I've played sports my entire life, as I enjoy competing and staying physically active. I am one of those people that need to go to the gym for my own sanity. I've tried many workouts along the way, everything from power lifting to crafting my own workouts by reading Muscle & Fitness. They all required at least an hour of my time each gym trip. That is, until I found CrossFit.

I love everything about CrossFit. Where do I start? Well first of all let me quickly and simply break down the philosophy. You work out for an average of 20 minutes with each workout. But you work out extremely hard for that 20 minutes or so. Higher intensity for a shorter amount of time. This concept was very hard for me to accept at first. The owner of my gym is a certified CrossFit instructor and had tried to get me into CrossFit for months before I ever gave it a try. I just thought there was no way I could get the same benefits I was already getting in that amount of time. I now get more. I kid you not.

I love that their website provides you with a daily workout for free. They don't try and sell you anything at crossfit.com. You don't have to join one of those expensive CrossFit gyms that have structured classes if you don't want to. All the workouts are laid out for you on the website and they provide video demonstrations of most exercises. They list a recommended weight for each exercise in each day's workout. Just keep in mind that the recommended weights are for a stronger, younger, athletic male. So scale down (or up) the weight as you need to. A lot of women are doing crossfit and have to do this all the time.

The other concept of CrossFit is that you're sort of racing against the clock. It's recommended you time each workout and document each one with a date and time. The workouts are eventually repeated and you're always looking for PRs (Personal Record). There's a dry erase board at my gym with tons of CrossFit workouts listed, with names and times underneath each one. For someone like me who is competitive, this gives you such an extra drive to power through a workout (my name is listed first under a lot of those workouts, just sayin).

CrossFit for me is funny, I absolutely hate it when I'm doing it but love it afterwards. I just love the feeling I get from it. I used to play football in high school and college and haven't worked out this hard since. I feel like a high- conditioned athlete again. I'm in the best shape of my life. I obviously highly recommend CrossFit, if you're gonna give it a shot just keep in mind to start off slow. There is a dangerous condition called rhabdo that has occured in a very small group of people who didn't take that advice. So start slow, learn how to do the excercises properly first before starting with any daily workouts. Cross over, you'll be happy you did!

More From The Moose 94.7 FM