Which Style Of Training Is Right For You?

Which style of training is right for you?

- Ryne Gioviano

Over the last several years, group fitness gyms like Orange Theory and CrossFit have exploded, growing 70 percent between 2012 and 2015. Like many other group exercise facilities, these gyms create workouts intended to train large groups of people at the same time. But how might this type of training compare to working out on your own? There are pros and cons to each, so let’s look at this in some more detail.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

It’s a common fitness industry saying that following a mediocre program 100 percent is still better than following a great program 50 percent. There’s a lot of truth to this. Following a program with some sort of intelligent design will yield progress, assuming it’s followed correctly. This concept is different from showing up to a group exercise class. Sure, you might not equate something like CrossFit to a group exercise class like Zumba, but it’s still a class with a group of people exercising.

On the plus side, large group training can be fantastic for building community and camaraderie among participants. If you ask people who exercise at places like CrossFit, one of the first things they’ll mention is the community of people they’ve gotten to know and the friends they’ve made. This is one of the primary draws for large group training facilities. Many of these types of facilities have also been great for getting groups, such as women, to embrace weight training. Historically, lifting weights has been largely male-dominated, but since the inception of these new businesses, more and more women are starting to weight train.