He makes many of the same points, but I find the arguments more persuasive. It's also interesting to note the arguments in favour of CrossFit.
Finally, Mark seems to have completely different opinions about deadlifting; he regards them as a staple to strength training, whereas the OP "doesn't do" them for unknown reasons. I find the disagreement among professionals to be intriguing.
I was a college athlete in a large program where we used Olympic lifting extensively. It's true that form was emphasized over weight and repetition, and I gained quite a bit of muscle mass from that. Forward about 8 years later and I continued doing those lifts: deadlifts, cleans, etc. I always focused strictly on my form, but I also challenged myself and kept adding weight as long as I could lift it properly. Well, about two years ago I was in the gym deadlifting a significant amount of weight. I was going for one rep. As I was slightly above my ankles, I felt my form slip very slightly and my lower back just collapsed. I spent the better part of the next year rehabbing and doing physical therapy to help repair a buldging disc. It still hurts me to this day and to counteract it I have to keep my core (abs) very strong. That being said, I do cardio every day and am in the gym doing bodyweight/light HIIT six days per week.
My takeaway from all this is that certain exercises, even if you know what you're doing, may not be worth it. I was training simply to be fit - that was my goal. Deadlifts will absolutely make you stronger, but they are also incredibly dangerous if your form deviates even slightly from where it should be. Today I'm happy and seeing great results with bodyweight exercises, light weights, and a proper diet. Honestly, I feel better than I ever have besides aches in my lower back.
I had something similar happen myself, albeit not as bad your experience.
While doing a warm up set of deadlifts (I think it was 120kg x 5 - I was working up to 180kg x 5, iirc), I lost my concentration for just a second on the third rep and my form broke down, leading to a pulled muscle in my back. It took me three or four months of stretching and rehab to fix it.
Squats and deadlifts are awesome exercises, but they need to be done with 100% concentration. A single second of lapsed concentration can, potentially, lead to a lifetime of problems.
I still squat and deadlift today, but I'm super careful when I do so. If things don't feel right (e.g., my concentration is slipping, the bar feels heavier than normal), I walk away and go home. I'd rather play it safe than hurt myself badly.
Admittedly "proper diet" is subjective, but what I've been focusing on is high protein, non-processed foods. For example, in the morning I'll either do a few eggs or a smoothie with fruits, vegetable protein, almond milk, hemp, chia seeds, and super yogurt. For lunch, I usually do yogurt with granola or chicken/tuna. For dinner, I just go with whatever my wife cooks. She's always focused on cooking well-balanced meals and loves to cook with fresh vegetables. One reason I think this whole thing works for me is that I'm not trying to diet -- I'm simply focusing on eating healthier foods. My biggest issue is night eating. Like many developers, I tend to work late into the night and as I get sleepy, I get hungry. The night eating got so bad with me that even if I somehow got to bed early, I'd wake up in the middle of the night starving since that's what my body learned to expect. It's been hard, but the way I've been combatting that is by eating all my meals during the day, trading in the computer for a book at night, and trying to get to sleep at a reasonable hour (11ish). I still have issues putting work down, but the combination of feeling physically better because I'm not eating chips at 2AM and rediscovering my love for reading has been wonderful.
Deadlifts are very effective for strength training if you use correct technique, but it is very easy to injure yourself while doing them. If you have someone to teach them to you and correct your mistakes and focus technique, they are very effective. They lead to injuries if you do not know how to do them right or do not focus on technique.
Note that CrossFit is not strength training and strength training normally focus on technique a lot.
So, it may make perfect sense for the OP to refuse doing them normally (after all he does not seem to go after strength training) and for someone going after strength celebrating them.
<< So, it may make perfect sense for the OP to refuse doing them normally (after all he does not seem to go after strength training) and for someone going after strength celebrating them. >>
One reason the OP isn't going after strength: she's a former athlete currently working to cross over into fitness modeling.
"This is precisely why the advanced athletes who win and place at the CrossFit Games do not use CrossFit website programming to achieve advanced levels of the strength and conditioning necessary to perform at that level. None of them. This is widely known and freely admitted by everyone not involved with the company. All athletes at advanced levels must Train intelligently to advance, and CrossFit: The Methodology doesn't do the job."
Some strength coaches see a good deadlift as the outcome of excellence at other disciplines, so there is no need to specifically add deadlifting itself to a solid program.
Personally I could take or leave DL, I have it in my routine right now but I sumo lift as I need to work on hamstring strength due to suffering from backpain largely due to pelvis alignment issues. The other thing to note about sumo is your lift succeeds or fails in the first inches off the ground where the power is going through your legs and your back is fixed in a "strong" position, whereas your classic deadlift stance the off the ground is the easy part and you are fighting with the weight getting upright where your back is at its most vulnerable.
First of all: A wide stance low bar back squat going down to parallel together with conventional deadlifts will strengthen your hamstrings and glutes greatly. There are reasons to pull sumo, those reasons are mainly proportion-related. Most people I've talked to who pull sumo at meets usually also train using the conventional dead lift (see for example Dan Green).
Second of all: I'm going to assume that your pelvis suffer from an anterior tilt. If so, then focus more on stretching your psoas muscles since these are usually very tight in people who sit down a lot (and you browse HNews) and pulls on your pelvis. Strengthening your back, hamstrings, glutes and quads aren't a bad idea either, it's just that these are things that usually come with a good training program.
Third of all: The position that is toughest for the lifter is largely dependent on the lifter's own weaknesses. I, for example, deadlift conventionally and have the most trouble to come off the floor because I usually do touch-and-go DLs.
If you exclude deadlifts it's now harder to exercise important muscles necessary for bench and overhead press. These would be your back muscles and lats. You can do rows, but they require many of the same lower back muscles as deadlifts, which you didn't train properly by avoiding deadlifts.
So if your bench goes into 250lb+ range but your deadlift is barely 315lb, and your row is 150 lbs, you are exposing your shoulders to injury by having a strength imbalance between chest and back muscles.
I stopped deadlifting, but continued weighted pullups and rows but still experienced shoulder problems from bench. They subsided when I added deadlifts back. Of course you can also stop benching to get weaker there and preserve the muscle balance. But if you don't, then you have to take calculated risks.
By avoiding deadlifts while continuing to bench you're trading off the risk of a potential injury in one place for a guaranteed injury in another. That's why classic lifting programs include exercises for the whole body, not just ones you like.
The professionals that exclude them must also balance your chest/shoulder strength. Or must demand you spend more time in the gym doing back volume. Or insist on more humble fitness goals. Or focus on machines, which increases your risk of injury whenever you do physical activity in the real world. Or succeed with enough clients that they can fail with the rest.
There is no free lunch. As with "professionals" in any industry the only common incentive among them is to get your money.
I too was perplexed by the OP's aversion to deadlifts. It's pretty much a staple exercise in most strength training programs - right from Rippletoe's classic "Starting Strength Training" to "New Rules of Lifting" to even StrongLifts 5x5.
Because it is very easy to be stupid with deadlifts. You should be following these simple guidelines but hardly anyone does:
1. If you are tired/hungover/sick/not feeling well/angry then don't deadlift
2. If you don't have the time to do 3-5 warmup sets then don't deadlift
3. If you don't have time to rest at least 3 mins between sets then don't deadlift.
4. If you can't lift a light/medium weight with perfect form then don't try and go heavy.
5. If you aren't competing and under the instruction of a trained powerlifting coach then don't try and max anything. If you can't do 7 reps with a weight then you shouldn't be doing 5 reps. Likewise if you can't do 3 reps with a weight then you shouldn't be doing 1. Leave 1-2 reps in the bank.
I quit doing deadlifts when I stopped competing in powerlifting. Deadlifts are a fine lift, and not inherently dangerous -- but I do think they are inherently risky.
After hurting my back (while being competently coached), now lifting uncoached, and without one of my goals being 'deadlift a big number to get a medal' -- I've dropped them from my routine. I just don't find the benefits necessarily worth the risk, in my specific case.
>I find the disagreement among professionals to be intriguing.
Any professional that doesn't think you should do deadlifts is one that you should be weary of. I think CrossFit is ridiculous as well, but when I saw the OP listing deadlifts as a low reward for high risk, it instantly throws into question their knowledge of the subject at hand.
A deadlift done with proper form is one of the safest exercises you can do with free weights, because there's no chance of failure resulting in the bar and weight falling on you like could happen with a squat or press.
They're dangerous with poor form, but anyone doing any sort of exercise should make sure they're doing it properly. Deadlift form is pretty simple, as well. The problem is if you're not focused, things can go poorly, as others have commented. Stay focused, stay safe.
And as for the reward part, there's probably not any other single exercise that provides so much potential gain in strength and muscle mass. Squats, presses, and rows fall shortly behind. Compound lifts are excellent in general and minimize your risk of injury compared to simple lifts that do not strengthen stabilizer muscles, etc.
I cut my power lifting teeth on Rippetoe years ago. Now that I'm older I'll likely not hit any new deadlift PRs again, but I'll never stop doing them :)
I'm not going to refute the author, merely, here is my experience: I've done CF for 2+ years, and frankly, I've gotten a lot out of it. I like/trust my coaches, I like the community, and I like the challenge. I never thought I'd be capable of what I can do these days, and so for me, it's a success story.
I go twice a week, and have been doing so (roughly) for the past two years, except for a period of a few months where I had a hernia repaired. The origins of the hernia were 5-6 years old, and it never was very painful or caused much in the way of problems, and I actually think that a year of CF actually helped reduce the severity of it (and my surgeon agrees).
Thess days, I take things much easier, but am still making progress against my personal goals.
So at the end of the day, does the author have valid points? Sure. But I think, like pretty much everything people are passionately for or against on the internet, the truth is in a gray area. It's not as black and white as I think the author is making it out to be.
CrossFit has helped a lot of people, myself included. CrossFit hasn't helped some people who have tried it.
You could replace "CrossFit" with "college" (or a lot of other things in life), and I think you'd find that again, the truth is really in a gray area, somewhere in between the opposing factions.
I don't get the moderation here at HN these days. Currently, the comment I'm replying to has been voted down, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.
The content seems very reasonable, informative and detailed to me, even if it may partially contradict the submission's article. It gave me a different perspective on the issue, which I find useful. I see absolutely no reason why it should be greyed out.
I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up getting voted up soon enough, too. It's just disappointing to see so many totally legitimate and valid comments ending up in this state these days.
You could replace "CrossFit" with "college" (or a lot of other things in life)
That's just an absurd statement. It implies that the problem is you - your over-training, or your inability to do the right things. But in CrossFit or in college, you are following a prescribed path someone else laid out. The author points out how the cult of CrossFit promotes blind following WOD/et al. So no - you can't replace CrossFit with college in this case and suggesting so implies that he/she did not truly read the article.
"You could replace "CrossFit" with "college" (or a lot of other things in life), and I think you'd find that again, the truth is really in a gray area, somewhere in between the opposing factions."
That is the entire sentence I wrote. Please, don't cherry pick (on the topic of not truly reading things). I'm making a statement about the nature of controversial things, where there are conflicting viewpoints. Often times both sides have valid points, despite being wildly opposed to each other.
Replace "college" in my statement with "politics". Or "medical studies". Or "emacs vs. vi". Same thing - the truth it somewhere in the middle.
I think the comparison is much more valid that you're making it out to be.
There's just as much "blind following" in many college programs as there may be in CrossFit, or even religion. Questioning what you're taught, or how you're taught it, or even the methods you've been told to use while learning the material, is tantamount to academic "death". So we see a lot of people just go along with it to avoid low marks or other forms of retribution they may face if they question the system. This can even cause physical and mental hardship for some people.
But I don't see how it isn't the participant's fault if the participant can't or won't say, "This could unreasonably harm me; I'm not doing it.", and then keeps participating to the point of harm taking place.
We're talking about something that they're voluntarily doing, after all. If these people lack the judgment to know what their boundaries are, and when they might be exceeding them, then I don't see how anyone but the participants are responsible for any harm that may happen. Nobody but the participant, regardless of whether they're participating in college or physical training, is responsible if the participant lacks the self control to stop engaging in a completely voluntary, yet harmful, behavior.
It is a form of moderation. It may not be as extreme as outright deletion, but it does make the comment harder to read, which is a mild form of censorship.
And, yes, I'm aware of why it can happen, and how one can deal with it. It's just a trend that's getting far worse than I remember it being. There was one Python submission I saw yesterday where probably 1/3rd of the comments were greyed out when I viewed it. It becomes distracting, and makes it harder to read the comments.
I usually end up reading them anyway, since so much legitimate and valuable content is now shown in grey so often. It defeats the purpose of displaying comments like that when so much good content has so frequently been mis-voted down.
It's probably because you can find testimonials for every fitness program ever on the internet, from Crossfit to Himalaya Spiritual yoga (I made that up).
In fact, you can find testimonials for everything on the internet. They are all a bunch of "this worked for me" and they offer absolutely no insight.
It started to happen when a moderator came out of the shadow encouraging users to downvote comments they don't agree to. So here we are now, reddit without a reddiquette.
I try to do the opposite (although I fail at times to) - downvoting for simply disagreement amounts to squelching dissent on a whim. If you downvote, at least a response as to why would be good. Otherwise, it amounts to communal censorship.
I'm not a fan of voting systems that let you downvote in general though.
Downvotes are sometimes useful for getting users to fight spam. One interesting solution I encountered on lobste.rs is to ask for a reason (out of a small list) before allowing me to downvote. It sure stopped me from censoring stuff that I find annoying.
Disclaimer: I've done crossfit for over 2 years at this point.
This is actually one of the best written anti-crossfit posts I've come across. Most are anecdotal "I went to one gym that didn't focus on form so all gyms must be bad" posts, which are tiring. This post goes over some great details which as a crossfitter I would say are true.
That being said, after doing CrossFit for 2 years I have a few tidbits of advice:
* Find a gym that focuses on form over workout. They exist, and crossfit is popular enough at this point that you should be able to find it.
* If you don't plan on being SUPER into CrossFit, ask for substitute workouts for the gymnastic moves: handstand pushups, most things with rings, parallel bars, etc. It just isn't worth the time learning how to do these, and you can hurt yourself. Just do something simple, they always have substitutes.
* I personally, like the author of this post, don't do deadlifts and rarely do kettlebell swings. I am not a professional athlete or trainer, but I really primarily only heard of people getting hurt with these workouts, so I chose to avoid them. Sounds like this was a good decision. There are substitute workouts for each.
My goal with CrossFit isn't to be ripped and exploded. My goal with CrossFit is to remain in good physical health based on the fact that I sit (or remain still standing) for 10+ hours per day. To that end, its been a HUGE success. The team environment of CrossFit is a great motivator both to workout hard but also to show up (social pressures). The diversified workouts of crossfit keep my strength up pretty high.
All this being said, listen to the linked post of this entry. It has really good info.
> * I personally, like the author of this post, don't do deadlifts and rarely do kettlebell swings. I am not a professional athlete or trainer, but I really primarily only heard of people getting hurt with these workouts, so I chose to avoid them. Sounds like this was a good decision. There are substitute workouts for each.
I absolutely would not do deadlifts within the context of Crossfit. It's an exercise best suited for very low reps at high weights, and proper form cannot be ignored. Sane novice programs will often only hit deadlifts once a week for a single set of five. Either way, it has to be approached systematically and intentionally trained - it's not well suited to being randomly thrown into a workout, especially if it's done under time pressure or at high reps.
That said, done properly and with proper attention given to form, it's not only a completely safe exercise, it's also one of the single most effective exercises out there. It engages a huge range of muscle groups and is very easy to increase load over time. While form is critical, it's also one of the easier compound lifts to do correctly.
I'm not trying to say that everyone absolutely must to do deadlifts or anything. I'm just saying there's no reason to be afraid of them. It's a great exercise, and I'm saying that as somebody that found deadlifts to be the single most effective exercise when recovering from a lower back injury, which is the part that seems to scare most people.
I injured myself doing deadlifts. I was following Starting Strength with a trainer that went through Rippletoe's program. I was at 315 when I pulled a hamstring. It wasn't the first time I'd done 315, but that time was when I got injured. Form was perfect, everything was right.
When you're lifting heavy, not even good form will keep you from getting injured. It's a fact of life.
People complaining that deadlifts are dangerous generlaly think it's going to irreversibly destroy your back, not result in a pulled muscle that will heal in a week or two. That's what I was addressing.
Herniated discs can result from muscle damage. The only thing holding the spine in proper place is proper back muscle health.
I should mention that I have 3 herniated discs from Seated Dumbell Presses. I used to do 6 reps of 90lbs in each hand, 1.4x my body weight. Weight is so overrated. Lowering the weight and really doing a wide range of movement will save you a life of pain and setbacks. I can do barely 35lbs now..wasn't worth it.
Well, to be fair, dumbbell training is a lot more dangerous at heavy weights than barbell training is because with barbells, there's a lot that equipment like a power rack can do for you. It's probably not the presses messed you up, it's getting the dumbbells into position, getting them off and back onto the rack, that sort of thing. You can't just lower them onto pegs after your set is over.
Possibly. I had pretty good form with the whole off-the-knee kick-off to shoulder position. The muscle damage could have happened at any place throughout the movement. The massive weight and lack of range of motion definitely caused it.
In any case, large amounts of weight, and the tiniest deviation from form, lift-off, etc, will cause such hardship later in life that with some exercises, it's just not worth it to do small rep sets with heavy weight. The gains don't equate to the risk.
That's exactly my issue with starting training. I'm very worried about back injuries and want to find a coach to teach me proper form but I've got no idea how to evaluate him.
It's a bit the same conundrum as a non technical founder trying to find a technical founder :-)
Pick up Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe that's mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Form goes a lot farther when you understand the why rather than just trying to replicate it. The book does an extremely good job of explaining the biomechanics behind the movements and what makes proper form proper.
Having a trainer to make sure what you're actually doing matches what you think you're doing is definitely a good thing, but going in informed may make you less nervous.
I did read Starting Strength, that's what convinced me to make sure that I find a good trainer and I don't trust myself enough to evaluate based on the book...
If you are open to other options than weightlifting you shoul look at www.gymnasticbodies.com it's a gymanstics streght training (no backflips and that just bodyweight strenght), that takes care of mobility, joins preparation, etc from raw raw beginers (I'm talking inclined pushups kind of raw) to iron cross. It has lots of videos and a nice forum with plenty of helpful people.
Solid advice, though I would suggest that learning how to properly deadlift is totally worth it. It's easier than other olympic lifts to do at your local chain gym, and there's no better way to make all of the muscles in the posterior of your entire body to feel worn out in 15 minutes.
Definitely mind the rep range in any olympic lift though. I've read it's common for form to break down after the 5-10 rep range, and only the lightest warm up sets should be beyond that range while your working sets are 1-5 reps.
Kettlebell swings are generally bad but Deadlifts are considered fundamentals also in the BB area.
Explosive Deadlifts are bad, that's for sure specially with high weights, but well slow executed deadlifts are one of the best exercise to strengthen all your body and improve his hormonal response. That's why in a good gym the trainers focus very very very hard on teaching the correct execution ROM before allow you to even start to increase the weights.
I'm not really clear on the authors stance on Kettlebell swings or Deadlifts and a cursory search of her blog didn't provide me with a link to either of the articles she mentioned. Why do you think they are "generally bad"?
The author mentions regarding swings, "I don’t do those either because it is not a beneficial movement for the body and typically puts the back in bad positions". I'm not sure what angle she's coming from here (aesthetics?) but explosive hip extension is extremely important for many sports involving sprinting and jumping and kettlebell swings are a nice exercise that's easier to learn than varieties of clean. Like any other lift it has its own risks but there is no reason that with good form one can't perform swings without risking the back any more than other exercises.
Her comment about deadlifts is pretty questionable and I wonder what the author is replacing them with for hip dominant movements. I wonder if in this instance she is specifically talking about heavy barbell deadlifts where the back is often the limiting factor rather than the deadlift movement (single leg, staggered, etc) as a whole. The excerpt, "I had never done and to this day I still don’t do them" is pretty suspicious given that the knowledge she would need to have to make an informed decision about whether deadlifts are worthwhile is unlikely to be something she would have had when she started lifting. Seems the author has a predisposition to worrying about her back.
You actually want your deadlifts to be reasonably fast. What you don't want to do is attempt to explode off the ground. This leads to back rounding (I think this is what you mean, just clarifying).
The problem with cross fit is they treat pasty cube dwellers like athletes, and they get injured often and badly as a result.
The average person is pretty clueless about this stuff and doesn't necessarily get that dead lifts and kettleball swings can screw up their backs. That's what a coach/trainer is supposed to do.
A lot of what you see in there is either officially encouraged ("kipping" = basically cheating at pullups/lifts/whatever for more reps with shit form) or arises from a total lack of proper training on anyone's part (the guy who just powers up the weight with his arms and back rather than using his legs)
I'm a loss for words. That is disturbing. For people who don't workout and don't understand what's wrong with some of these. The form so terrible and dangerous you could easily kill and injure yourself for life. And they're getting none of the benefits of the exercises they're trying to do because they're not doing them correctly. Thank you for posting this.
I'm speechless. I genuinely am at a loss for words. Is that like a hack squat except with no legs? "Hey, you know how they have Romanian deadlift? Let's do that for hack squats! That'd be pretty cool, right?"
I used to sell SaaS software to CF gyms and have been to hundreds of gyms. I've never seen anything like any of these at a CrossFit gym ever.
Do your homework before forming an opinion - don't take 10 edge-case GIFs on the Internet as the primary basis of your opinion. Been CrossFitting since 08, and, like anything, there's both good and bad things about it.
These don't add anything productive to the conversation, and basing your opinion on these is like basing your opinion of a religion -- or followers of that religion -- on the actions of a handful of fanatics.
The frequency of these fanatic events does tell you something about the subject as you can compare them to the frequency of events of other subjects (workouts). Being able to easily to find 10 edge case gifs tells you a lot about crossfit - and none of this is positive.
For the most part, I think people want a workout to follow, they want to be part of a gym, and they want fellow sufferers and coaches to motivate them.
I don't think the motivation for people doing CrossFit is worded correctly. People want to do CrossFit because it's fun. For most people, going to a normal gym is boring. I tried gyms on and off for years but could never stick to going more than 4-6 weeks at a time before losing interest. While I don't do CrossFit, I do another sport that replaces lifting, climbing in my case. I get most of the benefits of going to a gym plus it is insanely fun and I've met countless friends through it.
There is a huge market out there for fun replacements for the gym. I'm guesstimating that 75% of the people in a regular gym are not having a good time and would swap their current workout routine with something enjoyable and social. There simply aren't many choices. I can think of climbing, CrossFit, the up-and-coming parkours gyms (looks awesome: http://www.apexmovement.com/), probably boxing (although surprisingly getting punched in the face sucks), what else? In principle yoga could be on this list but in practice the yoga centers I've been to feel a bit uptight and certainly aren't social. Team sports are great fun but all I can think of are cardiovascular and don't give you any muscle building exercises.
BJJ is a good cardio/strength fun activity that doesn't feel boring and is social.
Contact, and especially grappling type sports do tend to make people stronger since they involve a lot of grabbing, twisting, lifting, etc. of another person's body as they resist.
BJJ can be done in a playful and relaxed way or very competitive and grinding. One can do it a small space on cheap mats with friends or at a formal school or competition.
It's full of possibilities and things to learn so it doesn't get boring.
Ah yes, I forgot about grappling sports. BJJ does look like great fun as long as you are not required to get the cauliflower ears. I once had a friend "demo" it to me by challenging me to punch or kick him. By the end of the demo I was done punching or kicking for quite some time.
From the medical point of view what author says is true. Actually, it's not something new, there are many complaints about crossfit from knowledgeable people. Especially often I see powerlifters ranting about crossfit being harmful.
But here's the problem. As you know HN isn't sports resource, yet article about CF is on top. Why? …You see what I mean? It's extremely popular amongst people that don't want to be powerlifters or swimmers or sprinters, that don't really care about competing at all, they just want to have some exercising program to follow and stay fit. Which is totally fair. For which crossfit is better than nothing (at least until you injure your ankle while doing box-jumps). And I completely understand those who doesn't follow advices like "don't do crossfit, do powerlifting" as powerlifting competitions cannot be the goal for them.
What I'm saying is when there is counter-advice there should be advice as well. Now, Erin isn't a powerlifter and sure she provides something like "fitness training plan", but while the idea of crossfit training is clear (maximizing intensity whatever exercises you do) neither she nor others provide enough material for self-education to be able to do some "not-harmful crossfit". And people essentially want "not-harmful crossfit", not training for judo or sprinting or powerlifting… unless they do judo or sprinting or powerlifting of course.
So, tl;dr: crossfit is harmful — nothing new here. "Train like an athlete, but train safely." — not informative/constructive enough.
> As you know HN isn't sports resource, yet article about CF is on top. Why? …You see what I mean? It's extremely popular amongst people that don't want to be powerlifters or swimmers or sprinters, that don't really care about competing at all, they just want to have some exercising program to follow and stay fit.
They want to build strength and fitness, but don't want to put in the time that usually takes, so they want a shortcut, so they're ready to believe when someone sells them one. CrossFit is fitness hacking!
I'm an ex-crossfitter and thought this and the Rippetoe article mentioned were excellent. They have the ring of truth. I loved Crossfit, miss it, and yet probably won't go back.
It wasn't the suffering - that was a positive. It wasn't the injuries - I had chronic shoulder pain that ultimately led to a torn bicep tendon during a set of high-rep cleans for time (of course). The problem was one that Rippetoe mentioned - I just wasn't improving. I suffered extravagantly. Most days I was prostrate on the floor. Many days took me hours till I wasn't nauseous. But I just wasn't getting better. I actually switched to Rippetoe's Starting Strength program and now Wenders 531 and have made steady progress (on strength, at least).
So Crossfit was super fun, but didn't work for me. But the weird thing is that there were many INCREDIBLE athletes in my gym. They were SUPER fit. And they got that way doing Crossfit. So somehow this random variation of high-effort work does work for some people.
Another challenge is what to do if you want to improve but not do Crossfit? There are 3-5 CF gyms within 15 minutes of my house. There are a couple of lame normal gyms. My old CF gym had world-class knowledgeable instructors. I have not been able to find a replacement. And while learning from a book like Starting Strength is ok at the beginning, eventually you need expert help. CF is easy to find. World class strength coaches for the recreational athlete are not.
I deal with CrossFit a lot, as a lot of my coworkers do it and my unit's PT seems to be going in that direction.
1. As said by other posters, CrossFit is huge. And it's not like McDonald's - there's a large amount of variation that's inherent in an organization that barely looks at its members. Instructors are free to come up with whatever program they want.
2. Most personal trainers know absolutely nothing about actually training people. They know what works for them, but they have a very hard time in applying workouts to other people. The workout plan that fits a 220-pound male rugby player is not going to fit a 110-pound female volleyball player or a 350-pound couch potato who is trying to get into shape. Applying the same program to these three people is going to lead to disaster.
3. Crossfit is different from traditional weightlifting, which seems to attract a certain class of people. These people basically say, "I made this switch, and it's done wonders for me! The old paradigm is flawed, and you're an idiot for sticking with it!" You'll notice this incredibly annoying group of people whenever there's an alternative - religion, programming languages / frameworks, etc.
4. Apply #1, #2, and #3, - a very large organization with idiots who loosely fall under it, and a group of people who look down on anyone who isn't a member, and you get a group of people who are really, really easy to hate. And, to some extent, it's completely true. You get the stereotype of the typical CrossFit user who won't shut the fuck up, makes fun of people who go to "regular" gyms, and doesn't actually know what he's talking about. It leads to the jokes of "The first rule of CrossFit is to talk about CrossFit" and "A CrossFit workout isn't complete until you post it on Facebook."
My own experience with CrossFit is that some parts are perfectly fine; there's absolutely nothing wrong with circuit courses, and there's nothing wrong with explosive movement. The problem is when you start doing exercises that require lots of weight and proper form and then CrossFit them - doing as many reps as possible as quickly as you can. Push-ups? Go for it. Burpees? Be careful, but go for it. Snatch, deadlifts, and pull-ups[1]? No, and run far far away before you tear your rotator cuff.
The last thing is that CrossFit doesn't seem to have a goal in mind. As Mark Rippetoe states, "Exercise is physical activity for its own sake, a workout done for the effect it produces today, during the workout or right after you're through. Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind, the constituent workouts of which are specifically designed to produce that goal."[2]
This is supremely important. Even someone whose goal is as simple as "Lose weight" and "Look more muscular" needs a training goal, not an exercise goal. CrossFit doesn't seem to deliver that. They talk about their goal being all-around fitness, but they don't have a good methodology for doing so. Take a look at what decathletes, strongmen, and even the CrossFit Games athletes are doing - it certainly isn't CrossFit. That, in and of itself, should let you know that something is badly wrong.
I'll preface this by saying I'm not a Crossfitter due in large part to the reasons you mentioned.
But I think those less savory elements aren't ubiquitous, and Crossfit has done some very good things for the fitness industry. Chief amongst these is an emphasis on compound movements and barbell training, which in most cases are much more beneficial to focus on (as opposed to the bodybuilding, isolation heavy bro-splits that has dominated for years).
So I think that overall Crossfit has had a positive impact on the way people train, but a lot of the specifics about the way the organization does business need to be cleaned up, and I don't think they've shown much of an inclination to do that at this point.
"Chief amongst these is an emphasis on compound movements and barbell training, which in most cases are much more beneficial to focus on (as opposed to the bodybuilding, isolation heavy bro-splits that has dominated for years)."
OH THIS
I can't stand the people that think the only way to progress is to split their training into a huge amount of minuscule parts.
Yeah, maybe if you're really a pro bodybuilder it makes sense to have ABCDEFG, but for most people it doesn't.
As someone who used to do "brosplits" and recently switched to heavy compound movements, I can definitely attest to the benefits of the latter. If I had to choose one, I would go with the compound exercises (squats, deadlifts, overhead press, barbell rows, bench press, etc.), but I think the best routines incorporate both types of exercises. That's why I like routines like ICF 5x5[1], which is centered around heavy compound lifts but also includes smaller isolation lifts as accessories.
I've lately been interested in strongman training for its emphasis on functional strength and limited explosive movement - it's a safer option for someone like me that is both tall and has scolosis making the form needed for powerlifting largely out of reach.
I don't have the equipment or inclination to train like the competitive athletes, but I will regularly go around the gym doing a farmer's walk with kettles or dumbbells now.
You're right, and I don't mean isolation stuff is worthless. I just think all but the most experienced lifters would get more bang for their buck (or time) by focusing on barbell stuff.
The biggest difference is that P90X is mostly bodyweight, and while you can make yourself really sore, you're unlikely to do lasting damage to yourself with it. Meanwhile, Crossfit does heavy weight. Sometimes it's perfectly fine; I have no problem with PT sessions where we do circuit courses. But I definitely have a problem when they're like, "Okay, first we're gonna do 500m on the rowing machine with the damper set to 10. Then we're gonna do 2 minutes of military press with a 95-pound barbell. Then we're gonna do 2 minutes of deadlift." People with absolutely no idea of what they're doing are applying High-Intensity Training concepts to exercises that should be done slowly and methodically. There is no justification for doing deadlifts quickly. None.
Then they wonder why people need surgery.
Of course, the PT that old-school SNCOs would have us do wasn't much better. "Okay, we're gonna run 5 miles today, then 6 miles tomorrow, then 5 miles the day after... Whaddya mean, people's knees aren't working anymore?"
quick question, but 4-5 miles every other day is good, right? :) (that schedule seems to work really well for me, but I do wanna keep my knees working ...)
Hey, why the p90x hate? P90x is not the most hypertrophy inducing workout in the world by a long shot, but for fat loss, some muscle increases, vaso-dialation which will help when you go heavy again, and flexibility, it's one of my favorite "all around" programs.
P90X is a perfectly fine workout. His gripe was the boot lieutenant dipshit who sees it on TV, gets the DVD, and decides that he's going to "revolutionize" the unit's PT program. Add in a bunch of moto-jargon and self-righteousness, and you get hilarity.
"Well see here, lance corporal, I know that you're in great shape and have 40+ points on my PFT score, but this Crossfit workout is gonna take you to the next level. Plus, I went to college. I know what I'm doing."
That being said, I've also worked with a lieutenant who could do a 14-minute 3-mile. Dude probably couldn't do 135 on the bench press, but he could definitely run.
No hate about p90x, I honestly barely register any knowledge of it on my radar. I just remember when it hit big and my military friends spent every waking moment talking about it. When Crossfit started entering my personal sphere, I actually thought it was just some new rev of p90x because it pervaded my social circle in the same way, except it never stopped and became a magnitude more annoying.
> there's nothing wrong with explosive movement.
Actually there is, explosive movements cause injuries and decrease the effectiveness of any exercise because the momentum they create reduces the load on muscles throughout the range of motion.
Explosive movement are pretty much the only way you can injure yourself when keeping good form. You should never do explosive movements unless there is some sport-specific application for it that you need. Moving weights slowly is a great way to get the ability to move fast when you don't have any weights on.
I'll second that. Muscles micro-tear (the natural process which causes your muscles to heal come back bigger) when the muscle elongates while under tension (due to an opposing force greater than the muscle generates) rather than when it contracts pulling weight up. So if you do a pullup, pull yourself up and lower yourself slowly. Same with weight lifting, pull up normally and lower the weight slowly. This discovery is still unknown by most gym trainers even though its importance is so great it should have already become standard practice.
I'm amazed at how many people at the gym don't know this. It's jaw dropping.
Disclaimer: I'm talking about Olympic lifts and sprints when I say "explosive movements." Clean and jerk and snatch are the primary ones. Secondary movements are things like kettlebell swings and Turkish get-ups.
While they can be risky, I think that these exercises have benefits that outweigh the risk of injury, especially if you're using proper form. The biggest thing to remember is to lift what you're capable of and not to lift with your ego. No reason to risk yourself to get another 10kg unless you're a powerlifter.
I think a big attraction of cross fit is it's group fitness training that you don't have to think about, you just have to show up. You can switch crossfit philosophy with traditional weightlifting philosophy and I bet it would become fairly popular.
What type of injuries? Maybe you need to warm up more, lower the weight and concentrate on the form more than the strength. Crossfit is hard because it incorporates Snatch and Clean and Jerk, to get good at those requires 3+ years
CF does not particularly reward lower weight and form concentration. The movement rewards speed and explosive progression rather than incremental progression based on safe principles.
I am not a hater of CF but putting people in a competitive environment where they are encouraged to max effort then saying "you should have taken it easy" is ludicrous.
A workout that I have enjoyed success from came from Huge in a Hurry. Every rep is to be done with perfect form. If the form breaks down the set stops.
Your getting injured because of the form them, not because of fatigue. If you keep training the fatigue will go away if its an injury due to bad form then that's harder to solve.
Basically man up and push through the pain, or stop and quit no other way about it your not going to get fitter otherwise.
As fatigue increases your form will break down. There's no way around that. Any routine that over-emphasizes reps without also stressing consciousness of your form will inevitably lead to injures.
CF is so easy to hate on, and for good reason. My only issue is that the idea behind CF (work till failure, repetition, and so on) isn't bad in and of itself. Doing 50 cleans isn't bad, per se, it's how you do it that makes it bad. And CF tends to be run by people who propagate bad form, too much weight, and that leads to people getting hurt.
I think it brings both good and bad things to the table, and gets loads of hate because the bad is really bad.
I still won't do CF though. And it does tend to be much like a cult, as ZenPro said. That's weird as well.
cross fit is really an infiritating thing. The people who do it are sometimes diehard fans with absolutely no knowledge of how to build strength or an "elite athlete". A lot of people just like the brand...
But the diehard fans aren't the worst part. Cross fit the organization loves to shut people down who speak poorly of them. They also have made a lot of unsubstantiated claims about the type of results that can be expected by following cross fit programming (which is laughably bad). Its also thought that they run the cross fit games unfairly since there is a conflict of interest in sponsoring their top athletes and putting on the cross fit games where their sponsored athletes and no sponsored compete.
The worst part is the bad programming and the dangers of having a coach who is instructing you to do things that are obviously bad ideas. Extremely high rep oly lifting is a reciepe for disaster since the lifts are very skill based.
With all that said. One thing about cross fit is really good. They have got people training with barbells and started a lot of people down a path where they can start getting information they need to train better and smarter. But I'll be saving my 100 a month..
As an outsider, a LOT of the backlash against crossfit seems to be snootiness from traditional weightlifters who seem confused that crossfit is not trying to be powerlifting or bodybuilding, although many of the same exercises are used. Crossfit looks to be a kind of sports conditioning training, and as such of course it's going to involve higher intensity, shorter rests and higher reps.
Now I don't know how possible it is to design a safe weights workout in those circumstances. There are almost certainly exercises that shouldn't be done quickly, or shouldn't be done tired, or shouldn't be done without perfect form. And almost certainly people are doing those exercises in crossfit gyms quickly, or when tired, or without perfect form, and increasing their risk of injury as a result.
But in a perfect world those people would __still be training that way__, albeit with better instructors and choice of exercises. Because it suits them to train for their sports or general fitness. They're not going to all change their minds one day and become powerlifters.
>Crossfit looks to be a kind of sports conditioning training, and as such of course it's going to involve higher intensity, shorter rests and higher reps.
That's kind of the problem, though. Because Crossfit is somewhat randomized, your body never really gets adapted to actually become conditioned.
Mark Rippetoe -- who was associated with Crossfit in its early years -- has a pretty decent rundown here:
>But in a perfect world those people would __still be training that way__, albeit with better instructors and choice of exercises.
I think this is one of the things that bothers a lot of people - a lot of the people doing Crossfit would not be doing explosive barbell lifts otherwise, and they especially wouldn't have a trainer telling them to do them to high reps under time pressure.
Like the article I linked says, it's great that Crossfit has gotten more people into barbell training. It's just the way it's gotten them into it that's worrisome.
As a powerlifter, my beef with crossfit is that people think they can learn how to be expert lifters in a weekend in a class of 20 people. Learning to deadlift properly takes months even under personalized instruction; learning to squat with perfect form takes much longer; and learning to properly perform olympic lifts like the clean and jerk takes the longest. This also assumes that the new lifter is even capable of performing the movement (many have weak lower backs and mobility issues which need to be addressed on an individual level before they can start performing powerlifts or olympic lifts).
The notion that you will be able to immediately perform these lifts competently is absurd as the author points out, and putting new lifters in scenarios where there is minimal personal instruction with a goal of speed and high repetition instead of proper execution of the lift is a recipe for injury. As someone who has gotten injured even when performing powerlifts with proper technique, seeing other people put themselves in situations where they are going to get hurt + advocating that others do so actively annoys me.
Also, I take issue with the fact that you assume that my dislike for crossfit is rooted in some sort of powerlifting elitism. This couldn't be farther from the truth. I fully support almost any lifting modality which gets people in the gym and lifting safely (bodybuilding, powerlifting, olympic lifting, weight lifting, strong man, general strength training etc), but I can't abide by the popularization of a program whose implementation frequently leads to injury and incorrect form.
Like I said, there are a lot of reasons for backlash. I didn't even touch on most of them.
I disagree that their goal is "Sports conditioning training". Because this is not consistent with their who their clientele is. Their vast majority of their clientele is average people, with no prior lifting experience, who have heard of it.
From my cursory run-ins with either community I would say the "snootiness" has very little to do with the fact they train differently and quite a lot with the fact they often train poorly.
Additionally you are creating a ridiculous dichotomy between crossfit and powerlifting. There is such a thing as doing exercises with proper form without necessarily doing 500lbs deadlifts.
That being said I'm sure there are many decent cross-fit gyms where injury and bad form are not a problem - and the exercises they do, particularly the gymnastics aspects are incredibly impressive. Of course you could get those benefits from - you know - doing gymnastics in combination with your workout. And you'd probably be safer off on average.
On a logical basis my statement is fine. I could have written 'snowboarders who seem confused that crossfit is not trying to be canoeing or flower arranging.' :-)
Crossfit was my first introduction to Weight lifting. In that sense, I am very grateful to CrossFit. However, the process of learning form is incredibly hard. I went to one of the best Crossfit boxes in SF and while I have complete faith that they did emphasize good form, being overwhelmed by the number of new things I had to learn while maintaing good form was too much for me. This came to a culmination where I hurt my knee while doing fast reps of deadlifts.
Since then, I follow my own program of mixing strength and cardio-vascular activity. It took me two years to learn good form. And good form is really really hard to learn. Mainly because you have to go beyond prescriptive advice from books, coaches or the internet and find out what works well with your body. For example, I have relatively long femurs and a narrow squat stance ends up creating additional pressure on my knees. It took me a long fucking time to get over the prescriptive instructions that one's squat stance has to be shoulder width.
Another thing that I personally realized was that very few people understand the principles behind a fitness goal as opposed to cargo cult practices. For example, for a long time, I thought that the only way to build strength was to do barbell exercises. On the other hand, there is a place for machines. This surprised me. Especially since the internet (bodybuilding.com/reddit) seem to chant about how anyone who doesn't do barbells is doomed.
Also, learn the limits of your body. If you are not 17 and filled with natural testosterone or pump your body with steroids, it is going to be hard for you to achieve the kind of transformations that a lot of people appear to achieve. As you grow older, your body just doesn't want to keep gaining muscle.
Deadlifts and compound lifts in general should not be done for speed. If your CF were telling you that is good, then very certainly they were not teaching good form. Form isn't just how you lift, but can you maintain that form through the exercise?
I did CF for a while but stopped. After a few friends got hurt and another friend told me straight out "this is stupid", I realized how halfass thrown-together the workouts are. That "100 pullups" video recently really put it into perspective.
I'm seeing lots of opinions from people who don't do CrossFit.
Here's one from someone who actually is doing CrossFit:
I'm a member at the CrossFit Palo Alto (CFPA) box (that's what we call the gyms, because they're typically a sparse box-shaped gym). I've also dropped in on other boxes across the country, which I do when I'm traveling.
The #1 thing to know about CrossFit is that while it's a 'brand,' it's not a consistent experience between boxes. It's actually very, very different. Erin's post doesn't make a ton of sense to me because it's as if she's saying "I don't date men, because all men are jerks." Some men are, but some aren't. It's the same with CrossFit. I'm sure that the things she described actually happened to her at a CrossFit box, but they've never happened to me at CFPA.
I've been to boxes where I wouldn't go back. But CrossFit at CFPA has been life changing for me as an entrepreneur. It's one hour, three times per week. I get a very high ROI off of those three hours of commitment. I've been at it for a year now and while I was intimidated when I first started, I've gotten to the point where I look forward to the workouts now. The thing that's great about CrossFit is how it makes the other things you do in your daily routine easier. I'm a new dad and I carry my daughter in a bjorn, which means I have to squat when she drops something and I have to pick it up. CrossFit has made squatting easy, for example.
CrossFit can be disastrous if you don't know how to keep from pushing yourself harder than you should. Everything at CFPA is tempered with weight decisions that are very personal. I've never once felt pressured to go to a higher weight; if anything I was frustrated early on because the coaches wouldn't let me go as high as I thought I could. Some boxes likely aren't as good at monitoring that.
United Barbell up in SF is good, as is Horsepower in LA. Those are the three boxes I've been to that I thought were very professionally (and safely) run. Hope that helps.
I've been a member at UB since they first opened their doors. Good form is absolutely their number one concern, and they do a great job of taking all the best parts of CF while not drinking the Kool-Aid. (I've known the coaches themselves to poke fun at HQ's more grandiose claims about CF from time to time.) They also apply more of a strength emphasis to their programming, which I think is far more helpful than the "hero WOD", 30-minute burnout workouts that tend to show up in more orthodox CF.
The author's contention that her complaints apply to "EVERY SINGLE GYM THAT FOLLOWS CROSSFIT" is just uninformed over-generalization, made less convincing by being written in bold all-caps.
You seem to have missed what she's saying. She is say 'EVERY SINGLE CROSSFIT GYM' does high-rep heavy weights for time, which is a bad idea. Doing squats or snatches as fast as you can is a recipe for disaster, and this high-speed high-rep style IS crossfit, and ALL crossfit gyms do it, and that's why she says this. It's not about 'some gyms don't care about form'.
Finally a better anti-crossfit post with details and references.
My question: What’s a good alternative?
I’ve been only to one crossfit gym for half a year (and stopped because I went to a place without a crossfit gym nearby, I plan to start crossfit again).
I think I got lucky to have been at a good gym,
and as others have pointed out, the author cannot simply assume all gyms are bad.
Here’s my personal experience:
- Before a WOD, we ALWAYS did a refresher on the form of the WOD’s exercises WITHOUT weights
- The gym offered weekly special classes from professional weight lifters and gymnasts for working on form
- Sometimes, at the end more often, there were 2-3 coaches for a group of around 5 - 15 that watched the form
- I think we never did deadlifts within a WOD, only before as a separate exercise
- In WODs with time-limited sets the coaches always said we can take a minute time out if we reach the limit of a set
- I never saw coaches screaming “boot camp”-style
- I didn’t like partner WODs as they pushed me too hard and therefore made me neglect my form. Those partner WODs were only done once a week, so I simply didn’t go at that day.
Overall, my experience in terms of coaching and results was multiple times better than at any “normal” gym I went before.
The popularity of cross fit can be explained, at least in part, because it promises to cram an extremely effective workout into a short period of time that is easy to fit into ones day using short intense intervals and paired opposition exercises. It is almost presented as a hack to get fit in a small amount of time (and is not, to me, out of place on hacker news).
Setting aside the idea that the culture can contribute to people doing exercises wrong and risking injury the debate over cross fit become about weather short, intense, interval workouts are effective.
Famed alpine climber (and trainer to the stars of the movie 300) Mark Twight was an early proponent of the cross fit style work outs but has since returned to including longer endurance style workouts in his programs. He stated in an article titled something like "There is no free lunch" that he saw initial gains from the cross fit style but that endurance began to suffer seriously after 18 months. [1]
Another great climber/multi sports athlete Will Gadd has a number of posts and articles on cross fit and is generally a fan but uses it between sports specific training and with more emphasis on correct form and less on time. [2]
A balanced conclusion would seem to be that cross fit style work outs are better then nothing, can be effective as part of a large training plan even for serious athletes but that we should be aware of the risks of injury and must take personal responsibility for doing exercises correctly. And should still find time to get out for long hikes, bike rides etc if we are interested in having true all day endurance fitness.
I am was a college basketball player and have played some professional ball as well. I lift on a daily basis and have been doing so (not daily) for just over a decade. I honestly don't know that much about CrossFit. I don't get caught up in all the hype of different weight lifting exercises or different name of workouts.
The number one thing that I can gather from reading this article and understanding how people typically act when exercising, trying to make themselves better, is that they judge others harshly. Even the OP is quite harsh on CrossFit. She has so much "experience" because of her championships and whatnot but I, to a certain degree, have to disagree with her. Not because she is right or wrong but because of her lack of experience in CrossFit. She is telling others not to do it under any circumstances simply because she never experienced these workouts in her collegiate career. Maybe this is something new and better (probably not) but I do not like how she has given herself power to proclaim so many others wrong. Just as they would do to her if given the chance. I think the OP should have been more understanding or even more persuasive in her post. That, I feel, is a make better way to get people on your side. (Not that we are not all on the same side.)
CrossFit on the other hand does not seem to be a proper vehicle for getting the masses in a proper routine. Trainers should not be deemed as such in a weekend and that is sad. However, as always people are lazy and do not read the fine print. This is a problem deeper than CrossFit or exercising in general.
I guess overall my comment is here to say make your own path and earn it. Do not rely on others to do so and also if your do have experience and truly think your can help others become a trainer or coach (after YEARS of training) and help others reach their goals. Don't post an off-the-cuff article about how you are awesome and everyone else is not and expect things to change.
Many people have commented on the safety of deadlifts in the article.
I believe that there is a cognitive bias towards attributing injuries to form as opposed to random chance.
Suppose that even with perfect form, there was baseline injury rate (and the injury rate increased beyond this with bad form). It would be very easy to attribute any injury, ex-post, to bad form. Reasons for this might be that a person doesn't want to appear unknowable/unskilled, wanting a feeling of control over their future outcomes, or feeling guilt about not having accomplished their goals.
When I injured my knee doing squats (patellofemoral tracking/pain), I related my symptoms to a doctor friend, who correctly diagnosed the issue, and commented that it usually happens when people try to squat too much weight. I was about to correct him that the weight in itself is not the issue, if perfect form is used. At that point I realized that the bias I described above might exist.
I get coached at Olympic Weightlifting and all the people in our circle slag of Crossfit due to the cult nature of it, the lack of form and the cost. Is it really that expensive how much is it to train at a Corssfit gym in the states?
I'm a weightlifting coach. I generally agree with Mark Rippetoe's observation that Crossfit is the best thing to happen to my sport in English-speaking countries. Lots of people meet weightlifting, fall in love, and switch.
While I agree with the end sentiment "Crossfit is not a great program" I've got several problems with this article.
1) A lot of discussion of being sore. Sure one of the first things mentioned is "I've been sore before", but then we move on to more complaining about it. That is a natural part of doing any new movements, no matter how in shape you are overall.
2) No appreciation of the value of high rep movements. True, they are not good for hypertrophy (probably, even there the research is shakey whether low and high should be mixed), but they are good for building connective tissue strength, for burning calories, for increasing range of motion in a movement, for bone density...
3) Author links a balanced WebMD article but the link text implies it fully agrees with the negativity.
4) Article doesn't talk much about joint issues which are probably the biggest concern a lot people have with crossfit movements. The violence of many of the movement can lead to muscle and connective tissue problems, but those heal and are obvious.
So, what are my issues with Crossfit?
1) Quality control. The excuse of crossfitters to "just find a better gym, they aren't all like that" is inadequate. Its a single program and a single franchise making money off each gym-goer, not an abstract concept like say HIIT. Ask Krispy Kreme or Quiznos how the no-quality control franchise theory works.
2) They rely on joint stability and momentum as much or more than on muscle. You are simply getting no benefit from that.
3) The movements are violent unnecessarily, this I agree with the author on. The joint reliance, the tugging at muscles and tendons, are all high risk for injury. While there are things that type of work can build that regular weight training cannot, the risk/reward is only worth it for people with specific training needs and doing specifically valuable movements. Kettle bells and kipping pull ups are pretty much never as valuable as good mornings, dead lifts, assisted pullups, and lat pulldowns. Clean and jerk has valuable movements taken separately, but combines them with high joint risk moves in between.
Healthy exercise is something you recover from quickly. If your dead the next day chances are you did more harm than good. When learning a new technique your better off using 1/2 the weight and 1/2 the reps than pushing yourself because avoiding injury is worth far more in the long run than pushing your self.
To be clear there is a difference between being uncomfortable and being in real pain. Unfortunately you can't really get a chart that separates 'good' from 'bad' pain which is why doing less often so much more productive in the long run.
Not commenting on CrossFit, but the author makes some simply incorrect assertions (kettlebells aren't beneficial? Empirically untrue. Doesn't mean everyone has to do them, but that doesn't mean there is no benefit).
One thing no one has really mentioned yet, which I will throw out as a major positive impact from CrossFit, is that it's often a member's first exposure to more paleo styles of diet. I've personally found that to be hugely beneficial in reorienting my attitudes toward fat and meat, which are still unfortunately (and baselessly) viewed as dangerous in both pop culture and mainstream diet orthodoxy.
I'm wondering whether CrossFit's approach is especially hard on the heart. A friend of mine, in his mid 40s, had been working out for a year, then went to his first CrossFit class. At home afterwards he laid down for a nap, had a heart attack, and died.
It's entirely possible that it was going to happen anyway, but for us older folks maybe a little extra caution is warranted for this type of exercise.
As a former athlete I like the direction CrossFit took even though I have similar complaints to the article. I try not to paint all CrossFits as the same. I know a few that are exceptionally well run. I like that CrossFit got people away from the 1980's muscle-mag workouts--isolation exercises, i.e. everyone training like Arnold.
I don't do CrossFit and I think CrossFit has many problems. I do not however, think that given proper instruction and supervision, the exercises and rep ranges are particularly problematic. The key point to keep in mind regarding CrossFit is the end goal, the CrossFit games. CrossFitters are not training to be bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen, football players or sprinters, they are training to be CrossFitters. If they do a WOD, it is not designed optimally to make them aesthetic or strong, it is designed to improve them in competition. Much like you would not go to an athletic track and complain that the sprinters are not optimally training for a marathon or go to a powerlifting gym and complain the players are not training optimally for bodybuilding, why would you go to a CrossFit gym and complain they aren't training optimally for any number of other forms of competition that involve weight?
That said, it should be clear to people when they sign up to a CrossFit gym that this is indeed the case and other benefits are side effects.
FWIW. Here in Oslo, everyone has to do a weekend-intro just to become a member. And instructors are here are really thorough. Other than getting a personal trainer, I don't see how you could get more attention/correction than going to entry-level workout at my gym.
One of the big problems with Crossfit is there's absolutely no consistency between locations. Anyone with a grand and a weekend to spare can become a Crossfit instructor.
So, if you're lucky, you get an instructor that really knows what they're doing. If you're not, you get somebody that programs dangerous lifts in and gives them to people that don't know any better and expect their instructor to know what is or isn't safe.
The problem is that other than having a personal trainer I don't see anything better than CrossFit gyms. The 'normal' gyms are usually a lot worse than CF ones, at least around here (I am living in Amsterdam). Would love to hear other experiences though.
I don't know what you mean. Cross fit undoubtedly has pretty good equipment compared to a globo-gym, but globo-gyms will have everything you need 99% of the time. A squat rack, a bench, and some barbells...Places to do pull-ups, dips, a huge array of dumbbells....
It also isn't hard to find gyms with bumper plates that are powerlifting/oly friendly, or specialized gyms that have whatever your in to (rock climbinb gyms exist, etc)... You just have to do your research
I'm in Amsterdam and I train outside with The Bootcamp Club (https://thebootcampclub.nl/nl/), have you tried that? Almost all the trainings are outside, and mostly focus on endurance and bodyweight exercises.
I am an injured crossfitter. I herniated my L4 vertebrae's disc, and I will likely never be the same. That being said I also used to be a 305 pound man who became a 192 pound man on Crossfit and its concepts. I have never been a "zealot" but I do have some problems with this article.
My problems with this article are multiple, but the big glaring one which people seem to be repeating here over and over again are that Crossfit level 1 certified coaches only "spend a weekend". They make it sound like these people literally came off the street never having done Crossfit before and got certified that weekend.
Maybe that's true. But I've never met a person who took the level 1 let alone became a coach at a box that didn't already have a good chunk of time actually doing WODs and improving from them under their belt. They have gone through the discipline in their own practice and have decided coaching that would be something useful for them. Unlike NASM where you can read a book and get certified, there is a hands-on/lab teaching component. This should be lauded. And no, not everyone is a great teacher, and the best judgment is on the community to determine if someone is working or not. (I've seen Crossfit instructors be dismissed from boxes.)
I would like the OP to quote some articles and provide some science around why the Crossfit HIIT/circuit style training is actually dangerous. I understand the concept, that when in fatigue doing additional work is dangerous, and that Crossfit encourages this at some level, but it's always on the discretion of the participant to put the bar down, to stop doing the pull-ups, and to stop where they got to that session in a WOD. The real challenge in Crossfit is not to leave it all out on the floor, it's to know when to stop leaving it.
What Crossfit does that I see a lot of personal training and individual training programs neglect are concentrations on proper mobility, warm-up, and form. And this comes from a guy who started Crossfit basically near the worst possible shape you can.
Another thing is I was able to study for a year+ with a multi-year Crossfit Games placing athlete, and they used Crossfit WODs to train. Pretty much exclusively. The volume was amped up for sure, but the same movements and the same formats. Maybe the really, really successful people don't do that? But the interviews I see with Rich Froning and Mikko Salo tend to basically say they do three workouts a day in the crossfit-style format. Metcons, endurance, strength. Oh well, I'm late to this party, but my $0.02.
I've only done it at http://www.crossfitv16.com so my experience may not be typical, but in the classes I've been taking, there's a strong emphasis on good technique and no pressure to push yourself past reasonable limits. It's definitely a bit amateur compared to what top coaches can offer, but it's also affordable to amateur athletes.
Finally, the workouts are clearly not optimal for strength gain, but the idea is to train coordination and balance as well.
So I guess my point is, YMMV when it comes to Crossfit gyms, perhaps unsurprisingly given that it's a franchise.
Doesn't sound like you read the whole article. The author specifically addresses the "but my gym is doing it correctly, it's the others that aren't" cult-like mentality. Each gym does it, and it's a form of indoctrination.
(Note: I don't do CrossFit, and I'm not looking to defend CrossFit)
Of the whole article, I found that point the weakest. The author hasn't been to every CrossFit gym out there, so I don't know how he can claim "every single thing that I’ve posted in this article refers to EVERY SINGLE GYM THAT FOLLOWS CROSSFIT"
The Workout Of The Day is one of the main things he takes issue with. The OP can claim “every single” because the primary methodology of Crossfit is ubiquitous—that’s what makes it a Crossfit gym. He doesn’t have to visit every Crossfit gym to know they do a WOD; it wouldn’t be a Crossfit gym without the WOD.
It’s like saying I don’t need to visit every movie theater in America to know that they all show movies at regular intervals.
I have seen recently, particularly from STEM-themed forums that the standard rebuttal is "you cannot speak for every X since every X is not documented/viewed/visited".
The cinema analogy is very well put. It is an exceptionally weak attempt to divert an argument by claiming *all X must be tested."
In reality all that is required is a reasonable belief of proof that withstands questioning. The OP easily withstands questioning when speaking for all of CrossFit.
Except that blankenship and the author are wrong. Go to 10 different gyms on the same day and you'll get 10 different workouts with 10 different formats. WOD is simply an acronym of a phrase used to describe what you are doing today. There is no definition.
I have been training at a CrossFit gym for several years now. I do the WODs that most people do sometimes. However we also have a small rock climbing "system wall" that I do climbing drills on. I have also been cycling through running programs to be a better runner, single leg programs to improve stability and balance due to injury (not CrossFit related) and just for fun a one arm chin up program just to see if we can do it. All under some supervision from the head coach. We also have ultra marathoners and dedicated Olympic lifters at our gym all doing different WODs.
My CrossFit gym clearly does not conform to the "Reebok CrossFit Games" style of working out and I challenge you to show me when rock climbing drills came up in any WOD. All these arguments against CrossFit are really against the common public perception of CrossFit. Plenty of gyms out there that don't do that and still have "CrossFit" in the name.
BTW, I agree that the popular form of CrossFit is stupid and everyone should probably stay away from these gyms.
> Go to 10 different gyms on the same day and you'll get 10 different workouts with 10 different formats.
But, that is the point they are making. WOD means that your workout is not tailored to you. Everyone in a particular gym at a particular time does the same WOD.
If you are criticising CrossFit because it's not tailored, then you should criticise pretty much all the gyms out their that offer classes. Your yoga class, boxing class, P90x, etc ... none of it is tailored.
You need a coach to assess you and write up a program if you want a tailored program. And even then, you need to ask "Why?". Do you need extra rehab work for an injury? Have a specific goal in mind? Do you train for sport?
I can see your point but ultimately - if your gym is doing different workouts from the WOD including rock climbing then you are CrossFit in name only.
A baseline of CrossFit has to be established. Exceptionally niche and unique workouts from (good) training staff are not really what is being discussed.
The work outs are consistent, but some people will be doing the workout with no weight loaded whatsoever.
Other people will be using giant elastic bands to help them do pull ups.
Other people will be doing something else entirely, since at the start of every WOD the coach asks if anyone is injured and provides substitute exercises.
I spent a year with a bare bar since I couldn't squat.
The first rule of crossfit is to tell everyone that you are taking crossfit. I went to crossfit in the bay area. Seriously some of the most annoying people in the world.
Create a distinction between low-stress exercises and high-stress exercises. The former can be done to failure; the latter have to be stopped as soon as your form starts to break down. The former include a lot of body-weight exercises - push-ups, sit-ups, flutter kicks, planks, etc. The latter is any exercise where a breakdown in form is actively dangerous - deadlift, snatch, clean and jerk, squats, and so on.
Do the former all you want; the worst you're going to get is some soreness and maybe muscle strain. The latter will tear things.
Just listen to your body, if the weight is too much remove, if the reps are too many take your time or do less. If you want to show off or feel peer pressure then you shouldn't be crossfitting. I am doing CrossFit for the last 6 months and I always stop when I feel uncomfortable or in danger.
This was probably the best critique of Crossfit that I've read so far. Personally, I've been doing Crossfit for 2+ years and I've got a lot out of it. In fact, I have been in the best shape of my life because of it. At the same time I've always had issues with some things. For one, the nutrition principles that they advocate, basically the Paleo diet, is quite questionable in my opinion (although not really harmful , since it's basically a low carbm, high protein diet). And, yes, there are lot of practices that predispose to injuries. In fact, I'm currently recovering from an injury that I am pretty sure I got at CF, although it wasn't the type of injury that you can pinpoint to a particular moment. Even though I believe that it was mostly my fault, because of bad form, and because of underestimating the damage for months and making it worse, at the same time it is true that the CF environment is such that it increases the chance of people injuring themselves.
However, this and other articles criticizing CF don't really understand the appeal of CF to most of the people that go there. The criticism is usually coming from serious athletes (and I use the word broadly to include professional athletes, semi-professional, and people that have always been just good at sports). Guess what, most people are not athletes, they do not have the knowledge or the motivation to come up with a proper training program and execute it on their own, and they are easily discouraged when sports do not come naturally easy to them. Most people are like me, they want to show up 3 times a week, do whatever workout has been prepared for them, and have an instructor advise them on what their doing. There is not much out there that comes close to CF. There are two big strengths of CF: Variety and Accessibility. Variety: CF is an all around training program, which might be bad for professional athletes, but it's great for people who just want to be fit. Where else would you go if you wanted to "properly" train on your own? Regular gyms like 24-hour Fitness don't have some of equipment like climbing ropes, GHD sit ups, pull-up bars (they might have one for the whole gym), and they have limited areas for doing things like barbell squats. (There was recent story about a popular gym eliminating the squat frame because it was "intimidating".) Accessibility: CF welcomes _everyone_. The complaint that the WOD is one-size-fits-all is not quite valid. Any exercise can be scaled down appropriately for each member. That means reducing the weight, reducing the reps, exercise substitution (e.g, doing inclined push-ups for beginners, or doing 3 pull-ups & 3 dips instead of 1 muscle-up, etc.), reducing the workout length and so on. That's how everyone gets to do the WOD. This is a big deal when you are a beginner! Even if you can't do a hand-stand or a musle-up, there are other things you can do and actually make progress. An finally one other thing: price. Yes, CF membership is expensive, but it is also several times cheaper than a personal trainer, and if you go to classes that are 5-12 people you basically have a trainer when you need one.
I've tried different things before, but nothing was as easy to follow or as effective as CF. Right now I'm kind of worried about going back to CF after I recover, as I realize that the chance of getting another serious injury is significant. But at the same time I don't see anything else that has all the benefits. I'd be kind of curious to hear if other people have found alternatives. Most of the suggestions so far are a long of the lines what a motivated athlete would do, but they don't work for people who just want to exercise casually for 5 hours a week and get a balanced workout.
And for the record, anything that incorporates unnecessary obscurity into the basic premise of its mystique as something "new" and "cool", particularly by way of acronyms and jargon is a clue that adherents are just wasting everyone's time by playing the exclusionary elitist card.
Seriously. Does "Work Out of the Day" honestly deserve to be acronymed to "WOD"?
I mean, for fuck's sake. It the exact same amount of sylables. Just sound it out:
Duh Bull You Oh Dee (5 sylables)
Work Out Of The Day (5 sylables)
But, wow, I bet WOD saves so much time as a TLA when drawing UML diagrams on a whiteboard, and blogging about your awesome new rotator cuff injury (AKA: RCI), right?
I think it's a mistake to apply one-size-fits-all advice to CrossFit. Can it be dangerous? Sure. Can it work well if you are not an idiot? Sure.
Bottom line is, you, as the athlete, must listen to his body first and foremost.
Push through soreness, sure. But acute pain? No way.
The problem is, perhaps, that non-athletes come into CrossFit and haven't learned the difference and are not coached on the difference. As a former college athlete (football), that nuance had become second nature to me and therefore I know when to use the coaching prompts to push through to motivate me and I also know when to ignore them because I feel a potential injury coming or realize my form is breaking down.
I think part of the problem might lie in how easy it is to become CrossFit certified, not with the regimes themselves.
First let's start with a lesson on affiliate vs franchise. Crossfit (the company) is an affiliate model. You pay $3k a year to use their name and $1k to be "certified". That's it. You can start whatever kind of gym you want now, as long as you don't bash the Crossfit name. Crossfit cannot enforce quality control measures as an affiliate which is why so many gyms are shit. If Crossfit enforced quality control, they would be pushing themselves into the franchise category and open themselves up to all kinds of liabilities. They don't want this so they stay hands off and just run the games each year.
Back to the article...
Welcome to every single Crossfit argument for the last 10 years. Coaches are bad, high rep oly moves are bad, everyone's form is bad, blah blah blah.
The answer to every single complaint this guy has is that he is in a terrible crossfit gym with terrible coaches. Granted, there are a lot of terrible crossfit gyms out there and a lot of terrible coaches. That doesn't make crossfit in general bad.
Crossfit is a sport, just like boxing, MMA, and skateboarding are sports. Sports come with inherent risks. Deal with it or don't do it. Some people do these sports with the main purpose of getting in shape, but also want to have a little fun since benching by yourself in the morning can get boring. They dumb down the movements to remove some of the risks but still capture the nature of the sport. This is exactly like people who take kickboxing classes at the YMCA. Kickboxing is dangerous, yet no one is arguing that we should cancel all kickboxing classes.
It boggles my mind sometimes. Why are people so offended by Crossfit? Who cares what other people do to get in shape? There are people doing parkour on the top of buildings, jumping dirt bikes over the grand canyon, and snowboarding down mountain sides and no one cares about them. Why is Crossfit special?
>>The answer to every single complaint this guy has is that he is in a terrible crossfit gym with terrible coaches. Granted, there are a lot of terrible crossfit gyms out there and a lot of terrible coaches. That doesn't make crossfit in general bad.
First of all, Erin Simmons is a woman. Second of all, she addresses this argument in the very last paragraph. You may want to read the whole thing before commenting on it.
>>It boggles my mind sometimes. Why are people so offended by Crossfit?
It boggles my mind sometimes. Why are Crossfitters get so incredibly defensive whenever someone criticizes them? What's with the fucking creepy cult mentality?
My bad. Did not realize it was a woman. I did read the whole thing. Her last paragraph is like me saying, "If you do any sort of MMA programming it is terrible for you. You will get hurt. Period. No exceptions. Don't listen to your coaches." Just because she says something doesn't mean it is true.
Second point, I should have asked, Why are people so offended by crossfit in particular? Seems like a disproportionate amount of hate toward crossfit as opposed to other sports. I guess you could attribute it to popularity though. Bigger target, more pageviews/reactions if you bash it.
>>Her last paragraph is like me saying, "If you do any sort of MMA programming it is terrible for you. You will get hurt. Period. No exceptions. Don't listen to your coaches." Just because she says something doesn't mean it is true
No it is not. The logic is both solid and easy enough to follow: Crossfit gyms are about Workouts of the Day. Every gym does them. And they are dangerous as hell. Therefore every Crossfit gym is dangerous. Another commenter gave this accurate analogy:
"It’s like saying I don’t need to visit every movie theater in America to know that they all show movies at regular intervals."
No, it is like saying, "if you speed past every red light at 100 mph, you will probably get into an accident."
A Workout of the Day (which every Crossfit gym does) is basically doing a perfectly fine movement at very high repetition. The higher the reps of these complex movements, the riskier they are. Therefore, every Crossfit gym is dangerous.
My affiliate's most recent WOD was a 3RM squat ladder with 2:30 rest between each set. There is nothing "high repetition" about it and there are specifically timed rest intervals to allow for ATP regeneration, etc.
You should refrain from claiming knowledge about the programming of every CF affiliate on the planet. You're absolutely wrong about every single thing you have claimed in this comment thread.
> Crossfit gyms are about Workouts of the Day. Every gym does them. And they are dangerous as hell.
If you are saying that every CF-affiliated gym takes the WOD from the main site and tells its members to do it as prescribed, you're wrong.
If you are saying that every CF-affiliated gym comes up with its own WOD, and tells all its members to do it with no adjustment in weights or tailoring to the needs and abilities of individual members, you're also wrong.
How can anyone credibly claim "The WODs programmed by CF gyms for their members are always, inherently dangerous," or make this analogy to movie theaters, when there's not even a single, authoritative source of the programming?
Her premises is flawed. Workout of the day is a prescribed set of movements with a particular goal in mind. You scale and change the weight movement and reps with your coach each day based on skill, and ability. The author seems to think there is no wiggle room. Also most gyms week have several workout of the days to pick from based on experience level.
The mark of a good crossfit gym is individualization. This author seems to think those kinds of gyms don't exist.
My best guess is that noticeable opposition to Crossfit is directly proportional is the pervasiveness of Crossfit. It is popular enough that a few lovers and haters have dramatically increased the number of times you've heard about Cross fit, over say the single lover and hater of a random workout.
I'm sure there's a more math-y argument than mine.
> Why are people so offended by Crossfit? Who cares what
> other people do to get in shape? [snip] Why is Crossfit
> special?
Because there is a perception that Crossfit aficionados spend an inordinate amount of time telling everyone else how Crossfit is the One True Sport and that everyone else is fat and stupid for not doing Crossfit.
Proselytizing people should probably prepare for pushback.
To be honest, most people couldn't give two shits about Crossfit. It's the Crossfitters that are the problem. They tend to act like newly converted religious acolytes, annoying the hell out of everybody they come in contact with by constantly proselytizing Crossfit.
It's kind of like any other activity that a person has to choose to make serious and comprehensive lifestyle choices that remove them from what they perceive to be mainstream society. They have to constantly justify their choice and one way of doing that is to build a circle of like-minded people you can echo chamber off of, another way to do it is to announce it all the time and assert the choice as part of your identity, yet another way is to convince themselves it's a moral conviction and their chosen social isolation is simply a result of them finding some true path and people who haven't found that path are immoral or crazy or whatever.
You know how to tell somebody does Crossfit? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
Why am I offended? Because I've suffered the pain of joints injured by high strain repetitive movements, and don't want others to endure the same. There's something to be said about letting someone make their own mistakes, but this is something that screws you over for life.
With regards to the "Just a bad gym; just a bad coach" argument... I think the article goes over that sufficiently. It's not just a gym or a coach which is the problem, it's the core philosophy of the workout that's the problem.
>Why are people so offended by Crossfit? Who cares what other people do to get in shape?
This same comment can be applied to the visceral rage that people feel towards elements of the technology world, where commentary on database technologies, programming languages, or testing approaches sees far more emotion that it reasonably should.
In all cases I think it is a facet of attaching your ego to an opinion. If you have stated or believe x, when people do y it seems like a personal affront that needs to be confronted. People get far too invested in these sorts of arguments, and grow increasingly agitated over inconsequential decisions of others that otherwise have absolutely no impact on their life.
http://www.t-nation.com/training/crossfit-the-good-bad-and-t...
He makes many of the same points, but I find the arguments more persuasive. It's also interesting to note the arguments in favour of CrossFit.
Finally, Mark seems to have completely different opinions about deadlifting; he regards them as a staple to strength training, whereas the OP "doesn't do" them for unknown reasons. I find the disagreement among professionals to be intriguing.