CrossFit means a lot of different things to different people, and each affiliate has their own take on the CrossFit experience.  How do you know what affiliate to choose, and what makes ours unique?

Each affiliate takes a slightly different focus and each community takes on a unique character.  Some cater specifically to the large subsections of CrossFit athletes, such as soldiers, or firefighters, or police officers, and the professional backgrounds of those athletes set the tone for the workout experience.  Some are more general, “come one come all”; some are ultra-macho, some are soft, some require you to be fit when you start, some don’t — there’s a wide range even just here in little ol’ Connecticut, and we encourage you to find the one that suits you best.

Here at CrossFit Central CT, we fall into the “come one, come all” category, and we take great pride in the fact that new members always report how comfortable they are with the trainers and with the other members.  The workouts aren’t for everyone, perhaps, but we feel (and most importantly, the members feel) that the environment is.  We have soldiers, we have accountants, we have firefighters, we have at least one graphic designer.  Sure, you do a lot of work when you step through our doors, but with the other members giving encouragement and the trainers giving you feedback on what you’re doing right as well as what you’re doing wrong, it will be a lot of fun, too.  Friendships form quickly…it’s hard not to bond with people you work so hard with.

The workout of the day is written out on the board at the front of the room, and it’s the first thing everybody looks for when they come in.  And often, no matter how long you’ve been here, it can seem impossible!  Imagine how great it is to do the impossible as many times a week as you like.  It’s a good feeling, and all the CrossFit Central CT members feel it at some time or another.  There’s always someone drenched in sweat and heaving for breath who manages to gasp out, “that was a good one!”

But it isn’t all doing the impossible here either.  There are days you will come in where you are really sore, or have a game to play later, or have to go to a meeting in 45 minutes, where we will encourage you to do something — always do something — but you don’t have to kill yourself.  We believe strongly that a body needs rest, it needs to recover, and there are 23 more hours of real life outside our door, and we pay attention to our members to see where they are and make sure that enthusiasm isn’t getting in the way of their long-term development.  We especially take the potential for injuries seriously– we take everything seriously, even while we are having fun.

Which brings me to something else that sets us apart — I’ve been a personal trainer for a twenty years, I started using CrossFit myself five years ago and started training people in CrossFit full time three years ago.  In this fairly new discipline, that makes me something of a geezer.  But that all adds up to experience; experience in how the body works, how motivation works, how the mind works, how exercise and nutrition work.  And that experience is available to you whenever you decide to become a CrossFit Central CT member.  I want you to succeed, no matter where you’re starting from, and if you walk through our door–and keep walking through the door–I can help you do just that.