Terry Blesso, Vista del Lago’s physical fitness and Weights teacher, is introducing a new physical education class for this next year called CrossFitness.

This class will be available next year, but only for students who have passed Fit 1. After students have passed Fit1, they can take CrossFit instead of Fit 2 to finish their physical education requirements.

What is CrossFit? According to the official CrossFit website, it is “an education about movement, fitness, nutrition and community.” They work to “build a program that will best prepare trainees for any physical contingency.”

Similarly, “…we will be doing a variety of different workouts that will be challenging, and you will be able to measure your improvements in fitness through the increases in power that you will be able to produce in different movements over different amounts of time,” said Blesso.

It’s an education beginning on nutrition that works its way up to learning about metabolic conditioning, gymnastics, weight lifting and throwing, to eventually learning about an individual sport. As said on the CrossFit website, “The aim of CrossFit is to forge a broad, general and inclusive fitness.” They train together, “not only for the unknown, but for the unknowable.”

CrossFit uses neurological fitness (balance, coordination, agility, accuracy) and physical skills (strength, flexibility, endurance, stamina) to get to the “essence of fitness” as said by CrossFit, that is power and speed. CrossFit uses a combination of physical skills scaled to each individual’s level of capability to increase personal goals of reaching a higher fitness.

Blesso was already a coach for CrossFit at El Dorado Hills CrossFit, even before this course came to Vista. So, why bring it on campus? “I feel that there needs to be a class that has a focus on fitness that teaches students about nutrition, gymnastic movements, (body weight movements) and provides a structure to improve students general skills,” said Blesso.

With this class, students not only will be doing physical activity, but also, “there is reading and writing in the class and students are required to keep a fitness log,” said Blesso. The reading and writing part of this class will be included in the classes “whiteboard time,” as Blesso called it.

“Whiteboard time is used to discuss the workout and provide demonstrations and explanations of the movements and workout that will be done during that class,” said Blesso.  Basically, students will be taught what they’ll be expected to do in class and how to do it safely. “Students record what is on the whiteboard on a daily basis so when they leave the class they will be taking with them a fitness log that includes their performance but also a resource that they can use to help them maintain their fitness after they leave the class.”

(An example of “whiteboard time” that students are expected to learn.)

This class is not for everyone. “Students who will do well will bring a positive attitude and a desire to work hard,” he said. Students should also be completely committed to wanting to improve themselves when signing up. “Overall though, this class is for students who want results and are willing to put in the work to get them.”