Learn how to get started with CrossFit with free workshop

IDAHO FALLS — Andrea and Rocky McDowell want to change your life — or at least help you change your life. The owners of CrossFit AMROCK in Idaho Falls are teaming up with a top-level coach to offer a free workshop about CrossFit on Saturday.

Coach Cristina Anderson has been on a journey toward health and wellness for some time. It took years of trying to get fit with personal trainers at regular gyms before she discovered CrossFit.

CrossFit is a training method focused on constantly-varied, functional movements done at a high intensity. It is not focused on trying to change your body’s appearance, says Anderson. Instead, you are focused on improving how your body functions.

Once she tried CrossFit, she knew right away she had found her niche in more ways than one.

“When the coach would explain movements, I understood them,” Anderson says. “I had this natural ability to understand core to extremity, and I knew how to move well … and I realized, ‘I can do this.'”

It was the beginning of her weight-loss journey, she says.

“I’ve had an extensive weight-loss journey,” Anderson tells EastIdahoNews.com, “but more importantly, I’m still on that journey.”

Her journey has brought her to Idaho Falls, working with the coaches and clients and CrossFit AMROCK gym. She is also sharing her story so others feel inspired to start their own wellness journey.

“It’s a huge honor to have her here,” says Andrea McDowell.

Now a Level 4 CrossFit Coach (CF-L4), the highest credential offered by CrossFit, Anderson specializes in working with other coaches to help them develop empathy for clients who may be starting on their path to wellness.

Anderson is speaking during the workshop to encourage others to give CrossFit a try. It isn’t as intimidating as it may seem, she says. Toward that end, she and Rocky Anderson (also a certified CrossFit coach) are teaming up to offer the workshop.

“There’s such a misconception. People think of CrossFit, and they think of 12-pack abs and crazy lifting,” Anderson says. “I’ll be explaining what CrossFit really is, what it’s done for me and how it has changed my mindset.”

The workshop will be held at CrossFit AMROCK at 847 Lindsay Boulevard in Idaho Falls on Saturday at 8 a.m. Mountain View Network will be giving free health screenings until the presentation with Rocky McDowell and Anderson at 9 a.m. Health screenings will continue after that.