I have wanted to leave a review for CrossFit AKA for awhile now, but wanted to wait until I had a couple months under my belt.
When my wife and I first moved to the Netherlands in September 2012 I struggled to find a gym with good free weights as my workouts in the US focused on power lifting and functional exercises. After a few months I decided to give CrossFit a chance as I have always been interested in trying olympic lifting and it also covered power lifting movements and tons of functional exercises. There are 5 CrossFit gyms or "Boxes" as they are called in CrossFit lingo in Amsterdam, I checked each website and ended up choosing the first box solely based on the fact that it had an English website. The box ended up taking too long to get to from my home and a I decided not to join. Many months and many added pounds later we found out our friend Sophie was a member of CrossFit AKA. I finally signed up for a trial class in May 2013.
After the trial course I convinced my wife to join me for the weekend introduction classes in early June. We started out slow attending two classes a week for about the first month as we were quite sore after each workout. Now we are in month 2 and attend 4 times a week on average and I must admit that though I get a little sick to my stomach before each class (each work out for the day is a mystery until you show up for class) both my wife and I are addicted.
The Box: The box is tiny by US standards. Each class is limited to 10 individuals and you must sign up in advance for each class. Though on the small side, the box is very efficient and functions quite well with 10, so no worries there, on nice days the class spills out into the area outside the box.
The Instructors: Alexander, Gregory and Mustafa are all great. They are very helpful with form, motivation and will help you scale down to insure success in any WOD (work out of the day). I have never worked out with Yannick who does the park training, but have heard good things.
The CrossFiters: Lovely international group of folks. Friendly, kind and supportive, what can get better then that? It appears to me that the membership is close to 50/50 male/female. Though there are a couple super fit and athletic members, there are people of all fitness levels and age, so there is no need at all to feel sporty to join. There are even occasional group activities outside the box.
The Schedule: When we first joined in June there was only one Morning/Day class a week and 2 or 3 classes per night. Since then more morning/day classes have been introduced and there are now 3-4 classes at night. In September it is expanding even more and there will be classes nearly all day and 4 classes every night (eluding Saturday and Sunday)
Results: I'm very happy with the results after just 2 months. Though I'm far from the best shape of my life, I'm very impressed by how quickly my overall fitness has improved in just 2 months. read more