My friends Tara and Mirvat are the ultimate CrossFit girls. They literally started a what’s app chat group just to talk about CrossFit. I swear it sounds like they’re speaking a foreign language. But they aren’t the only ones. It seems everyone is jumping on the CrossFit bandwagon. But what the hell is it?

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program that consists of a mix of aerobic exercises, gymnastics, and Olympic weight lifting. This type of training used to be solely followed by policemen, firemen, and high level athletes. But nowadays it seems like everyone’s doing it.

From what I’ve learnt, there are 4 main components to a class:

• Warm up: burpees, jogging, pull-ups, stretches, basically anything that gets your heart pumping.
• Skill set development: depending on the day, you would work on strengthening a skill, such as one-legged squats (also known as pistols in the CrossFit world).
• WOD: this stands for workout of the day. A time is set for you to do a specific number of reps of certain exercises.
• Cool down and stretching

The goal is to build a body that is capable of doing anything and everything. Strength is the ultimate objective, not weight loss.

My avid CrossFit fanatic friend Tara told me I should come watch her in action at Reebok Crossfit Lifespark in Dubai. No one told me guys remove their shirts while working out! Hello! I would have gone much sooner!

This wasn’t just any old gym class. This was a community. Everybody knows everybody and people actually cheer for you while you do your workout. Now this didn’t happen to be a regular class, it was actually the “opens” which I was told is like a worldwide CrossFit competition and candidates have to track their scores. Nonetheless, the energy was intoxicating.

This is my friend Tara lifting 65 pounds. Yeah, I know, I’m not messing with her.

Much to my surprise, everyone doesn’t have a buff ripped body. There were lean bodies, ripped bodies, petite bodies, so many varieties, but all with the similarity of being in good shape.

One of the coaches told me I should try out a taster class. I  won’t lie to you. I’m scared, seriously scared. He said I won’t know what CrossFit really is until I try it out. He’s right. Then again, my thirst for knowledge is indeed limited at times.

So in case you didn’t know, strong is the new skinny.