Cross Fit is to exercise like Twitter is to social media. It’s big and only getting bigger quickly becoming a dominant exercise routine for health nuts along the West Coast.
Mike Anderson is a Pepperdine graduate and the owner and operator of CrossFit Malibu which opened just over a year ago. According to its website CrossFit’s program is “broad general and inclusive and combines weightlifting, sprinting, and gymnastics. To be a CrossFit expert” requires proficiency in multiple domains including cardiovascular endurance strength flexibility speed agility balance accuracy and coordination. And the best part about it? Rather than changing the program for those who are inexperienced CrossFit merely reduces the intensity of the exercise making it accessible to anyone who wants to try it.
Currently CrossFit Malibu has an active community of about 70 members about one third of whom are connected to Pepperdine. The gym currently has three interns from Pepperdine’s Sports Medicine program and their first intern Michael White just recently opened his own CrossFit gym in Tulare a county in Central Calif. The opening of gyms throughout California is a testament to the program’s growing popularity.
While at Pepperdine Anderson studied sports medicine himself while also participating in club soccer and on the Division 1 cross-country team. During his sophomore year in 1989 he studied abroad in Heidelberg where he not only participated in a soccer program but also was present for the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After his time at Pepperdine Anderson tried his hand at a number of different professions. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand dealing in programs with public health and health education. For a time he worked in Thailand learning about issues in which culture and ecology overlap with university students who were studying abroad through the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute. In fact he assisted in the foundation of the first Pepperdine international program in Thailand. His involvement with Pepperdine did not end there as he ran the physical education department from 2001 to 2006. Recently Anderson earned a master’s degree in outdoor experiential education from the University of Linkoping in Sweden.
Last summer Anderson and Scott Bolan who works in the IT department at Pepperdine as a program developer founded CrossFit Malibu. Together they transformed the green Quonset Hut on Cross Creek Road into an athletic facility. While it wasn’t the most glamorous of locations—it has no televisions or machines that allow you to text or read while using them— that was precisely what Anderson and Bolan were hoping to achieve. Their desire was to create a space to exercise where the focus is purely fitness claiming that the best possible workout you can achieve will require the most concentration.
To garner members after receiving their CrossFit affiliation CrossFit Malibu ran a vendor booth at the Malibu Chili Cook-off on Labor Day weekend 2009 in the few days before its first class was held on Sept. 9 2009 at 6 a.m.
Malibu’s CrossFit gym according to Anderson is made up of a variety people from the area. Participants range from Pepperdine students alumni and faculty to Malibu mothers and elderly people. CrossFit has free classes at 10 a.m. Saturday morning that draw participants from this broad field of Malibu residents.
For those interested in taking classes at CrossFit more information about the gym can be found on crossfit.com. In addition crossfitmalibu.blogspot.com posts the workout of the day every day so people can know what to expect when they come into the gym.
Anderson supplied all this information while hiking with a group from CrossFit standing on a mountain 1500 feet above Malibu. He points out that Pepperdine students often get stuck on campus despite the fact that they are surrounded by the ocean on one side and the Santa Monica mountains on the other. The advice Anderson offers is that “people should go outside and play” and take advantage of Malibu’s gorgeous scenery. This is part of his hope that whether it is the major you choose or the activities in which you participate outside of class at any given moment you will be doing what you love.