You’ve probably heard the name Crossfit all over social media and magazines in the past year and if you haven’t then you’ve basically lived a sheltered life in a dark room playing world of warcraft and not washing for months on end.

If you don’t know what Crossfit is then just take a look at the following vid, which shows you some of the exercises and movements you WILL be doing in your WOD (workout of the day) if you grow a set of balls and join your nearest Crossfit Box.

Basically Crossfit is a fitness program with functional movements including a mixture of olympic lifting, gymnastics and aerobic exercises measured in a timed and scored workout called a WOD (workout of the day) that is always varied and changes.

Some of the main exercises include squats (air, front, back and overhead), pull ups, presses, jerks, cleans, deadlifts, skipping (double unders, which are two rotations of the rope in one jump), running, kettlebells, box jumps, head stand press ups and press ups.

If you live in South Wales there are a few boxes that have opened up in the last couple of years with Dragon Crossfit in Cardiff, Celtic Crossfit in Llantrisant and the Crossfit Box I joined about 6 months ago is Caerphilly Crossfit.

There are many personal trainers out there and gyms saying they teach or can take crossfit but the Crossfit name can only be used by affiliated gyms. To start the classes at a Crossfit box you have to do an on-ramp or fundamentals class before they let you lose in the normal WOD’s these classes teach you the  basic techniques for the main lifting and pulling exercises with a plastic pipe so you don’t injure yourself using a weighted bar.

If you to join a good Crossfit gym in South Wales then I can definitely recommend the Caerphilly Crossfit box. Head over to the Caerphilly Crossfit website and contact the coaches to book an on ramp place for the upcoming class.

Are you new to Crossfit and wondering what those straps are that regulars wrapped around their wrists?

When I first started doing Crossfit nearly 6 months ago even though I had done a bit of weight training once or twice a week over the years my wrists were quite week and had a bit of pain in them after some exercises the day after.

I noticed a lot of the guys in the box were wearing the wraps so thought I would give them a go. I found that i had a lot more stability and support immediately with exercises like head stand press ups and moved from scaled versions to RX’in them in no time. I also found the wrist straps good for some of the warm up exercises such as bear crawls as my wrists did used to hurt quite a bit from these as they were relatively new to me and my balance wasn’t the best to start off with.

I also used to get a bit of pain when I first started front squats with flexibility issues from not having done them before starting Crossfit but the wrist straps do seemed to have helped a lot even if my flexibility has improved.

What are the best wrist wraps to wear for Crossfit?

I’ve only tried the standard wrist wraps I picked up in a local health shop from Maximuscle with the thumb loop and velcro strap to keep the wrap secure on the wrist. One thing I have noticed with these wrist straps is that they are very thick and bulky making me sweat a bit too much leaving them smell quite quickly if they are not washed regularly. The velcro on the wrist strap if wound too tight can scag the material of the wrap meaning they might not last as long as they should.

I did notice another kind of wrist strap worn by some of the other Crossfit regulars who had been going for longer and did some looking online and they are called strength wraps. They seem to fix the issues I had with the wraps being too thick and bulky and also there is no velcro to damage the wrap.

The Strength Wraps are a lot thinner in material and have a thin rope when wound around allow the wrist wrap to be tightened and loosened easily without having to take it off. This is ideal for a WOD that requires lifting or exercises with wrist support then followed by an exercises which requires more flexibility.

strength wraps for crossfit wrist support

The price of the Strength Wraps are around £20, which is nearly 4 times more than the standard wrist wrap from £5 but you will probably still be using the same ones in a years time when you might have gone through a couple of the standard ones due to the scagging or the stink from overly sweating.

I’m going to carry on using my standard wrist wraps for another month just to get some more wear out of them then I’m planning on trying out the Strength Wraps for my strength training and WOD’s at Crossfit.

If you want to buy the standard wrist wrap then go to the Maximuscle made from medical grade elastic.

For the lighter and more efficient Strength Wraps for your Crossfit WOD’s then head over to Amazon.

Looking for to make some lean muscle gains in the gym? You might also want to stock up before hitting the gym hard in January after gorging yourself on everything in sight at Christmas or looking for some gift ideas for Christmas for the hard to get for brother or partner.

Check out the new sports nutrition brand GoNutrition from the founder of MyProtein as they have only recently launched and you can get a Lean Muscle Bundle for a discount price of just £39 instead of £64 using the discount code T40 at the checkout.

GoNutrition also offer free delivery on orders over £50 so i’ve just ordered the discount GoNutrition Lean Muscle Bundle including 1kg of GO Whey Protein 80 with 20g of whey protein per 25g, Volt pre working drink, Creatine Monohydrate for increased strength and explosive power, CLA for weight loss and a shaker bottle and i’ve then added 1kg of unflavoured Go Whey 80 for making protein pancakes to my order taking it over the £50 threshold by £1 for free delivery.

Make sure to add the GoNutrition discount code T40 at the checkout before submitting your payment otherwise the discount will not be taken off your order.

Check out the GoNutrition website for the Lean Muscle Bundle discount or to see if anything else takes your fancy if you have other gym goals such as weightloss, increased mass, increased strength or they have special bundles for fighters and MMA lovers as these currently have a discount on them too without the need of a discount code at the time of writing.