I came across a fascinating post on NYTimes.com the other day (“Exercise as Potent Medicine”, NYTimes Blog Post) . It was really buried on the website but the title caught my eye – “Exercise as Potent Medicine”. The quick summary is that a recently published study compared – i) how well various drugs succeeded in reducing deaths among people who were diagnosed with several common and serious conditions (such as heart disease and diabetes), versus – ii) people who didn’t take drugs and just exercised. The outcome of the study was that the results consistently showed that drugs and exercise produced almost EXACTLY the same results. As with most medical studies, this emphasized the need for further study and larger sample sets but even on a small scale, but the finding is pretty powerful. We at Crossfit Thermal have been preaching the benefits of exercise as being a life changing...Read more

Some of our new members were a little hesitant to give us a try. We had to explain to them, its not all what you see on ESPN. The top finishers at the CrossFIt Games are the top one percent of athletes who do CrossFit; the fittest of the fit. Our own needs only vary by degree. Everyone has to start somewhere, and everyone has potential. No matter what your fitness level or ability, we can get you on the path to your goals. Our classes are structured so that everyone gets the most out of a particular session for them. We ensure this with appropriate scaling and adjusting of workouts on a daily basis. Here at CrossFit Thermal it’s all about relative intensity. We make sure the workout is appropriate for each individual’s needs. As skill and form improve, we ramp up the intensity and watch the progress soar....Read more

Most people who consider themselves runners fall into the category of distance runners. They grind out two to ten miles, a couple days per week and are perfectly content in doing so. Personally, I have enjoyed some time running distances on trails in Wissahickon Park near my home. It had always been a good release, a reason to be outside, and it probably carried some aerobic benefit that has transferred into CrossFit. Jogging was fun, but I wasn’t getting all of the benefits I could have been. Human beings are wired more for sprinting; short intense bursts of running. Think about our ancestors, and the reasons that they had to run. Whether it was to catch dinner, or to avoid becoming dinner, they generally didn’t do so at a conversational pace. They did so as fast as they could. Modern society makes things a little easier for us, but we...Read more

Some of us made the transition to CrossFit from a typical big box gym. Shiny equipment, treadmills and leg press machines covered the floors while most times mirrors covered the walls. I’m not one to shun the typical gym scene; I have drawn some positive influences from those places. But one of the ideals that didn’t follow me into my CrossFit career was the idea of looking at myself training in the mirror. Ok, I’m not going to lie I have been known to glance at the mirror sometimes, and maybe even do a quick pec dance, but from a practical standpoint the mirrors don’t offer much. There are 2 problems with mirrors the way I see it. First, when you’re looking in a mirror, you can only see one plane of view, that being the frontal plane. If, for example you are working on your dead-lift technique, you could...Read more

A gymnastics Kip is a technique used by many CrossFitters to simply do more work faster. Kipping can be employed in a variety of movements; pull-ups, muscles ups, toes to bar, handstand push-ups etc… It allows the athlete to use power generated from the hip joint to achieve the desired range of motion. In doing so, the athlete harnesses more power from his/her entire body, and protects the more limited and smaller muscle groups of the extremities. An example of when this would be a helpful skill to have would be a workout with 50 pull-ups followed by 5 rope climbs. If an athlete were to do 50 strict pull-ups (that is, with no help from the hips), then attempt to climb a rope immediately after, most athletes would feel an intense sense of fatigue in the arms and shoulders. If the same athlete used an effective kipping pull-up for...Read more