Contents
CrossFit slows aging no matter how old you are
Training and exercise charts
It is not posture, nor is it focused only on young people; CrossFit benefits your body and mind regardless of where you are in your life
As the years pass, muscle mass is being lostas well as balance or agility. If you don’t work your strength, there will come a day when you bend down to pick something up off the ground and you won’t be able to get up again. At that moment you will have lost all independence and you will realize that there are things that you can no longer do and you will need someone by your side to help you continue with the daily routines that only a few years before you could do without any effort. But is it possible to stop this physical aging and fend for yourself until the end of your days? Yes if you do CrossFit.
Carlos Fernández, Crossfit Level 3 coach, has no doubt that this sport increases the quality of life and helps to prolong it. “There are many older people who are afraid of lying on the ground because afterwards they cannot get up. So doing an exercise like the ‘burpee’ is super useful: something as simple as if you fall you get up ”, he explains. Within this quality of life is the independence: not having to live in a residence or need to bring someone unknown at home to take care of you because you are on your own. Fernández points out that “if you don’t want someone to help you, you have to make an effort to maintain a certain strength and physical capacity.”
But it’s not just that. The simple fact of being able to play with your grandchildren, take them, take them to the park … Who does not want to do this regardless of how old they are? “What you do in the gym is not really to make you better at the gym, but to enjoy your life more for longer Or, at least, during the years of life that you have left, because you will have more strength, more endurance, more speed, more energy and that, in the end, for many is being able to be with the family and spend more time with the grandchildren “, Says the CrossFit trainer, who believes that in Spain it is not common for the elderly or that it is not well seen to do this type of sport:” They believe that it is better to walk or do a machine in the gym or simply accept that they are like this and that’s it ».
Fernández believes that the only way for a person over 50 to approach a CrossFit box is if someone close to him who practices it encourages him to try it, “if not unlikely.”
This is the case of Juan Antonio, a 72-year-old Galician who has been living in Malaga for half his life, who discovered this sport four years ago on the Internet and as a result of some co-workers who practiced it. Since then, he has done this discipline four or five days a week for approximately two or three hours, as he points out «makes you feel young». “Lately, I did not practice any specific sport, although that does not mean that I had a sedentary life. I used to, and usually do, walk a lot and in the summer I did, and still do, swimming, both on the beach and in the pool. I can say that I have been, in general, a very sporty person (mountaineering, athletics, windsurfing…) ”, he explains. With all this, he says that doing CrossFit has improved his level of health: “For years I have had two lumbar hernias that caused me a lot of back pain and sciatica. The truth is since I have been doing CrossFit the ailments have practically disappeared».
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Not only have Juan Antonio’s back problems improved, but also those of Patricia and Marcela, aged 52 and 53, respectively. Patricia, like Juan Antonio, has been practicing CrossFit for four years and has also always been quite an athlete. In her case, she was already a little tired of the directed classes in the gym and did not hesitate to try this sport when her coach opened a box in Almuñécar, Granada. «At the beginning I noticed a lot feeling of well-being, securityWell, over time you get used to having it », says Patricia. In addition, it has helped you correct your posture already solve low back pain problems that I used to have on a regular basis.
This sexitana would highlight the force who has won thanks to this sport: “I think strength for our age is the best you can do.” But these changes are not only noticeable on a physical level, but also on a psychological level: clear your mind and overcome your fears doing exercises that you thought you would not be able to do. “Start with the ‘wod’ –training of the day– and say ‘I’m going to do it and I’m going to be able to do it more than my mind,'” he says.
In Marcela’s case, she has been doing CrossFit for a short time, only 3 months, but enough to have changed her life. She began to practice this discipline thanks to the insistence of her son; he already did and knew it would benefit his mother both physically and psychologically. This Argentine was not a sportswoman and, in addition, she smoked. Since he’s at CrossFit has not tried a single cigarette again and he cannot even smell tobacco: he has exchanged one vice for another. “I love doing Crossfit, because you don’t realize what your body can do and give your physique until you do this sport,” he says. On the other hand, walk lighter, he no longer suffers from back or neck pain and walks with an upright posture. “It used to look like a turtle when it walked,” he laughs. “It is incredible the change that one takes in such a short time,” he declares.
Both women agree on the importance of CrossFit for people of their age, especially because of the loss of strength and muscle mass and bone and joint pain associated with the passing of the years. This loss of muscle mass and strength (sarcopenia) and bone pain due to the reduction of bone mass density (osteoporosis), are especially accentuated in women due to menopause.
What would a first day of class be like?
Carlos Fernández begins by having a conversation with his new students, he even provides them with questionnaires about their health to find out if they are taking medications, if they have any previous operations, etc. In short, talk about the past and present of that person to know their lifestyle and habits.
After this first contact, Carlos begins with a basic exercise: doing a squat with a box that is higher than your parallel. After 10 repetitions, the box will lower below your parallel and you will have to do another 10 repetitions. The next step will be to squat without a box. “It would be necessary to go little by little with the progressions and some would stay in the high box and others would finish the class doing the squat with a small weight, for example,” explains the trainer, who points out that with younger people there is a margin of much wider error, but after a certain age this margin is reduced and it is better to “err on the side of being overinsured” to avoid injuries.
Why is CrossFit so hooked?
«Without a doubt it is because of the community concept. The next day you don’t come back to do burpeesYou come back to see the people in the class and the teacher, and that’s the best a box can have. Because at the beginning when you are learning and everything is new, you get hooked, but there comes a time when you have mastered that and you come back for being with those people, with your community, ”concludes Carlos Fernández.