Your First Week Here, Step by Step

September in Derry is the week everybody decides to do something. The mornings finally have a bite to them, the schedule settles down, and suddenly walking into a CrossFit gym feels like a real option. If you’re reading this with your stomach in a knot, good — that’s normal. Here’s exactly how your first week goes.

What happens before any workout

Nothing. You don’t work out on day one.

Your first appointment is called a No Sweat Intro, and the name is literal — no workout, no shoes to change into, no one watching you. We sit down and talk about you and your goals, work out what success looks like to you, and how to get there. That’s the whole appointment. You’ll leave knowing what your next step is, and you’ll have met a coach face to face before you ever set foot on the floor.

It’s free, and it exists because we’d rather know what you want before we hand you a barbell.

Your first class

Our CrossFit classes are 60 minutes, coach-led, and usually run between 5 and 15 people. Strength and conditioning, high intensity — but “high intensity” means relative to you, not relative to the person next to you.

Before you’re in a group setting, we’ll get you comfortable. As one member wrote in a Google review: “For newbies they work with you one on one to start to give you a chance to get comfortable, understand the structure, and build confidence before jumping into group classes.” That’s the point — you should know how a class is structured and what the movements feel like before you’re doing them shoulder to shoulder with anyone.

When you do come to class, you’ll warm up as a group, learn or review the movements with a coach, and then do the workout with weights and movements chosen for where you are today.

What nobody tells you

Scaling isn’t a beginner version of the workout. It’s the workout. Every single person in that room is doing a version of it that fits them, including the members who’ve been here for years.

We coach every class, and we care more about moving well than moving fast and heavy — if you need to pull back, we’ll say so. That’s the part beginners don’t expect: the coach is more likely to take weight off your bar than add it. Nobody is impressed by you wrecking yourself in week one.

The other thing nobody tells you is that the community carries you through the awkward part. One member put it this way in a Google review: “the atmosphere is welcoming and genuinely beginner-friendly, which makes it so much easier to get started without feeling overwhelmed.” Another, who’d never tried CrossFit before joining, wrote: “The atmosphere is so positive and motivating - it makes you actually look forward to working out!”

How to start

We’re open Monday through Friday, 5:00am to 7:00pm, so there’s a time that fits around work and kids. Have a look at pricing if you want the numbers first, or read more about us if you’d rather know who you’re walking in to meet.

Then do the one thing that actually starts it: book your free No Sweat Intro. Sit down, tell us what you want, and we’ll take it from there.