This Crossfit "Garage Gym" isn't your typical vacant warehouse in the industrial part of town. It's…read morehoused inside the beautiful, vibrant Jewish Community Center on North Medical Drive. The JCC provides life-stuff for people of all ages: a dynamic early childhood daycare program; concerts, dinners, lectures, and art shows; social outings for seniors; and a diverse health and fitness program with pool, gym and weight room facilities, and a glut of yoga and Zumba classes. Sooo much Zumba.
The point is, the Garage Gym manages to blend the wonderful inclusiveness of the rest of the JCC with programming that gets every athlete to perform their best and make measurable fitness progress. When you arrive at the JCC for Crossfit classes, you'll be greeted by nice teenagers at the front desk, and you'll go through the sun-lit atrium and trip over children and their parents and art projects on your way downstairs. You'll pass the weight room, cardio machines, yoga studios, and basketball court to get to the Garage Gym. So many choices --- something for everybody, no matter what their fitness level or health goals. But the Garage Gym is by far my favorite.
Crossfit, the "Sport of Fitness," has multiple faces, depending on who you talk to. As Greg Glassman (Crossfit founder) has said, "The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. Our terrorist hunters, skiers, mountain bike riders and housewives have all found their best fitness from the same regimen." I've noticed that some Crossfit gyms attract the "elite" in fitness (where everyone thinks they have a shot at winning the annual Crossfit Open), while other gyms attract amateurs and weekend warriors and turn them into people constantly surprised by their own success, in weightlifting, climbing a rope, sprinting, agility, etc. The JCC Garage Gym is this second kind of gym.
The classes are very small, and everyone seems to have their own preferred time slot for working out (though the more advanced athletes gravitate towards the morning classes). Every day, we all do the same Workout of the Day, scaled to our ability. The workouts run the gamut from short to long, brutal to basic. We usually start with a bit of skill work (such as an Olympic lift, or a new technique for an old skill, like running). There's always something new to learn.
Oh yeah, the leadership and programming: Henry B, Large-And-In-Charge, carries us through every day. He's a former Marine, and owned and operated Crossfit Legion in Tenessee before relocating to SLC. He's got experience and a vision of where he wants us to be. He puts a TREMENDOUS amount of thought into the programming for each month of workouts, and it shows. He ensures that we're doing the technical stuff right before we do it to exhaustion in a timed workout. If he schedules us a brutal, long workout, he ensures that it's not too technical that we do crappy repetitions. He pushes us. He encourages us. He [gently] bullies us. And we take it because we love it.
Henry, Frederika, Leslie, and the rest of the coaches are not only knowledgeable, but they care about the whole person. They're not going to tell you how to live your life, but if your blood sugar drops in workout after workout, they're going to ask about your diet and tell you to eat more. If you don't show up for a week, they're going to ask where you've been.
True to the spirit of the JCC, the Garage Gym is a wonderful place to grow. They're like family now ... some days you want to kick' em in the head, but even then, you'd defend them with your life, with as many burpees as necessary.