Crossfit Chooses Brunel
The company has hired the centre as an ideal place to set up a number of high performance pieces of sports equipment, utalising this world class facility for the highly publicised event. Home to many British national athletes and UK Athletics internationals, CrossFit decided that the IAC catered for all aspects of their stringent and varied, training and competition ideals, keen to involve themselves with a location soon to be used as a performance venue for the Korean Olympic squad.
Although not quite a household name in England at present, the CrossFit craze has taken off within the world of fitness, starting, as most fitness crazes often do, over in the States. Developed by an American in 2005, the number of affiliated gyms in America grew from 18 during its founding year, to almost 1,700 in 2010, a figure expected to be significantly down on expectations starting this year. CrossFit, essentially, is a strength and conditioning ‘brand’ that promotes total fitness through a process of randomised training schedules across all aspects of fitness. Combining weightlifting, sprinting, gymnastics, powerlifting, kettlebell training, plyometrics, rowing, and medicine ball training, CrossFit contends that a healthy, fit person requires proficiency in each of ten general physical skills ranging from stamina to strength, flexibility and power. The concept defines fitness as “increased work capacity across all these domains and says its program achieves this by provoking neurologic and hormonal adaptations across all metabolic pathways”, and is heavily promoting itself through the fitness industry as the next big thing in training.
Through a number of online qualifiers, the CrossFit group will determine who the top 60 male and top 60 female competitors in the country are, inviting these to compete at Brunel IAC in February, along with an additional 40 teams of 5 athletes. The qualifiers started on Monday 5th December and only ran for a week, so all places and participants have been decided and have been awaiting the competition for the past month. Each prospective athlete needed to complete a series of three workouts throughout that week and were either assessed on their performance via video links sent in from each competition, or were judged and verified by an affiliate owner or CrossFit qualified level one coach. Every Second Counts! All three workouts necessary to qualify were based on time, where athletes with the least accumulated time across the specified exercises will have qualified for the upcoming finals event.
Over the course of the weekend during the competition, we expect a large focus to be on spectator involvement and interaction. Chances to get involved in spectator specific competitions such as Olympic Lifting seminars will be provided by a large number of sponsors, keen to be involved in the event and showcase various products to both athletes and onlookers. Kit suppliers supplement companies and other such backers will help to promote the event, and ensure it proves to be the spectacle everyone expects it to be.
To be part of the event, please visit the website for details of schedules and ticketing:
