Paramount Barbell Club
Home of Paramount Strength & Conditioning
I LOVE this story of one woman’s journey in CrossFit. Who here has sat in their car outside of a CrossFit gym, wanting to go in but too afraid? *raises hand (all the way back in 2009!)* I still love CrossFit all these years later because 1) it’s okay to come as you are, 2) it builds great relationships, and 3) it works! Mind, body, and spirit.
–Coach Olivia
WOD = Workout of the Day
Paramount Strength & Conditioning offers a daily high intensity group fitness workout coached by CrossFit certified personal trainers. We follow a “minimalist program”and this is reflected by the functionality and limited number of our exercises and the simplicity of the equipment we use compared to most commercial gyms. What you’ll find: an Olympic weight set and a place to do pull-ups and dips is essential to doing CrossFit; gymnastics rings and parallettes, plyometrics boxes, a Dynamax medicine ball, dumbbells, kettlebells, Concept II Rower and a glute-ham developer.
WHAT TO EXPECT
CrossFit workouts are extremely demanding and will tax the capacities of even the world’s best athletes so we advise anyone new to CrossFit to take on each WOD carefully and cautiously, working first towards completing the workouts comfortably and consistently before “throwing” yourself at them 100%. The best results come for those who’ve “gone through the motions” of the WOD by reducing recommended loads, reps and sets while not endeavoring towards impressive times for a month before turning up the heat. We counsel you to establish consistency with the WOD before maximizing intensity.
Classes: Unless otherwise noted, all training offered by Paramount SC is performed in a group setting, at a predetermined time. Each group training class offered on a particular day conducts the same workout of the day, or “WOD” – if you miss a morning class, you can pick up an evening class without missing a beat. Classes are lead by a head instructor; depending on class size, a second instructor may join to help ensure that each athlete is getting the level of instruction consistent with Paramount SC’s standards. Group Training Classes are infinitely scalable according to the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of each athlete. Additionally, select elements of each workout can be customized to suit the capabilities, fitness-level, or fitness goals of each attendee.
Structure: Consistent with CrossFit programming guidelines, few – if any – Group Training WOD’s will take no more than 30 minutes to complete. That said, participants should still expect to be in the gym for one hour. In addition to comprehensive warmup and cool-downs, time between the WOD and the Warmup / Cool-down is spent instructing and practicing movements designed to both increase skill competency and improve mobility.
WODs: In order to reduce the temptation to selectively attend workouts which appear to be more favorable, WOD’s are released in the early morning hours of the day they’re to be performed on the Paramount SC website.
TRANSCRIPT
You haven’t heard of CrossFit? Let me tell you about CrossFit.
CrossFit is a lifestyle in which you are prioritizing your health. The ability to do many different things at a high level of intensity.
I think it’s the absolute best way to help you reach your fitness goals.
For me, it’s making me happy. A fun way to get fit with a lot of people. The last person finishing is the just as important as the first one.
It’s this team atmosphere that ends up making you better as an individual. It’s camaraderie, that family that you end up building and the energy that you get back from it yourself, that’s CrossFit to me.
You come to a CrossFit gym everybody knows your name, everybody loves you and you’re a part of something bigger than just getting a workout.
CrossFit gave me that something extra that I kinda needed in life.
It’s my outlet, I love it. It’s my passion. It’s commitment. CrossFit is a sport now.
I like the challenge, I compete with myself, I’m healthier, I am stronger. Even though I was sore, I was, you know, getting a little discouraged, you know … I felt accountable because my community, or I felt accountable to my class because they were looking for me there.
Finding CrossFit and then having to work really dang hard for whatever your goal is … whether its to compete or just get a damn pull-up. I love it ’cause the workout’s different everyday, I can come in and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Everyone is welcoming, everyone is cheering you on. They don’t let you quit even if you wanna quit.
We all share this experience, which is emotional. It doesn’t look emotional, it looks like people working out … but it’s emotional. I mean it’s raw, it’s intense, it’s incredible, it’s freakin’ awesome. I’m gonna keep doing it for a long time, I hope.
CrossFit, to me, is a fitness program where the reward for doing well is the ability to express your fitness in everyday life in as many different planes or as many different activities that you can possibly imagine.
People walk through the door and say, ‘Hey, where’s all the machines?’ We’re the machines!
Check out this fantastic interview with a Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity expert and Professor of Nutrition at Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health. He explains how food quality and the right proportions of macronutrients impact your metabolism more than simply counting calories!
Dr. Ludwig often uses an analogy when he talks about weight loss: “Human beings are not toaster ovens. If we were, then the types of calories we consumed would not matter, and calorie counting would be the most effective way to lose weight.”
Dr. Ludwig argues that weight gain begins when people eat the wrong types of food, which throws their hormones out of whack and sets off a cycle of cravings, hunger and binging. In his new book, “Always Hungry?,” he argues that the primary driver of obesity today is not an excess of calories per se, but an excess of high glycemic foods like sugar, refined grains and other processed carbohydrates.
Following is a Q&A with Dr. Ludwig, discussing which foods act as “fertilizer for fat cells,” why he thinks the conventional wisdom on weight loss is all wrong, and long-term strategies for weight loss.
Rethinking Weight Loss and the Reasons We’re ‘Always Hungry’
Gina Haddon, a contestant on the Biggest Loser season 16, admits to being 100% wrong about what she thought CrossFit was all about. One month after her departure from BL16, she was in need of a team – a place that she could call home, a safe, supportive and non-judgmental place to work out. She also needed someone to coach her and believe in her when she didn’t believe in herself. After giving a traditional gym a try, after two weeks she was already faltering. A friend encouraged her to give CrossFit a try. It was exactly what she was looking for, and the opposite of what she expected. Gina’s story is heartwarming and encouraging. So, what’s preventing you from giving CrossFit a try?
