which generally takes place in groups, fostering camaraderie and team spirit. A "Workout of the Day" generally includes:

• a warm-up to prepare the body for the upcoming effort ;

• technical work to learn / improve a movement or skill ;

• the main workout which consists of chaining a set of exercises intensely;

• a cool down to bring the body back to a resting state and facilitate recovery.

For each session, modified versions of movements are offered to adapt to each participant's level.

Functional training provides numerous health benefits for the practitioner. By nature, cross-training aims to improve all aspects of physical fitness.

Among the physical benefits provided by crossfit, we find for example:

• Increase in power and speed : sprints, jumps, weightlifting movements like the snatch or clean and jerk.

• Improvement in coordination and balance : single-leg squat, handstand walks, etc.

• Improvement in cardiovascular endurance: running, rowing, cycling, jump rope, etc.

• Improvement in muscular endurance through movement repetition.

• Increase in bone density and joint strengthening.

• Reduction in body fat and increase in muscle mass.

• Increase in strength, particularly through weightlifting movements with progressive load increases.

As you can see, crossfit allows you to achieve a complete physique that will serve you in all aspects of daily life.

Regular crossfit practice brings, like many other sports, multiple benefits for your mental health :

• Improvement in mental resilience : ability to persevere, face adversity, overcome obstacles, etc.

• Improvement in self-esteem and self-confidence.

• Improvement in discipline : maintaining a routine, setting goals and achieving them, enduring fatigue and discomfort, etc.

• Improvement in concentration : listening to the coach, correctly reproducing exercises, remembering movement sequences, etc.

• Improvement in stress management.

Practicing intense physical activity like functional training releases endorphins that act as natural painkillers and provide a feeling of well-being. A crossfit session can also allow you to forget daily stress and offer yourself a "mental break".

The first thing to do to start crossfit is to find a crossfit box near you. By finding the environment that suits you best, you'll be able to progress quickly. Coaches, as well as other practitioners, will give you good advice and tips that will allow you to discover new crossfit exercises and improve your personal records. And, as an African proverb says "Alone, we go faster, together, we go further".

Crossfit can have the bad reputation of causing muscle injuries and tendon injuries. However, if you follow a few guidelines, this discipline is no more traumatic than any other.

• Start slowly : to avoid injuries, start with a maximum of three to four sessions per week lasting 45 minutes to an hour. Warm up properly before starting the WOD and adapt the loads to your level.

• Ask for advice : if you're performing a technical movement for the first time, ask the coach to check proper execution of the movement and, if necessary, correct your posture.

• Promote recovery: forget "no pain, no gain" because without recovery there's no progress. Try to adopt a healthy lifestyle, hydrate properly and especially sleep well.

VET SECURITE supports associations and sports challenges, particularly crossfit boxes and events. You can find some of the projects we've had the pleasure of supporting on our sponsoring page.

Also find a wide selection of products for athletes : clothing, sports shoes, accessories as well as a complete range for women !