Crossfit Gyms: Training That Tests Your Mettle

Jan. 8, 2016

No frills CrossFit gyms across northern Michigan bear little resemblance to typical athletic clubs — no shiny rows of Nautilus equipment, no televisions, no mirrors or saunas, no one wears headphones.

This is about short, intense workouts. In fact, franchises like TC Total CrossFit and ColdFront CrossFit in Traverse City and CrossFit Petoskey aren’t even called gyms at all. They are known as “boxes,” a corporate designation that makes one thing clear: this is a place for people who are dead serious about getting in shape. The industrial motif sets the mood. Many of the exercises are decidedly low tech. Classes don’t drag. The point is to exercise intensely in carefullydesigned, short routines.

All of that can be intimidating. Add uber-fit coaches like Dempsey Van Timmeren or her husband Trevor, owners of Cold Front; Christine Watts, co-owner of TC Total CrossFit; or Jon Jansen, former Michigan football captain, NFL lineman and 2015 nominee for the NFL Hall of Fame, co-owner of CrossFit Petoskey, who can, as his coowner Jeff Smith says, “get a bit intense,” and it’s easy to forgive people who decide they aren’t up to the challenge.

One set of exercises employed by some CrossFit athletes has become known as the “Murph” in honor of fallen Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Patrick Murphy, who died on a mission in Afghanistan in 2005. Lt. Murphy’s workout consisted of a mile run followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats and another mile on the track — while wearing 25 pounds of body armor. Who can blame someone for asking, “is this for me?” The Van Timmerens and Watts acknowledge that CrossFit attracts high-performance athletes, including wrestlers, boxers and football players at the high school and collegiate levels. It is also home to competitive weightlifters, but local trainers, many of whom compete regionally and nationally, contend that CrossFit works for anyone.

“Anyone interested in being fit can benefit, from the grandmother to the firefighter,” said Watts. “It applies to any sport, but also works if your only interest is in moving your body and being fit.”

Dempsey Van Timmeren said the key is adjusting the three types of workout routines — “aerobic conditioning to get your heart pumping, gymnastics for flexibility and weightlifting to improve strength” — to an individual’s baseline abilities, with modifications made for any chronic problems like weak knees or a bad ankle.

“You exercise to your ability,” she said.

“You are competing against yourself.”

Success, she explained, is achieved by improving your physical performance.

“If you do more than before, that’s a win and everyone is excited for you. You have your own, personal victories.”

CrossFit trainers aim for what is termed “functional fitness,” utilizing movements that are transferrable to real life activities.

“People see workouts on TV and that can be very intimidating,” Watts said, “but remember, those folks are on TV because they’re the best of the best. Everyone who comes to CrossFit starts with the building blocks and the guidance of good trainers. Then they build at their own pace. We modify programs as needed for ability level.”

The emphasis is clearly on constant improvement. Better aerobic fitness, more flexibility and heavier weights are measurable, but they are not seen as end points. Instead, they are the moving parts of a never-ending process of becoming ever more fit. And, with CrossFit, no one can ever be too fit.

Van Timmeren explained it this way. “If you run 30 minutes every day, after a while, you stop seeing benefits. Your body has hit a plateau.”

Another important aspect of CrossFit takes place, quite literally, outside the box: an emphasis on healthy eating.

“CrossFit is more than what you do during a workout,” Watts explained. “It’s about living a healthy lifestyle. We encourage improving your diet. You have to eat right to make your body function properly. That means eating healthy, whole foods, avoiding sugars and simple carbs and eating the right kind of protein. If you want to be healthy, you have to eat clean.”

“It’s consistent with the Atkins [diet],” said Smith of CrossFit Petoskey. “That means more lean meats, some fruit, lots of vegetables and staying away from processed foods.”

Both Watts and the Van Timmerens said that, while many of the benefits of the CrossFit regimen are physical and easy to measure — greater endurance, fewer work-related aches and pains, more lean muscle — at some point those who stick with the program begin to see a positive mental change.

“It’s something we coaches love to watch:

people transforming who they are,” Watts said. “I’ve seen people who are shy, lacking confidence, and watched them turn into a confident, strong willed people. CrossFit is the only thing I’ve ever seen that has that kind of effect.”