Infinity Fitness (Tipp City Crossfit) Tipp City, Ohio USA

I’ve been to Infinity before as it is owned by an old High School friend of mine. I actually really like this box. It has the perfect mix of “hard-core workouts” and “the friendly place that you go where everyone knows (or wants to know) your name”.

I decided to go here to workout with my dad and ask Heather Lyons about Infinity. What makes them different (besides location/name/etc) and the normal questions that I ask… She completely surprised me when she said “well, we’re a corporate box.”
“huh?”
“This is a sister location of Regal Crossfit which is a corporate box.”
“What do you mean by that?”

Apparently, Regal is located with-in the Regal Beloit corporation which helps the company grow in multiple ways:
1) Their health insurance premiums go down by offering crossfit to their employees.
2) When normally the president of the company wouldn’t talk to a floor-worker, they do now! Everyone has a team mentality and works together better than they could have ever imagined.
3) There is a mutual enemy– and her name is Fran.

Other things that make Infinity different is that on Monday I learned how to link my double-unders. Something that I’ve been working on for ….oh….2 years. It just takes practice and a good musical beat, apparently!

Crossfit ETS (Sydney, Australia)

Located off Campbell and Riley in a 3-car garage, ETS is a for-reals garage box. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that they are somehow lesser— the coaches spend a lot of time breaking down every lift/exercise into it’s fundamental movement (see picture) and not allowing anyone to continue until they are able to, effortlessly, complete that movement.

Even the warm-up is based on functional movements and mobility. Dynamic stretches and emphasizing core strength and mobility from the start. A fun new stretch I learned is called “Russian Baby Maker”– which is kinda like a cave-man squat, but stretching the inside of your thighs. It requires demonstration that I’m too sore to do right now.

After warm-up, Coach Luke goes through the Wod with the group, having everyone demo their abilities, correcting when necessary and telling vocal cues to listen for during the wod.

Example: I actually learned that there are 2 ways of “shoulder shrugging” today. One when you are doing Hand-Stand-Pushups and a different one when you are lifting a bar over-head. It didn’t make my time any better- but it’s a technique that will, later, allow me to lift more weight overhead with more core strength and less possibility for injury! BONUS!

The wod was one of Luke’s favorites:
9 rounds for time:
3 squat-clean-thrusters (heavy weight)
5 hand-stand pushups
7 pull ups
15 double-unders

every 3rd round, run 400 meters.
21 min cap.

The class sizes are small (for now) so you would get some great 1:1 time with the coach which makes it great to practice/perfect a movement that you are struggling with. I highly recommend this box to anyone doing a tour of the Sydney area!

Reebok 5th Ave Crossfit, NYC, USA

I was walking around aimlessly in NY with 3 hours to kill– when I stumbled upon Reebok 5th Ave. From the outside, it looks like a Reebok Crossfit retail store. Shoes, socks, shirts, jackets, etc litter the inside of the shop– but if you go downstairs you start to see and hear the familiar sounds of blood/sweat and tears.

I asked a lot of people what makes 5th ave different than all the other boxes in NYC… Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) said “the trainers are the best in the world”(end quote). Of course, I’m skeptical. I informed them that I have been traveling around the world and, no offense, but the world is big… I mean, how can one even make such a claim? So I asked Bobby– the head coach.

“We’re the best in the world and we work hard to be the best.”

From what I gathered, all the trainers meet every week and we go over a principal. A lift/stretch/mobility exercise/something. Then they break it down, analyze the anatomy of the body when doing the principal, the muscles that are actually being used vs what we (humans/athletes) THINK are being used, what words should and shouldn’t be used when describing what is being done, scaling options, everything. This takes several hours. All the trainers contribute and they talk about the best way to teach this to athletes.

Because Reebok 5th Ave has anywhere from 10-40+ people per class, they have multiple coaches teaching each class so it’s necessary to have uniformity between all of the coaches.

This weekly coach-breakdown helps get that and helps them all grow significantly every week/month.

“If you don’t grow as a coach- you are a bad coach. That’s my opinion, anyway.”-Bobby.

In addition to having cool coaches (one dressed up as Rafael (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) during their explanation) they also hold Civilian Military Combine competitions and offer up their box for training for anyone who is signed up for tough-mudder/spartan runs, etc.

I should also note that, for downtown NYC, this box is HUGE! I can’t imagine what their rent is. Luckily for them, they have 450+ monthly members and have only continued to grow since opening up 9 months ago.

I was there on Wednesday– which means “partner wod” day.

Before the wod, though, we did a Split-Jerk skill for 20 minutes. Even though there were a lot of people, it was a great opportunity to practice muscle memory or PR (depending on where you grouped yourself). The coaches, like they promised, broke the exercise down into great “muscle-memory steps” that everyone (from beginner to advanced) could benefit from. The description of how to do the split-jerk (shown on PVC) was spot-on and thorough, which this (hopefully someday) trainer appreciated.

After 20 minutes of work, we got into the WOD. I found an awesome athlete (Jacqualine) who kept me excited and feeling accomplished the whole time— which just added to my overall “bad-ass/welcome feeling” of this box.

50-40-30-20-10
lunges
hand-release pushups
situps
double-unders

I should note that the following day I had to get on a plane and sit for 24 hours while I make my way to Australia– so lunges were a terrible idea… BUT! I’m so glad that I went and I’m sad that I can’t stay longer and hang out with this crew more often. I will definitely be returning when I’m back in NYC– and highly recommend it to anyone who is visiting/living there.