Not your average Quonset Hut

Cruising through Malibu less than one mile from the Malibu Pier, and right between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean you’ll find the most useful Quonset hut you’ve ever seen: CrossFit Malibu. SWEAT RX had the good fortune of finding this affiliate, snapping some great pics and hearing all about CrossFit Malibu from founder Mike Anderson.

The Venue: Where is your box? – how long has it been in operation?
CF Malibu opened in the summer of 2009- so we are going on 6 years.
We are less than a mile from Surfrider Beach in Malibu and also have very convenient access to the Santa Monica Mountains- lots of trails for running, hiking and mountain biking. Most of our athletes use CrossFit as training for health/fitness (rather than competition) and most get in at least 2 other activity sessions per week in the ocean or mountains. Yoga, surfing, paddling, climbing, trail running, mountain biking, triathlon and obstacle course racing are big with our athletes.

The Top: Who are the owners of your box?
I am the owner/operator (Mike Andreson), and my wife Kristin is of invaluable support. Our current motivation are our 10 month old twins!

The Glue: Who makes up the core team at your affiliate?…coaches/trainers
We have 2 coaches at CFM in addition to myself: Kolby and Julia are both Pepperdine University grads. After training with us for about a year, both Kolby and Julia went through our in-house intern program as sports medicine majors. After they completed the intern program they continued with our coaches preparation program and since finishing, each have been teaching classes for nearly 2 years.

Pre¬WOD: What made you decide to open up shop?
I graduated from the Pepperdine sports med program back in 1992… and later returned to Malibu to teach in the PE department. During this time I learned olympic lifting from a physical education colleague and then became introduced to CrossFit in 2008. A year or so later I decided to open CFM.

The Fabric: What makes your box unique? What do think is the essence of its success; the reason for member loyalty?
Over 60% of our membership is between the ages of 45 and 60- one of our oldest athletes competed in the masters category a few years ago. She is now 69 and ready for the opening of a 70+ age group (I think she would win it!) There are a handful of Pepperdine students, staff and faculty- 3 of whom are long-time professors in the sports medicine program (all 3 have also attended Level 1 seminars). We obviously have a close relationship with Pepperdine as well as CFHQ- many of the top CF Games athletes have come to do WODs for demo purposes wearing a portable gas exchange analyzer… etc. Greg [Glassman]likes to stop by the Hut now and then…. he has also given some talks on Campus. In anticipation of Castro’s teaser of SUP being in the coming games- I did a stand up paddle session for some games athletes last year a few days before they started. That was the second time Julie Foucher went out paddling with us. As you might imagine… she took to it right away- very athletic and a quick learner!

Strength Session: Do you have any unusual CrossFit philosophies, or any particularly inspiring members?
We run a pretty traditional CF program. With 26 sessions/week of workout of the day classes and only 4 specialty classes each week- 2 strength, 1 oly technique class and a mobility hour. We ensure that there is a relevant teaching component to each and every hour of classes

Outside the box: Tell us about any special initiatives your box has created, such as fundraisers, unique events, or community involvement.
A few times each year we will host a special event or series- whether it is a triathlon training program (which culminates with our in-house triathlon- the Point Dume Sprint Tri), an obstacle course prep program (a Spartan Sprint is actually run in out small town), recently we held a fundraiser for the high school strength and conditioning program to buy new equipment, we have beach WODs fairly often on Saturday mornings, and we like to run a WOD called Row, Run Paddle- It starts at “The Hut” with a 2000m row, then a 3/4 mile run to the beach with 30 burpees done along the way, a 3/4 mile standup paddle (boards are staged at Malibu Pier) and then finishes with a 400m sand sprint. Our next special event as part of our Sunday Morning “Go Outside and Play” series for spring/summer 2015 is an adventure race preparation program- it will finish off with a community event/race that includes swimming, paddling, trail running, a bike segment and some barbell/pull up obstacles.

High¬Fives: Any last words – comments about current members; outreach to potential newcomers?

CrossFit Malibu
3728 Cross Creek Road
Malibu, CA 90265
www.crossfitmalibu.com