Crossfit 8848 (Sandringham, Vic, Australia)

After a pretty hellacious day (all rain, just miserable in general) I rode my bike to 8848 which is down the road from my house. I got there, drenched, about 4 minutes before class started, filled out the paperwork and jumped into class.

The box is pretty nicely sized. Divided down the middle by racks/bars, the class was on one side with pvc practicing power snatches. I was greeted by Darren and Clare and the rest of the 8-person class (ranging in all ages) watching us do our skill wod. (Something I always like is when you have a skill wod– something like “every minute on the minute, do 3 power snatches, for 12 minutes” or whatever…. as opposed to “work on ____ lift until 15 minutes go by”.

After surprising myself after the 12 minutes (I always feel more confident when I have to do [math hard] a crap ton of the same movement), we started the wod:

4-rounds of:
-500m row (I didn’t want to run in the stupid rain… It’s cold enough as it is.)
-15 over-head squats
-15 abmat situps.

Afterwards, I felt energized and pumped. It was a great wod for such a crappy weather day. 🙂

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Onto the whole “what makes this box different?” part of our program:
1) They have a “bootcamp” program. A few boxes do this (calling it “crossfit 101”, “crossfit essentials”, or simply “introductory class”. Something where you, the beginner, goes in and learns all the movements at a slower pace (along with a bunch of other n00bs) to make sure you have the movement down before “being thrown in with the dogs” (which ALWAYS leads to injuries!) I’m a huge fan of this, and so are they! Not only do they have a safer box, but this is where people start to build the community aspect of crossfit (which is just as, if not more, important!)

2) The other (awesome) thing about 8848 is they have a “kids program”– where I was working out with people of all ages, but, more notably  teenagers! “kids” that are in highschool that are trying to get better at footy/drop-bear-wrestling/(insert random australian sport here). All their WODs are totally scaleable and made for all ages.

Some boxes have the whole “leave your ego at the door” and you need to be reminded of this. Not at this box. It’s more of a “come in, have fun, smash your Wod out*, cheer everyone on!” box. Clare and Darren are smiley, enthusiastic, love what they do and it shows. Definitely one to check out if you’re in the area. 🙂

*if you aren’t familiar with Aussie-slang, that sounds really dirty.