May
25
Functional Fitness and The Inner Circle Gym
Yesterday I had another fantastic workout at The Inner Circle Gym, and because my muscles are telling me how much they enjoyed that workout I figured it was as good a reason as any to write a quick blog post about functional fitness.
But before I digress too much, a little background information might help. If you haven’t heard of Crossfit, or functional fitness style workouts, you soon will. In a nutshell, functional fitness gyms focus on variety and intensity without the use of any machine weights. Instead, you end up doing pull-ups, working with medicine balls, hitting a sledge hammer against a massive truck tire, flipping truck tires, pulling sleds with weight on them, lunges, squats, and a variety of other movements that are “functional” in style.
Over the last five years these types of gyms have exploded in popularity, with more than 2,000 popping up across the county. Initially targeting professionals whose jobs require stamina and endurance (i.e. firefighters, SWAT teams, military, etc.), these gyms have also attracted everyday athletes who, like me, have become bored with the standard gym experience (sounds like another intersection of business and life – hence the popularity).
The Inner Circle Gym opened in Wenatchee in April 2009, and was the first functional fitness gym in the valley. I have to be honest – it’s awesome. My workouts are shorter, more intense and most importantly, more fun! Yes, I said it. Fun. : )
For instance, here was yesterday’s workout that made me so sore today. Adam Vognild, one of The Inner Circle Gym owners put this workout together. We did each of the items listed below for 3 minutes, with a one minute break in between. So in twenty minutes, we maxed out our reps at each “station.”
- Sit-ups
- Pull-ups
- Sandbag get-ups (take a 35lb sand bag on your shoulder, lay down, and get up, back down, up etc.)
- Air squats
- Burpee’s
That’s it. Nothing fancy, but boy am I sore. The cool part is, tomorrow I’ll go in and mix it up with a completely different workout. Efficient, effective and fun. You gotta love that.
If you are interested to learn more, check out these links:
The Inner Circle Gym Website – www.theinnercirclegym.com
Wenatchee World Article – At this gym, they don’t have no ellipticals, pal
WSJ Article – Fitness as a Full-Time Pursuit
