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 It’s late June, it’s New Orleans, it’s hot and it's humid (kinda goes without saying). So, what does any right-minded CrossFit athlete do? Why, work out, of course! I couldn’t not visit CrossFit NOLA when we were in town. How would I live with myself? And I have no regrets at all. We were going to be sweaty anyway, so my wife and I took a quick rideshare over to CrossFit NOLA to enjoy a 6:30am workout. BTW, the woman driving us over was super sweet and told us all about making homemade pralines (delicious). CrossFit NOLA has a few locations. We were staying just outside of the French Quarter so, we went to the downtown location on Magazine Street. Our rationale for going to the early class was it would be “less humid”, and perhaps it was a little, but we were just fooling ourselves. It's sweat-a-palooza no matter what time of day. But we got our money’s worth. Here’s what we experienced. Reviews are on a scale of 1-5 barbells.  Communication/Information Availability There’s complete drop-in information on their website. Be sure you select the proper location. I had also sent an email asking for pricing, as I didn’t see it on their website and what their upcoming workout would be. Someone responded to my email within about 24 hours and gave me all the details. She sent me a link to set up an account, which gave us $5 off our first workout. Between the website and the email communication, we had all the information we needed.  Cleanliness When we arrived, it was the second class of the day. Everything was clean and well maintained. The restroom was clean, and the floor was clearly cleaned from the previous day. The rig had some chalk on it but that’s about the only thing I could find.
Did I mention it’s hot and humid there? As with any of the places I’ve been in the southern US to date, they don’t have air conditioning. However, they have something I haven’t previously encountered; the biggest box fan I’ve ever seen. And it has some real power! The downtown location is big and open with plenty of floor space and tall ceilings. The floor is alternating rubber and platform wood. There’s a single rig that’s pretty long which runs down the right-hand wall as you enter. There’s plenty of bars and plates that are in good condition, especially considering the humidity. On the opposite side, there’s several lifting platforms, squat racks and smaller hardware. Overall, it’s laid out well with lots of functional space.
 Workout/Programming For our visit, the workout was certainly thorough. We warmed up with a 3:00 row + 10 ankle biased split squats, 10 abmat situps and 10 wall assisted thoracic rotations. I think we did that 3 times. Then, it got a little more challenging - 8-10 rear foot elevated split squats per leg in a farmer hold with dumbbells, building over 3 sets to a heavy weight. And, for the main course, it was 4 rounds of 20 Turkish situps with a 20/14# med ball overhead, 20 alternating pistols and a 20 cal row, with a 16 minute time cap. Pistols are not my best movement so the coach suggested I do 20 curtsey lunges with the 20# med ball (ugh!). This workout was tough. We were definitely feeling it the next day. I believe most people didn’t make it under the time cap and those of us that did only barely made it. But we all felt like we got a full workout.  Coaching Although I can’t be 100% sure, I believe coach Phil ran our class. He was welcoming and answered any questions we had. He was organized and got all the drop-ins situated before the workout. We got help with scaling options and he was encouraging throughout the workout. As time allowed, he was cordial and chatted with us.  Culture It was a little difficult to assess the culture here because it was a small class, maybe five or so, and I believe there were more drop-ins than member athletes. Nevertheless, the coach had each of us introduce ourselves before class and everyone was friendly.  Drop-in Cost and Swag The cost to drop in is $25 for a single class and $75 for a week (unlimited classes), so if you’re in town for a while it’s a really good deal. As mentioned earlier, in the response to my initial email I was sent a link to sign up that gave us $5 off our first class. You have to set up an account, which is a little unusual but not time consuming. They also sent a link to their waiver to get that out of the way before arriving. The first shirt purchase is $15 (I’m not sure how much subsequent shirt purchases cost), so between that and the discount to drop in, there’s certainly incentive to give CrossFit NOLA a try. They had a pretty good stock and a fair amount of variety. In Summary If you’re willing to add a little sweat to your sweat, CrossFit NOLA is definitely worth a visit. They’re strong in all areas. They’re easy to communicate with, the programming and coaching is very good and the facility is clean and well laid out. I can only speak for the downtown location, but it was impressive and I would expect the other locations would run themselves similarly. The next time I’m in town, I’m definitely dropping in here again. Wishing you safe, healthy and successful travels! Contact Information:
CrossFit NOLA (downtown) 1309 Magazine Street New Orleans, LA 70130 (504) 861-0610 http://www.crossfitnola.com/
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