CrossFit Issaquah
2024-11-08T18:43:33.968Z
After 5+ yrs of CrossFit exprience, and 12+yrs in group fitness spaces, this was sadly and unnecessarily the worst experience to date. This is much more akin to body building programming rather than Crossfit, but kindly asking questions to figure out the thought behind it was met with great defensiveness and getting shut down.CFI "fundamentally disagrees" with being constantly varied. But there is no plan for targeting muscles differently or staving off boredom and monotony. Making your own modifications in a non-disruptive manner is also met with great resistance even if modifying for medical reasons.There is no ongoing integration of gymnastics skills or olympic weightlifting techniques as found in CF programming. Those are reserved for certain times of the year, so if you want to train skills or technique regularly you can pay extra for special sessions, or wait another year until they hit that phase for a few weeks.There is no warm up in the class time. You are supposed to know to come early and warm up on your own. However, the suggested warm up is not movement specific to the workout. Even with doing the posted warm up ahead of class, and doing the first "evo" of the class, you may suddenly jump into 120 toes to bar without having done anything to care for your shoulders. In an ongoing basis this is completely irresponsible for the level of weight and skills suggested. This gym was also the only place in 12yrs of barbell experience where I couldn't escape from a lift and had a 215# barbell land on the back of my head.Membership pays for access to the Wodify app. The gym, however, refuses to sync the programming to allow members to track their performance or weights used for the day. The suggested work-around is to track in your notes app. You'll notice I don't churn my own butter either because it is an insufficient solution for technology that is easily available and helpful toward personal progress.Over and over again, by every staff member, at the gym you will hear "trust the programming" even when there are serious holes and blindspots. CFI expects you to give an entire year of your life to see the whole picture. As a one-off you can get a decent workout and feel sore. As a week over week, month over month experience, I was bored to tears and held back.When addressing my concerns or trying to get a better understanding of how the gym worked (because I thought it would be a CrossFit, according to the name it carries) I was told by Mike that the gym was "never going to change" (or improve), he hoped I could "get on the same page as him or find a different gym," and Stacia suggested I use the monotony of the workouts to "build mental toughness." This is an absolutely bs response for anyone who has consistency and longevity in their fitness regimen and is an endurance athlete. The problem belongs to the poor programming, not my mental toughness.The members of the gym were sweet, and ultimately I was really sad this was such an unwelcoming environment. Despite being told to find a different gym 10days into my 6mo membership, I was only refunded 5mo. This meant I paid for 2 gym memberships when it was clear this was not a place I should be and needed to find a different business to take care of my fitness for the remaining 21days of the month.It didn't have to be this way and these scenarios could have had very different and beneficial outcomes. As it stands, it is clear these coaching dynamics are toxic and push out good athletes.
After 5+ yrs of CrossFit exprience, and 12+yrs in group fitness spaces, this was sadly and unnecessarily the worst experience to date. This is much mo... More