Crossfit For Beginners Workouts
Starting Crossfit can be a bit overwhelming, this article is to help ease you into a Crossfit gym and help you get a head start on some of the movements, workouts and terminology you will be introduced too.
What is Crossfit?
When an individual wants to become a Crossfit coach they have to go and sit the Crossfit level 1 certificate course. Here they teach what is Crossfit with a saying:
Constantly Varied Functional Movement performed at
Relatively High Intensity across Broad Time and Modal Domains.
To a newbie this is gibberish so here it is broken down.
Constantly Varied Functional Movements: You will be performing varying movements that carry over to your everyday life.
Performed at Relatively High Intensity: A lot of workouts are ‘For Time’ or ‘As many reps as possible in X amount of time’ which creates a high intensity. As a beginner this should not be your goal though, you want to focus on technique more than intensity. As you become more technically efficient you can start to ramp up the intensity but only if you are confident your technique doesn’t diminish with the added intensity.
Across Broad Time and Modal Domains: This just means varying times like 2, 15, or 60-minute workouts. Modal domains are different exercises like weightlifting, gymnastics and cardio type movements.
Can a beginner do Crossfit?
Crossfit is accessible to anyone and everyone through scaling. Each day there is a workout on the board that everyone who attends the gym that day will perform, If you complete the workout as it is written you have done the workout RX. If you change a movement, the weight or the number of reps then you have scaled the workout. Crossfit coaches are there to help members scale workouts appropriately so they stay safe and get a good workout.
Crossfit is great for beginners as they are taught to perform movements correctly. From air squats to power cleans to push-ups you’d be surprised how technical these movements are. Without a coach’s eye on you, it’s easy to develop bad habits that can lead to slowing development or worse, injury.
9 Crossfit for Beginners Workouts
Below are 9 Crossfit for beginners’ workouts. 3 Crossfit bodyweight workouts, 3 Crossfit dumbbell workouts and 3 Crossfit benchmark wods. All 9 workouts are beginner friendly and a few that are a little more technical have scaling options.
An important part of Crossfit is keeping track of your scores, especially the benchmark wods. You won’t repeat workouts often but when you do it’s good to see how much you have progressed since you first did them. Note your scores down for each of these workouts in case you ever revisit them in the future.
If you are unsure what a movement is click on it to head to our movement library over on youtube.
Body Weight CrossFit Workouts
The following 3 at home CrossFit workouts can be done anywhere in the house and with no equipment. Try to keep track of how many reps you do or how long it takes for you to complete the workout.
Complete the following For Time
3 Down Ups
6 Air Squats
6 Down Ups
12 Air Squats
9 Down Ups
18 Air Squats
12 Down Ups
24 Air Squats
15 Down Ups
30 Air Squats
Death by Burpees
Min 1: Perform 1 burpee
Min 2 Perform 2 burpees
Min 3: Perform 3 burpees
Min 4: Perform 4 burpees
Min 5: Perform 5 burpees
Min 6: Perform 6 burpees
Min 7: Perform 7 burpees
etc….
Your workout finishes when you can longer perform the number of burpees required for that round.
You get a lot of rest in the early rounds but all of a sudden the workout catches up on you, It gets tough so make sure you pace it well by keeping your burpees slow from the start.
12 Minute Amrap (12 minute Amrap means As many rounds/reps as possible in 12 minutes)
12 Alt Lunges
12 Sit Ups
12 Push Ups
Push Ups can be scaled to Knee Push Ups or knee Push Ups to a box.
Dumbbell Crossfit Workouts
Dumbbell workouts are brilliant, they don’t require as much technical proficiency as a barbell, but a dumbbell's instability adds more demand on smaller muscle groups to help stabilise the weight. The dumbbells we would recommend are the hex rubber dumbbells.
Beginner weights: 2 x 10kg male / 2 x 5kg female
Intermediate weights: 2 x 15kg male / 2 x 10kg female
Advanced weights: 2 x 22.5kg male / 2 x 15kg female
Complete the following for time
21 Squat with dumbbells
15 Burpees over dumbbells
15 Squat with dumbbells
15 Burpees over dumbbells
9 Squat with dumbbells
5 Rounds for time
9 Hang Cleans with dumbbells
9 Dumbbell push press
100m Run
15 Minute Amrap
6 Alternating Dumbbell snatch
10 Dumbbell Front Rack Lunges
14 Alternating V-Ups
18 Air Squats
Crossfit Benchmark Wods
The following workouts are beginner-friendly Crossfit benchmark wods, wod stands for workout of the day. Crossfit.com has been posting wods since way back in 2001 and over that time they have released benchmark workouts that are a great test of fitness. Below are 3 of those tests with scaling options provided for each, you could mix and match the scaled and RX workouts if you find one movement comfortable and another too difficult.
Crossfit Workout Annie
50 Double Unders
50 Sit-Ups
40 Double Unders
40 Sit-Ups
30 Double Unders
30 Sit-Ups
20 Double Unders
20 Sit-Ups
10 Double Unders
10 Sit-Ups
Crossfit Workout Annie (scaled)
50 Single Unders
25 Sit-Ups
40 Single Unders
20 Sit-Ups
30 Single Unders
15 Sit-Ups
20 Single Unders
10 Sit-Ups
10 Single Unders
5 Sit-Ups
Crossfit Workout Helen
3 Rounds
400m Run
21 KB Swings 24/16kg
12 Pull-Ups
Crossfit Workout Helen (Scaled)
3 Rounds
200m Run
15 KB Swings 12/8kg
9 Ring Rows
Crossfit Workout Cindy
20 Minute Amrap
5 Pull-Ups
10 Push-Ups
15 Air Squats
Crossfit Workout Cindy (scaled)
20 Minute Amrap
5 Banded Pull-Ups
10 Knee Push-Ups
15 Air Squats to a box
Finding a Crossfit gym
A Crossfit gym is an amazing place to train, the support you get from the community within is unmatched by any other gym you will find.
If you are interested in joining a gym all you need to do is google “Crossfit near me” and a list of gyms will appear in your area. If you live in a city then you will probably have at least half a dozen to pick from.