When it comes to sharing workout programs, “the first rule of CrossFit is that you always talk about CrossFit.”

The desire for people who do CrossFit to tell everyone about their workouts is a testament to the addictive qualities of the program. Both Steve and Bethany Landry, owners of CrossFit Good Fortune in Niantic, got so hooked they opened their gym in November to share the program with others.

The technical definition of CrossFit is “constantly varied, high intensity functional movement,” but the main idea is that people can use a variety of workouts to become more functional in their everyday lives.

“When you sit down and get up out of a chair, that’s a squat. When you get a large package delivered and you have to pick it up and bring it inside, that’s a dead lift,” Bethany said. “The idea is to ‘do the common, uncommonly well.’”

She moved to Westerly to work as a nanny after graduating from Central Connecticut State University, and she joined CrossFit to make friends in the area and challenge herself. She said she liked the intimidation factor and wanted to be held accountable for her progress, which was something she didn’t see in other gyms.

Steve said he joined CrossFit in Groton because he was interested in doing the “new thing” in fitness, and he enjoyed the variety of workouts that CrossFit does so much that he couldn’t go back to another gym. He came to coach in Westerly shortly after Bethany started attending, they started dating, and Bethany got her certification six months later.

“I wanted to be able to teach anyone that I could get my hands on,” she said.

The two, who were married in May 2015, started talking about opening a gym shortly after they started dating because CrossFit had become such a large part of their lives. They switched to CrossFit Inguz in Groton, where Bethany served as head coach for two years. Steve said they had been keeping an eye out for real estate and jumped on the opportunity to purchase a space in Niantic. Between mid-September and their grand opening Nov. 7, they were able to convert the space from storage to a gym.

The name Good Fortune came to Bethany in a dream after she had already submitted the paperwork to the parent organization to register as CrossFit Revive. She felt the idea of good fortune fit in with where she was in her life and what she was meant to do, and she was able to change the paperwork to reflect the new name.

While CrossFit has the reputation of being geared toward top athletes, all of the workouts can be tailored to a person’s needs. Bethany said each coach is trained to adjust workouts to gradually build people up, but people are often amazed by their own progress because they improve so quickly and break personal records even within the first week. She said people are so excited to talk about CrossFit because of that progress, and the other people in the class are just as proud of others as they are of themselves.

“It keeps you so motivated,” she said.

CrossFit Good Fortune, located at 34C Industrial Park Road in Niantic, offers free trial sessions on Sunday mornings for people new to CrossFit, and a four-day On Ramp program for new members to scale up to the regular classes. More information can be found on their website.

a.hutchinson@theday.com

Twitter: @ahutch411