Everyone has heard of CrossFit in some capacity. It's been just about everywhere over the past few years (and where my dad goes every single morning) and its become more and more common to see a CrossFit gym nearby. Basically, CrossFit is a style of fitness including weightlifting, gymnastics and calisthenics that can be both challenging and fun! To a non-CrossFit person it may seem reserved for the uber-intense, ex-Marine type extremely fast-paced weightlifting and exercising guys. But as we are finding out more and more over the past few years, that couldn't be further from the truth. At it's most central activity, the WOD (Workout of the Day), starts as a prescribed workout. This is known as RX but every single WOD can be scaled down or adjusted for skill, strength and ability levels.
CrossFit at its core is designed for anyone who puts in the effort to get more fit. Anyone from soccer moms to '9-5' working people to college students to world-class athletes putting in the effort to compete and make themselves better. This has now come to include adaptive athletes.
"Adaptive athlete" is a broad term which generally includes people with many types of physical or neurological disorders, amputees or other types of long term injuries that leave people unable to compete in the able bodied versions of a sport. They practice and workout with whatever adaptive devices they need to help them exercise including straps, crutches and elastic bands. This may take quite a bit of work from the coaches and teammates but that's where the community piece of CrossFit (that you undoubtedly have heard all about) comes into play.
Adaptive CrossFit is one of the most interesting sports in the world because there are thousands of different adaptations and combinations of skills and challenges that all fall under this one sport. Each individual athlete may require a unique solution to their obstacle in order to do a certain exercise (and...there are hundreds if not thousands of exercises to master).
Here's a sample WOD for adaptive athletes posted by WheelWod.
The best part about adaptive CrossFit is that it is becoming a more widely recognized segment of CrossFit. Events are opening up showcasing the best in adaptive CrossFit. Recently on August 20th, the 4th Annual WOD 4 Wheels took place! WOD 4 Wheels is a competition for adaptive athletes in Wheelchair, Amputee, Kinetic (division for kids with cognitive needs) and team divisions to prove that CrossFit is for everyone!
Other similar events include the WheelWod Championships (took place in July) and the Working Wounded Games (took place in November last year). While it hasn't broken into the official Reebok CrossFit Games quite yet, (and here is why) these growing competitions are filling the void for adaptive CrossFit for now.
