What Are The Benefits Of CrossFit And Is It Safe?
The craze to stay fit is gaining popularity and CrossFit is an addition to the same. Understanding it in simpler terms CrossFit is a series of exercises that are intense and high on power and intended to give you a strong benefit in the quest to keep your weight under control.
CrossFit exercises include Olympic weightlifting, plyometric jumping, kettlebells, and other heavyweight forms. Here we share with you some CrossFit benefits that make it so popular.
1. Improve Strength
All the exercises propagated in CrossFit involve high-intensity workouts which eventually improve the physical strength of your body.
If you add additional weight to these workouts you may add to the stress to your muscles which in the end leads to muscle gain.
Apart from that if you diligently practice the workout of the day you are able to get a variety of exercises that tends to benefit your workout program.
2. Increases Aerobic Fitness
The high-intensity power training that is a part of CrossFit helps you to increase the amount of oxygen that you get to utilize during the exercise.
However, there is no solid evidence to prove this fact. It needs more research to be able to prove that CrossFit benefits the aerobic fitness of a person.
3. Agility And Flexibility In The Body
CrossFit exercises are usually movements that we normally use in our day to day life. Movements like Kettlebells, squats, and overhead presses actually provide strength, agility, and flexibility to the body.
As your age increases the continuous use of CrossFit helps in reducing the risk to get injured and thus improve the quality of your life.
4. Burning Calories And Reducing Weight
CrossFit workouts are able to help you burn more calories than any other workout regime that is possible. An average male or female is able to burn 15 to 18 or 13 to 15 calories per minute respectively.
Later on also as your body starts to cool down you may continue burning extra calories. However, if you intend to lose weight too then you must follow it with control on your diet too.
5. Is CrossFit Safe For You?
CrossFit, as we have mentioned before, is a high-intensity workout. Therefore whenever you increase the load there is always the risk of the injury happening. Some of the major injuries you may face are:
- Knee injuries
- Tennis elbow
- Pain in the lower back
- Achilles tendonitis
- Rotator cuff tendonitis
In case you are new to the CrossFit thing than it is advisable to take help from a trained professional. If you are using the wrong form or hurry from one exercise to another, chances are you are going to face an injury soon.
Apart from that the beginners should start at a slow pace and increase the weights slowly so that your fitness improves gradually.
CrossFit cannot be practiced by everyone. If a female becomes pregnant and has been doing CrossFit she will have to contact her doctor to know if it is fine to continue.
In case you have planned to start but become pregnant you should delay your plan. For those who are above 65, it is wise to consult a doctor before starting the CrossFit regime.
