This past April, I joined Street Parking. It’s a virtual fitness community created by Miranda and Julian Alcaraz, two former CrossFit Games athletes, in their mission to make fitness accessible to everyone. They make it easy for people with busy schedules to work out from home with limited time and equipment. Street Parking was created over three years ago, and they now have over 20,000 members from all over the world.
I joined Street Parking mostly on a whim. I was intrigued by a special I found out about on Instagram when we first went into lockdown. The price for a 3-month membership is already very reasonable at $18/month. With their quarantine special, the price dropped down to $13/month. I missed doing CrossFit-style workouts, so without giving it much thought, I signed up.
Photo credit: www.streetparking.com
What You Get with Your Membership
For the price, the amount of workouts you get access to is outstanding. They post three versions of the WOD (workout of the day) almost every day: a dumbbell version, a barbell version, and a sandbag or row/bike version. There’s also SHIFT, which is a simpler version of the daily workout. The SHIFT workouts are great for people new to training, coming back from injury, or for parents to do with their kids.
Additional weekly workouts are available for the Olympic lifts, gymnastics, endurance, power (for traditional strength movements such as squats and deadlifts), and bodybuilding-style accessories. Each day, they offer suggestions on which additional programs go best with the daily workout and whether they should be done before or after the WOD. You definitely don’t have to do everything; in fact, they often remind members that more doesn’t always equal better. But if you do want to add more into your daily training, they take the guesswork out of everything.
The members-only website offers even more options. There, you can find programs to help you achieve your first pullup or pushup, mobility routines, modifications for new mothers, and a 5k program, just to name a few.
With a Street Parking membership, you also have the option to purchase a nutrition template or sign up for nutrition coaching. Even though I was following my Renaissance Periodization template for a long time, I was curious enough to try something different. I did buy a Street Parking template, but I haven’t been following it strictly yet. I’ll write about it in a future post after I’ve had some time to follow it more consistently.
The Street Parking Community
On top of the substantial amount of workouts you get with Street Parking, the virtual community is AWESOME. With thousands of members, it’s hard to maintain an uplifting, welcoming environment. The Street Parking team manages to do it extremely well. I didn’t intend to participate much on their social media channels when I joined, but I eventually got sucked into them. I slowly began commenting on Facebook posts and following and engaging with others on Instagram. I’ve been impressed by how supportive and encouraging the members are, even when the majority of our communication is virtual.
In non-Covid times, members also organize local in-person meet-ups. There’s even an annual summer camp. If you’re afraid of missing out on the in-person connections from being in a gym, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet other members face-to-face.
Fitness and Nutrition Challenges
In order to keep their members engaged and to help everyone stay consistent, Street Parking runs different challenges throughout the year. I’ve done my fair share of nutrition challenges in the past, and I have to admit, I’m kind of over them. It is fun to have a little competition though, so I understand why Street Parking does them. Plus, some people need the motivation of a challenge to maintain their healthy habits.
The next challenge is a Julian vs. Miranda challenge, which starts in August. This challenge is different than a typical nutrition/weight loss or fitness challenge. Members are randomly assigned to either Team Julian or Team Miranda (a.k.a Team Gallo or Team Paloma). You help your team earn points by doing things like eating veggies and drinking water every day and logging workouts. I think there’s even more involved, but since we haven’t yet received all of the details for this year’s challenge, I’m not sure what to expect. All I know is that I’m on Team Miranda. Woohoo!
Should you join Street Parking?
I know there are a lot of you who still can’t go back to your regular gyms. Maybe your gyms are open, but you’re hesitant to go back or your financial situation has changed and you need to save money. If you’ve been looking for a way to keep up with your fitness routine while we still deal with the mess that is Covid-19, I highly recommend Street Parking.
For the record, this is a completely unsolicited review. I’m writing about it because I love it so much! I still don’t know how much longer it will be before I can return to my regular CrossFit gym, but I’m already planning on keeping both my Street Parking and my regular gym memberships. Considering all that you get with Street Parking for less than $20/month, you really can’t go wrong.
