In recent years, CrossFit has become a popular form of exercise for people looking to improve their physical fitness. But does it really change your body? Research has shown that following a CrossFit-style training program for as little as 12 weeks can lead to significant improvements in both muscle strength and aerobic fitness, while also reducing body fat percentage and increasing muscle mass. When you start CrossFit, your body works to meet the varied demands of the sport. Your heart becomes more efficient, your muscles are strengthened, and your body becomes slimmer.
To understand how your body makes these adaptations, you need to look at the science of exercise. You'll be rewarded with an appreciation of how CrossFit has changed your body and made you a better version of yourself. Change in body shape usually begins between 1 and 6 months after starting CrossFit. As your body strengthens and becomes more efficient, you'll notice that your clothes fit differently. You may not see much change in weight, but you'll start to see that your clothes are looser where they used to be tight and tighter where you want them to be tight.
As your body reorganizes to become more physically capable, useful parts such as muscles become more emphasized while parts of the body designed for energy storage such as fat begin to dissipate. High-intensity multi-joint movements in CrossFit can help you gain muscle strength and endurance. Adding extra weight to your workouts can further increase muscle gain by adding stress to your muscles. High-intensity workouts in CrossFit are great for burning calories and the harder you work, the more calories you'll burn. As your strength and endurance increases, your body will become a fat-burning machine. Those who regularly attend CrossFit classes can expect to see increases in body strength and muscle mass.
As your body composition changes, you'll be able to burn fat and calories better than before you started CrossFit. Alex Coll's fitness journey changed when he discovered CrossFit. He said, "Until I started CrossFit, I hadn't realized that there was a whole market for personalized, performance-oriented diet plans that promised to boost performance while controlling body fat."More research is needed to understand how CrossFit improves aerobic fitness compared to other forms of exercise. It is often claimed that CrossFit is the best way to gain muscle and strength simultaneously and increase endurance.
If your goal is to lose weight, try following a healthy diet in addition to a CrossFit exercise regimen. There's a learning curve with CrossFit and you'll have to go through the process of learning mechanics and movements. Each person comes to CrossFit with different training backgrounds and each person will experience different things when they start CrossFit. High-level or long-term CrossFitters have the optimal physical structure and muscle adaptations for functional performance in CrossFit. The best thing about all this is that you no longer care about many of the things that motivated you to get into CrossFit in the first place. In fact, the only CrossFitters I've ever known who had exceptional strength, size, or cardio were doing traditional weightlifting and cardio training in addition to CrossFit.
Women can expect to burn 60-120 calories per CrossFit workout while men can expect to burn 110-170 calories per session. CrossFit workouts often include functional exercises or exercises that mimic the movements you do in daily life. But if you're looking to gain muscle and strength, lose fat or increase your aerobic fitness as quickly and safely as possible, then CrossFit isn't for you. Most people will see fairly rapid increases in physical capacity for 6 months to 2 years (or sometimes even longer). If you do a good job working on recovery and avoiding illness or injury, you'll continue to see improvements in performance throughout your CrossFit career.
