THE most important step is to go to the main Crossfit site and read this PDF file Understanding Crossfit. Anything and everything you could want to read about is there and FOR FREE. No annoying subscription or sign up pages, no fees, no nothing, just out there as an amazing resource to help you get started with Crossfit.
Visit an affiliate – most of them will have an intro class for free, or a beginner’s series of classes for those completely lost in the sauce when it comes to lifts, pull-ups, pushups, the Crossfit concept, etc.
Read, read, and read some more. Read the blogs and message boards on the main site. Find an affiliate near you and read their blog. Get the Crossfit journal subscription, a bargain at 25 bucks, and read the articles on building a home gym and go get started on one.
Watch, pause, replay, mimic, watch again, and record. There are millions of Crossfit videos on YouTube, and hundreds more on the main site. Watch them over and over and over again. Try the movement with a broomstick or piece of PVC, record yourself doing it, critique it compared to what you saw on the video, and try again. PLEASE take the time to learn the CORRECT form for the lifts – it’s way harder to reteach good form once bad form is ingrained in your body’s memory banks. And if you do them wrong, you will injure yourself.
Find a friend who Crossfits. Have him or her give you some advice on how to proceed if you don’t have the funds for a membership or equipment. Get a quick coaching lesson at your big-box cookie-cutter gym on the basic lifts – cleans, snatches, jerks and presses, deadlifts, and the various squats. Practice those exercises with NO weight to begin with, then add a little weight at a time. Too much weight too soon into your regimen and your form suffers and that is what leads to injuries and that leads to giving up.
Do the WODs at home but modify them to what you have available. There are many people on the message boards who do this and you can find some excellent advice there.
I suggest at the minimum get yourself the following
- Jump rope – double unders are amazing.
- Wall ball – wallball throws will work all the major muscles and then some. Cheap way to make one – buy cheap basketball, soccerball, whatever, cut a slit in it, stick a funnel in there, get a 3-dollar bag of sand and fill the ball up to your desired weight. Duct tape the crap out of it and there ya go. Decorations optional. Here are my first few wall balls.
- Ketllebell – get a quality one here at AgainFaster and you’ll be able to do lots of different exercises with it. Great investment for the beginner – for completely untrained females I’d go with 10 to 20 pounds, 20 to 35 for mid-range strength, and plus 35 for the strong ones.
- Olympic bar – you need a quality Olympic bar no question. Check out some of those here – if you are an untrained or even midrange strength female this will be plenty of weight for you to start with.
- Ab mat – Cheap and necessary to properly perform situps and eventually do glut-ham-developer situps.
Some Crossfit equipment suppliers
Too pricey? Try Play It Again Sports, yard sales, swap meets, Craigslist, Pendleton Yard Sales and start building your arsenal of equipment.