Pain, misery, suffering: CrossFit Warren

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Brooke Brzozowske
  • 90th Missile Wing Public Affairs
F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. --  The CrossFit Warren program on F.E. Warren builds warriors by teaching and training members the ability to tackle almost any physical task.

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program used to train police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists and many other elite and professional athletes.

"CrossFit is about GPP -- General Physical Preparedness, or having the ability to tackle almost any physical challenge," said Staff Sgt. Mike Donohue, 90th Logistics Readiness Squadron and Crossfit lead trainer. "No explanation is needed as to why that's important to our military occupation."

Sergeant Donohue has been training with CrossFit for more than two years. In May 2009, he received his CrossFit Certification in Golden, Colo., and brought the program to Warren with three other trainers.

"This training is full body, with no real isolation movements or exercises," he said. "The best metaphor I know how to describe CrossFit is like an orchestra practice. You don't separate each of the instruments into their own rooms and then bring them together in the end to see how they play. No, you train them all together. The same goes for our muscles; they work better and the results are greater when they train together. "

"There are no typical workouts," he explained. "That's part of the attraction. CrossFit is 1) Constantly varied; 2) Functional (full body) movements executed at; 3) High intensity. The workouts are on a three day on, one day off rotation."

"When we go to the sandbox, we have no idea what situation could arise at any given time," he explained. "We might be asked to move a load of weight from one place to another very quickly, or we might even need to run for cover while avoiding various obstacles. CrossFit is a program that will give you the ability to do all of the above and not just one of them."

"For example, take a power-lifter and a marathoner and put them in those situations," he continued. "The power-lifter might be able to move a lot of weight from one place to another, but ask him to run for two miles, and I think you would get a look of defeat.

"The marathoner might be able to run and avoid some obstacles or run for 10 miles, but ask him to move 100 lbs 50 ft, and he might run the other direction. Point taken. We as CrossFitter's, and especially military personnel, should not specialize. We should try to be pretty good in all areas of fitness."

One of the many draws to CrossFit is that there is no prerequisite for skill level. Every workout is scalable to the individual's level of fitness, with a focus on improvement. This makes the workout available to any person ready to begin or improve upon their current physical fitness.

"I can now do kipping pull-ups, or a pull-up with a swinging hip motion," said 2nd Lt. Christin Brodie, 90th Logistics Readiness Squadron and regular CrossFitter. "When I first started, I had to use the bands. Now, I think I'm more defined than ever and find myself capable of doing more and more physically."

The physical requirements, in addition to smart food intake, makes for a successful program. It's important to keep intake to levels that will support the physical demands of exercise but not body fat, Sergeant Donohue stated.

"We have 23 other hours in a day to screw up all that work and effort we put in for an hour a day," he said. "That's way too easy to do. That's why the nutrition part of CrossFit is just as, if not more important, than the actual workouts."

"One of our best results story involved a guy that dedicated himself hard to Crossfit for a little over three weeks," said Sergeant Donohue. "By the time we took his measurements, he had dropped from 203 to 182 lbs, trimmed off over two inches on his waist and pushed his 1.5 mile run time from 15:27 to 12:56."

"It is a community of suffering, of sorts," he laughed. "We have all ages, skills and ranks that join us in these few minutes each training day.

"It feels good to come in here and see other people struggle and finish through the same obstacles. The feeling you get after finishing is nothing short of an adrenaline rush."

The CrossFit team meets between 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. every scheduled training weekday and 10:30 a.m. on weekends in Warren Freedom Hall by the stairs leading to the cardio room. For more information and to view the CrossFit Workout of the Day, visit www.crossfit/warren.com.