The island’s residents are becoming familiar with CrossFit and understanding the benefit of working out and training to improve health and fitness.
The largest of the three major islands comprising the Maltese archipelago, Malta is 95 square miles and only 17 miles across. A popular European tourist destination, the island is in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea directly south of Italy and north of Libya. Its nearest neighbors are Sardinia, Tunisia and Gibraltar.
It is here that Kyle Micallef, a native of Malta, chose to open CrossFit 356 — the island’s first and only CrossFit affiliate — in November 2011.
The 25-year-old has been involved in sports since a young age and was a member of the Maltese national youth soccer squad. At 18, he moved to England to play soccer and complete a degree in sports therapy at Plymouth University.
“I gave up soccer and had fallen into a student lifestyle and was quite lazy,” Micallef recalls.
Working at a globo gym, he met James Bish, who today owns CrossFit Plymouth in England. Bish introduced Micallef to CrossFit.
“My first CrossFit WOD was Cindy and the pain I felt was insane,” Micallef says.
From there, Micallef followed CrossFit.com workouts and successfully completed the Level 1 Seminar in April 2011.
“I started coaching at CrossFit Plymouth whilst I made plans to move back to Malta and open my own box,” he says.
Opening a box on such a small island presented problems in terms of finding the right equipment easily available; Micallef had to have most of it shipped.
“We were able to build the pull-up bars and boxes ourselves,” he says.
The next challenge Micallef encountered was introducing a new way of training to an insulated island with a population of about 400,000 where no one had heard of CrossFit.
“The biggest challenge has been trying to get the men out of a ‘classes are for females’ mentality,” he explains. “Men still have this perception of bodybuilding as the only way to train — the usual basic gym program. It's a mentality that's been around for years, but it’s slowly starting to change. Now more males are starting to come in and the ratios are balancing out.”
Slowly, the island’s residents are becoming familiar with CrossFit and understanding the benefit of working out and training to improve health and fitness, Micallef adds.
"Most of the people hear about CrossFit from the Internet or they're referred to me by a friend or someone that knows about me, even other (personal) trainers on the island have referred people to me,” he says.
CrossFit 356 has close to 100 members, including military personnel, police officers and top Maltese-athletes. And it’s typical for the box to see many visiting athletes.
“Because tourism is so big in Malta, we’ve welcomed CrossFitters from all over the world, including (the) USA, England, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden,” Micallef says.
As the sole affiliate on the island, he says he leans on box owners in England and elsewhere in Europe for support. “I'm constantly getting ideas from them,” Micallef says. “But my main source of information is the (CrossFit) Journal — constantly updating my knowledge on coaching points and (cues), techniques and information. In this field, you can never know enough. There's always something more you can learn to be a better coach."
Today, about a year after opening his affiliate, Micallef is searching for a larger space — one without parquet flooring that will allow members to drop loaded barbells.
“We do have kettlebells, boxes, medicine balls, rings and pull-up bars, and … we (also) can practice lots of bodyweight and gymnastics skills,” he notes.
“In just 12 months, CrossFit 356 has gone from strength to strength. I am already looking for a bigger facility and there is room for at least one other CrossFit facility on the island. The demand for it just keeps rising and rising.”
