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‘Get down and give me 10’

CrossFit breaks out well-rounded fitness into 10 main capacities. Focus on some and not others and things get out of balance. Think about the super-buff bodybuilder who can’t bend over or walk normally, says Dave Werner, a former Navy SEAL who’s been training CrossFit athletes since 2002.

Werner uses a computer analogy when explaining the 10 essentials. The first four — cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength and flexibility — he likens to a computer’s hardware, each with measurable performance specs. The next four — agility, balance, coordination and, accuracy — make up your fitness software, the things that use the hardware to get the job done. “The hardware we think of as training. The software upgrades we think of as practice,” he says. “It’s like playing piano; you can pound away on the keyboard for hours, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting any better. It matters how you do it.”The last two — power and speed — are like the computer’s processor, bringing both sides together. “This is where the physiological [hardware] and neurological [software] meet,” he says. “You can’t develop power and speed without working on both.”

Here’s how Werner breaks the essentials down, so you can start building them up:

Hardware

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance. Honed through distance running and swimming, it’s the ability of the heart and lungs to provide oxygen to the muscles and get rid of carbon dioxide for extended periods of work. Five or six reps of 400-meter fast-as-possible runs are not uncommon in CrossFit workouts.

2. Stamina. Your local muscle endurance. Say you’re paddling a kayak — after a while, your shoulders will give out after a while, even if you’re not breathing hard. “Your whole system isn’t out of gas, just your shoulders,” Werner says.

3. Strength. The ability of muscles to produce force. Classic tests include squats and dead lifts. “Usually it’s measured with the heaviest weight you can lift with good form, taking one rep as a measure of strength.”

4. Flexibility. There are whole disciplines devoted to flexibility, like yoga. “The question is, do you need to put your foot behind your head? Most of us don’t. We want to be flexible in order to move. If you have tight hamstrings and can’t squat well, that’s a problem.”

Software

5. Agility. The ability to change directions. It can be honed with games like dodgeball, or a kind of volleyball using a medicine ball. A favorite: the T drill, where you constantly switch direction while running a T-formation between cones.

6. Balance. While big gyms often train balance by using an unstable surface like a rocker or wobble boards, CrossFit trainers prefer unstable loads, like holding a weight overhead while performing a deep squat.

7. Coordination. Honed through complex movements with tricky timing. Beginners train with simple movements, like doing a squat well, then move up to more complex movements., like walking overhead lunges.

8. Accuracy. “This is also a place where you can really get creative,” Werner says. One example: Bell Ball — jump down and throw a medicine ball at a bell. The first rep is easy, but every one after that, you’re trying to hit a moving target.

Processor

9. Power. This is the amount of work for a given weight divided by the time it takes to do it. So, if you could do 30 push-ups in a minute last month, but now you knock out 60 in the same time, you’ve become twice as powerful at push-ups. “It’s the way we rate our electric motors, and it’s a good way to rate our workouts, too.” The real goal of every workout is to maximize power output.

10. Speed. Power directed at moving your own body or an object — running or throwing a ball, for example. Speed is a variation of power.