CrossFit Malibu

(Photo courtesy of Cecily Breeding)

Mike Anderson, a 1992 Pepperdine graduate, wants you to join his family.

His CrossFit family that is.

CrossFit involves intense timed circuit workouts that push members to limits they thought they could never achieve. Anderson founded CrossFit Malibu five years ago in a 1,526 square-foot hut down the street from the Malibu Country Mart. Anderson has attracted several Pepperdine students and faculty of all ages to his gym.

I see CrossFit Malibu as a family,Anderson said. When you can take anyone from any background and put them in a workout three to four days a week with the same people, you build a relationship with them and thats what I wanted to establish.

People come in with different backgrounds, different body shapes and different genders. Rather than changing the entire workout based on each individual, Anderson reduces the intensity of the workout to his or her level.

We are a mental strength and conditioning family that works hard to push peoples physical and mental limits and be among other self-motivated people,Anderson said.

Luke Collins, a 21-year-old junior majoring in economics, hits up the 6 p.m. class at CrossFit Malibu five days a week.

Its a motivational atmosphere,Collins said. I had competed in sports in high school and wanted to feel that group dynamic/team atmosphere where everyone is working toward a common goal and thats what it feels like in there.

Kolby Krystofik, 22, a coach at CrossFit Malibu who graduated in sports medicine from Pepperdine last December, felt drawn to CrossFit for similar reasons.

I stopped playing water polo after my sophomore year at Pepperdine and I miss the team aspect of working out together,Krystofik said.

Anderson said he wanted to bring together people with common goals.

The thing I love about CrossFit is that while people come from all different walks of life, they walk in through the door and when they do a CrossFit workout together, they feel exactly what the other person feels in a CrossFit workout,Anderson said. And that doesn’t happen in many other areas of life.

CrossFit Malibu is open Mondays-Friday 7 p.m. to 7 p.m. with earlier openings twice a week and occasional Saturday workouts. It is located at 3728 Cross Creek Road in Malibu.

(Photo courtesy of Cecily Breeding)
(Photo courtesy of Cecily Breeding)

People tend to come in three to four days a week, though Anderson places no requirements on CrossFit members. Coaches will recommend at least two or three times a week to stay in shape.

Compared to other workout facilities, CrossFit Malibu stands alone.

Its completely different,Krystofik said. Other gyms, like 24 Hour Fitness and Malibu Gym, you have people coming in with gym bags and headphones lifting by themselves and not being pushed by someone else.

A monthly membership at the nearest 24 Hour Fitness in Thousand Oaks is $35. Malibu Fitness is $19.95 a month. An unlimited monthly membership at CrossFit Malibu is $255. The extra expense is well worth it, Krystofik said.

Gym memberships here in Malibu are fairly expensive but they are for access to the gyms, not one-on-one access training and a coach-to-athlete relationship,Krystofik said. You are basically coming for one-hour personal training sessions, three to five days a week for $15 (each) which is crazy stupid. Personal trainers here in Malibu charge around $125-$150 an hour.

Not everyone loves CrossFit, with critics often citing the workouts as too intense — physically, mentally and emotionally. College Humor has spoofed both thefamilyatmosphere as well as the zeal in which CrossFit converts try to share the good news of their workout. Some also question the exercises themselves.

I tried CrossFit once and I knew some of the movements they had me doing were not correct and could injure my body,said Jackson McClelland, a junior sports medicine major and baseball player at Pepperdine.

But CrossFit skeptics didn’t stop Anderson from making his family bigger.

Majoring in sports medicine at Pepperdine University, Anderson said he loves physical education. After teaching in Pepperdines physical education department from 2001-2005, Anderson said he wanted to do more and branched away from Pepperdine.

Anderson first learned about CrossFit from a friend who was living in Argentina at the time. He began adding CrossFit workouts in his P.E. classes at Pepperdine. In his spare time, he did one-on-one training with some individuals that included hiking and other CrossFit inspired exercises. These went well and he decided to start his own establishment.

Wanting to live in Malibu, Anderson looked for places to open a CrossFit area where he could begin teaching and training people. With real-estate extremely expensive in the Malibu area, Anderson opened up CrossFit Malibu in a secluded dirt area next to Malibu Auto Service, down a dirt road past Chipotle.

The original quonset hut at CrossFit Malibu was 576 square feet with some yard space, making workouts tight. As clientele began to increase, so did CrossFit Malibu, and they opened the 950-square-foot annex hut connected to the original building.

Anderson said he keeps things fresh and not entirely planned out. Everyday members perform a different combination of exercises. Workouts fluctuate depending on the strength of the group and individual athletes.

Athletes keep their own personal journal as a reference. Athletes use this to see their progression in strength, speed or just physical shape from when they first started training, Anderson said.

A workout might include timed intervals around two to three minutes of rowing, push-ups, sit-ups, burpees and pull-ups.  

I wanted CrossFit Malibu to be unique in its own way,Anderson said.

He said he wanted it to be more personal than differ 24 Hour Fitness.

They want as many memberships as possible and if all members were to come in at once they would not be able to workout,Anderson said.

Anderson saw no reason to market his CrossFit gym with flyers or commercials. He simply trusted people to talk about CrossFit.

I found out through my sister about Mike opening a CrossFit workout place because she went abroad with him in Pepperdines abroad program, said Luke Bost, 40, who is the associate resident director of Housing at Pepperdine and a member at CrossFit Malibu

One of Andersons most positive supporters is former teacher and colleague Laurie Nelson.

Nelson is a sports medicine professor in the Natural Science Division at Pepperdine and began CrossFit under Anderson when he first opened his establishment.

I didn’t know anything about CrossFit before I came in,Nelson said, who competed in the annual CrossFit games and placed 10th in the women’s 60+ class. Its an amazing atmosphere in there that puts you in great shape and there is definitely a family aspect and I think thats what Mike wanted to achieve.

Nelson, 68, said she plans to compete in the upcoming games in March with the assistance of Anderson and fellow CrossFit members.

One of the best things was when I competed in the games was that 30 or so members of CrossFit Malibu came out to support me along with Mike during the games,Nelson said.

Anderson said he is living Pepperdines mission of purpose, service and leadership by creating his CrossFit family of athletes.

Its a humbling motivating experience,said Joseph Apelo, 30, who just moved to the Malibu area. It’s completely different from anything else and I urge all to come and join.

A.J. Puckett completed this story in Dr. Christina Littlefield’s fall 2014 Jour 241 class.