Think You’re Not a CrossFit Person? Neither Was I
By Nicola Campbell
Taking the intimidation out of the weights floor: learning how to deadlift properly was a definite confidence boost.
Years spent gently mocking my CrossFit-obsessed friends didn’t exactly make me an obvious convert. Five PT sessions, several classes, plenty of aching muscles and one Karate Kid moment later, I’m beginning to understand what all the fuss is about.
I have been quite the CrossFit cynic.
Anyone I know who does CrossFit seems to border on obsessed. They talk about WODs, PBs and movements that sound like they require their own dictionary. They rearrange their lives around classes. They become evangelical about it.
And, yes, I have judged. I’ve also repeatedly told one of my good friends that he is in a cult.
The slightly inconvenient thing is that I have seen what this particular “cult” has done for people I know. Friends have found CrossFit at times when life has fallen apart — through divorce, bereavement and all the other things life has a habit of throwing at us — and it has become somewhere they go for much more than exercise.
There’s the fitness, obviously. But there’s also routine, friendship, purpose and a place where, for an hour at least, the only thing demanding your attention is what your body is doing next.
So when said CrossFit friend invited me along to what I dubbed a “Find a Friend” introductory session at Unity CrossFit, I agreed.
Annoyingly, I enjoyed it.
Finding my swing — and discovering there’s rather more technique involved than simply picking up a weight.
OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE
The welcome was warm, nobody shouted at me and it wasn't remotely as terrifying as I had imagined. Still, I sat on it for a while and didn’t commit to taking things any further than that intro session.
Jo Gray, one of the three women who founded Unity CrossFit in November 2024 after almost 14 years of CrossFit training herself, followed up. I replied, but continued to hold the whole thing at arm’s length. I already had a gym membership, after all. I go to yoga classes. I swim. Occasionally, I even venture upstairs into the actual gym and have a rather loose session involving whatever machines happen to appeal.
But if I’m honest, I was firmly in my comfort zone.
Nothing and nobody was really pushing me.
And perhaps that was the point.
So I finally went back to Jo.
CrossFit is built around constantly varied, functional movements, with workouts that can be adapted to different abilities. But at Unity, if you’re completely new to it, you don't simply buy a membership and find yourself standing beneath a pull-up bar wondering what on earth you've done.
There’s an onboarding process, which Jo explained to me.
Newcomers spend a month learning the fundamentals, with between three and five one-to-one sessions with a dedicated coach before moving properly into classes. It means you can learn without the pressure of a ticking clock or a roomful of experienced CrossFitters around you.
And so one Monday evening in July I met Michael, my coach, to start my training.
Coach Michael talks me through the rower during one of my five one-to-one onboarding sessions at Unity CrossFit.
LEARNING TO DO IT PROPERLY
We got started immediately. There were warm-ups on the bike and rowing machine, wall balls and squats — lots of squats — but importantly, I was learning how to do things properly.
For years, the weights section of my regular gym has been something of a no-go area unless I’m with a PT. There always seems to be an intimidating collection of grunting, expert-looking gym-goers who know exactly what to do with a barbell while I very much do not.
Michael took that fear away.
He taught me where to position my hands on the bar, how to use the rack and how to deadlift properly — something I've always assumed I was inherently rubbish at, blaming my knobbly Oor Wullie knees for getting in the way.
Then there was learning how to push press using my legs and body properly rather than attempting to wheedle a bar upwards through the power of my spindly arms alone.
It was technical, challenging and, unexpectedly, fascinating.
Jo knows that intimidation can be one of the biggest barriers to getting through the door.
“CrossFit can feel intimidating for beginners, especially if they are lacking confidence in their current fitness levels,” she says. “Breaking down this barrier is vital to us because welcoming everyone where they are starting from is a core part of our mission.”
And that's exactly what the onboarding did.
I ended up having all five PT sessions with Michael, although I started dipping into classes between them.
For our final sessions, he was determined to work on my pull-up.
Or, more accurately, my entirely non-existent pull-up.
Learning the ropes: getting to grips with the fundamentals during my CrossFit onboarding with coach Michael.
MY KARATE KID MOMENT
This was also when I started to understand why some of the exercises I’d been learning kept cropping up elsewhere in CrossFit.
Take hollow holds — lying on your back with your shoulders, arms and legs raised while your stomach muscles quietly scream — and Supermans, essentially the reverse version on your front.
I’d learned both during my PT sessions, but they also have a habit of appearing in the final five minutes of classes, just when you think the hard work might be over.
It turns out they’re not simply a sadistic little finale.
They’re teaching your muscles — and you — how your body needs to work during other CrossFit movements. The hollow position and the superman, for example, feed into the body control and core strength needed as you progress towards a kip swing and, eventually, that elusive pull-up.
Suddenly, all these individual exercises started joining up.
It was my own Karate Kid moment. All that wax-on, wax-off suddenly had a purpose.
Michael was my Mr Miyagi.
There still isn't a pull-up, I should point out. Well, there is if you count having a giant elastic band looped around your foot and attached to the bar above you to help you upwards. But for the first time I can see a route towards one all on my own.
And that, I’m discovering, is a large part of the appeal.
THEN CAME THE CLASSES
Moving from the safety of one-to-one sessions into a full CrossFit class felt like a significant step.
There's a lot to take in when you're new. Exercises have names you don't recognise. People are moving around equipment with complete confidence. Someone next to you might be loading an impressive number of kilos onto their bar while you're still trying to work out what you're doing with the 15kg bar itself.
But here's the bit I hadn't expected: nobody cares.
Or rather, they do care — just not about how your weight compares with theirs.
They care when you manage something you couldn't do last week. People encourage you. They clap when you squeeze out that little bit extra. The person lifting considerably more than you can be the same person cheering you through your final rep.
“Every single one of us started as a beginner,” says Jo. “Beginners and experienced athletes train side by side, supporting and celebrating achievements in whatever shape they may come in.”
That was perhaps the biggest surprise for me.
What looks from the outside like it could be an intimidating, competitive environment feels completely different when you're actually standing in the middle of it.
The workout might be the same, but everyone is doing the version that works for them. A movement can be adapted. A weight can come down. You might be trying to master something someone else perfected years ago.
Your competition really is you.
ABOUT THAT CULT...
And then there is the community.
This is where I'm going to have to admit that my CrossFit friends may have had a point all along.
Unity co-founder Jo came to CrossFit almost accidentally 14 years ago, when her regular gym became Edinburgh's first CrossFit affiliate. She was hooked.
“I still love that every day brings a new challenge, new skills to learn and constant room to grow,” she says. “The training never gets boring.”
She also found that getting physically stronger did something else.
“You will quickly replace self-doubt with self-confidence and you will actually start to embrace hard challenges,” she says. “You realise you are capable of achieving more than you ever thought possible.”
Years later, when a management change at the gym altered the community and coaching culture she had loved, Jo and two fellow female athletes, Sarah Campbell and Lindsay Macdonald, decided to recreate what they felt had been lost.
That’s when the three of them opened Unity in November 2024, going from finding premises to opening the doors in just two months.
Their mission was to build a gym around the very thing I had been gently mocking for years: community.
“The sense of community at Unity is the absolute core foundation of everything,” Jo says. “Shared sweat, encouragement, inclusive coaching, support from fellow members, sharing the energy, feeling safe and developing real connections that go beyond the gym are very much a reality.”
And now that I'm on the inside, I get it.
There is something powerful about turning up and doing something difficult alongside other people. On the days when your own motivation isn't quite enough, theirs can carry you.
As Jo puts it: “Your CrossFit pals will notice if you don't come to class. There's a shared accountability when others expect you to show up.”
Perhaps that explains why I've seen friends cling to CrossFit when other parts of their lives have been anything but steady.
Life can feel broken sometimes. Mine has certainly felt a little wobbly over the past couple of years. But for an hour, CrossFit gives you a reprieve from the crazy.
You aren't thinking about the all those things in life you can't control. You're thinking about whether you can finish another rep, lift something you couldn't lift before or finally get your body to do something that once seemed impossible.
You turn up. You work. You get a little bit stronger.
And you can control that.
Jo hopes that six months after joining, people no longer think of exercise as something they should do.
“I would want it to become part of their identity, that it's just an automatic part of their routine,” she says. “I would want them to feel like they are moving better, functioning with their strength gains and doing everyday tasks with more ease. I would want them to feel a sense of belonging.”
I'm not six months in yet.
I still can't do a pull-up. I am still lifting weights that look rather modest next to everyone else's. And I remain slightly uncomfortable with the post-class fist bumps.
But I'm in. Friends and family are, naturally, concerned that I have finally joined the cult. My response? Don't knock it until you've tried it.
UNITY CROSSFIT: THE DETAILS
Unit 10, Stewartfield, EH6 5RQ
Website: www.1124unitycrossfit.scot/
Email: contact@1124unitycrossfit.scot
Unity's month-long beginner onboarding programme costs £132 and includes three to five one-to-one coaching sessions, followed by access to classes for the remainder of the month.
Membership options include Unlimited, £132 per month; 12 sessions, £105 per month; and eight sessions, £90 per month. Five and ten-class packs are also available.
Alongside its programmed CrossFit classes, Unity offers dedicated Olympic weightlifting and conditioning classes.
Nicola's onboarding month was complimentary for the purposes of this feature.