You’ve only been moving for three minutes but already the lactic acid has started sequential muscular paralysis.

You’re reduced to slow-motion staccato movements, with short-laboured breaths as you fight for oxygen to lift your arms.

But before you know it the four-minute buzzer goes, leaving you collapsed in a heap, fighting the urge to vomit as you lie motionless overcome by burning, twitching and cramps, even in certain muscle groups you never knew existed.

If that sounds like the perfect workout, then CrossFit could be for you. A fast-paced, high-intensity, military-style of cross training, CrossFit is fast becoming a fitness institution around the world.

“CrossFit is the sport of fitness,” says Kevin Manuel, who is the brightest prospect, with Erin Gladstone, to go the farthest among Bay individuals who have Central Health’s sponsorship.

“What we prepare for is the ‘unknowable’,” explains the 26-year-old viticultural contractor.

How infectious the code can be is best reflected in the fact Manuel kicked premier club rugby for Havelock North Rugby Football Club a shade over a year ago to finish 11th in Australia last year.

CrossFit Hawke’s Bay, based in Havelock North, will take a team of 10, including Manuel and Gladstone, to Sydney on Wednesday to compete in Wollongong to compete from Friday to Sunday in the Australasian Regionals.

“The top 40 men and women and the top 30 teams from the New Zealand and Australia will be trimmed down to the top three only to go to the world championship in Los Angeles in late July,” Manuel says of the LA event that is dangling a US$250,000 prize to the individual winner.

The cut to the Wollongong came from 7000 competitors in the transtasman area.

With the precisely timed intervals and ever-changing cardio/resistance combinations keeping the workouts evolving and testing an athlete’s endurance and discipline, it’s no wonder CrossFit uses the tagline “the fittest on Earth”.

Named by Forbes magazine as the fastest growing sport in America, the rest of the world is not far behind with competition registration for the 2013 CrossFit Games reaching more than 138,000.

Once you’ve joined a CrossFit affiliate you can register to compete in the annual CrossFit games. Over five weeks a workout of the day (WOD) is posted on the official website and participants from throughout the world have a week to do the WOD in the best time possible.

Combinations included routines like 15 65kg “thrusters” (a variation of a front-squat shoulder press) followed by 15 “chest to bars” for four minutes without rest with the reward of an extra four minutes if you do over 92 reparations. The results are posted on the website, and based on the outcomes over the five weeks regional teams and individuals alike battle for position on the leader board.

“It prepares you for everyday life,” says Manuel. CrossFit enables participants to engage at a level compatible to their age and lifestyle. You can be grandparents going to pick up children after school or a builder doing strength work for his back.”

Routines can include myriad surprise activities, from weightlifting to gymnastics to endurance events such as running, walking and cycling to the unexpected hand walking, sailing and body squatting.

“Ninety per cent of the people who do it are in it for a healthy lifestyle so you push yourself to your limits,” Manuel says, emphasising it may look intimidating to outsiders but coaches and fellow competitors are always at hand to advise and guide newcomers.

“About 130 to 140 people have walked into the gym and walked out having lost 20 to 30 kilos. They are able to do things in life they were unable to do before.”

With more than 60 CrossFit affiliates around New Zealand, three of those in Hawke’s Bay, there is no shortage of competition.

CrossFit Hawke’s Bays owner/head coach Neil Hanson is welcoming any support for meeting the cost of the travel, accommodation and uniforms.