After doing crossfit for a year, I think I knew this semi-consciously but it's interesting to read about it being backed by science. Short, highly intense training sessions lead to very large gains in fitness because most of your training is anaerobic.
Another crossfit hacker? Wow. (The first place I saw that article linked was from crossfit.com, around the time it first came out. )
I got good results with crossfit (dropped 40 pounds, now I'm "athletic" -- I'd never have imagined I could do 20 pullups before), but I'd do it even if it was only average, because it doesn't bore me.
Running? Unpleasant and boring. Weight lifting? Boring disciplinarian bullcrap ...
Crossfit? I check the website, burst out laughing, grit my teeth, and then do something that seems almost impossible yet takes 30 minutes or less. Awesome.
It's good to hear from other CrossFiters outside the community. I spent the weekend at a level I cert and loved every minute of it. The highly intense workouts are both always interesting (and always painful) and highly results oriented.
Of course, that depends on how you measure fitness. Highly anaerobic activities will not prepare you well for a marathon, for instance. But they will make you more fit in weight-lifting and anaerobic sports.
Look at the training regimes for Olympic-class athletes in any given sport... they're a pretty good guide, considering the incentives involved.
I disagree that CrossFit doesn't train you for a marathon. It might not train you to be an elite marathoner but it does train you to be an adequate one. Greg Admundsen who is a fairly well known Crossfitter did nothing by main page workouts for preparation for a 100 mile race and he finished 80 miles.
There is solid data, described in the article and found elsewhere on the web that short, intense fitness sessions where most of your work anaerobically will in fact prepare you for aerobic activities. CrossFit is the empirical proof of that.
