Crossfit guys are weak?

[graedy]

Crossfit doesn't claim to produce people who can squat 500 or deadlift 600. They claim to produce people who above average in most athletic qualities (strength, aerobic and anaerobic conditioning, flexibility or whatever). Now if you claim that they are weak on average, that is probably true by powerlifting standards. They probably also have bad aerobic endurance relative to marathon runners. They are probably also not as flexible as gymnasts or as fast as sprinters. I really don't get the point of the crossfit dissing, besides the obvious lack of programming in WODs. I've never seen them state that they want to produce good strength athletes. I don't rip on Westside for doing shit for my cardiovascular endurance or the guy from beastskills, because he can't run a sub 4.4 40 yards.

You don't get it. The point is that crossfit sucks. That's it.

 

[Donut62]

I agree with Chase's last post, I don't have a problem with Crossfit as a training regime, and they seem to do a great job of motivating people to achieve higher levels of physical fitness. Most of problems stems from things that Glassman has said and the way he pushes Crossfit. He will straight up tell you to your face that powerlifters and strongman competitors would be stronger if they trained crossfit. He says bodybuilders would be bigger. When rebutted, he always says that Westside/Shieko/Coan-style linear progression works only because of steroids. He's a dipshit.

That said, there are a much less vocal majority of Crossfit guys like Dan John who I respect.

 

[takeahnase]

Here's a quote from Greg Glassman:

I don't have a problem with CrossFit as a training modality if that's the kind of training you want to do. I do have a problem with ignorant CrossFit people talking about how super strong CrossFit makes you and how everyone else would impove their strength if they switched to CrossFit.

There are many knowledgeable people involved with CrossFit. There are also quite a few very vocal mindless followers who parrot the senseless propoganda that Glassman spews. These people annoy me. JPC is sounding like one of them with his "I bet you can't do a smith machine pistol" challenge.

From the same page

"CrossFit is in large part derived from several simple observations garnered through hanging out with athletes for thirty years and willingness, if not eagerness, to experiment coupled with a total disregard for conventional wisdom. Let me share some of the more formative of these observations:
1. Gymnasts learn new sports faster than other athletes.
2. Olympic lifters can apply more useful power to more activities than other athletes.
3. Powerlifters are stronger than other athletes.
4. Sprinters can match the cardiovascular performance of endurance athletes � even at extended efforts.
5. Endurance athletes are woefully lacking in total physical capacity.
6. With high carb diets you either get fat or weak.
7. Bodybuilders can't punch, jump, run, or throw like athletes can.
8. Segmenting training efforts delivers a segmented capacity.
9. Optimizing physical capacity requires training at unsustainable intensities.
10. The world's most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way deer hunters rely on the accordion."

 

[CarnalSalvation]

This has been done a hundred times. Yes they are weak. But I don't see them talking much shit with respect to strength athletes. They take competitive powerlifters as examples of athletes that are too specialized to fit into the crossfit model, just as they reference triathletes or other ultra-endurance athletes to be too specialized to fit into the crossfit model. A bunch of olympic lifting gyms have crossfit affiliations.

Out of the CFJ-Trial issue:

Yeah, you know why Weightlifting gyms have that bullocks? To make money, so the gym can stay open for the real lifters.

 

[takeahnase]

Yeah, you know why Weightlifting gyms have that bullocks? To make money, so the gym can stay open for the real lifters.

Rubbish. Mike Burgener has his lifters do crossfit style GPP in the off-season.

I agree with Chase's last post, I don't have a problem with Crossfit as a training regime, and they seem to do a great job of motivating people to achieve higher levels of physical fitness. Most of problems stems from things that Glassman has said and the way he pushes Crossfit. He will straight up tell you to your face that powerlifters and strongman competitors would be stronger if they trained crossfit. He says bodybuilders would be bigger. When rebutted, he always says that Westside/Shieko/Coan-style linear progression works only because of steroids. He's a dipshit.

Well, I never heard that, and if he did say that he is an idiot. What one has to recognize however, is that crossfit is marketed to the general propulation. As such an differentiated view of things would be useless from a marketing perspective. Crossfit has two "enemies" from a marketing perspective if they want to attract members of the general public. Bodybuilding and the fat loss crowd (which is based on low intensity cardio-vascular conditioning). So they have to tell people that their training is better than both pumping iron and endless hours on the threadmill. In the end crossfit is the same as what Ross Enamait preachers - the difference is that he backs up his words and doesn't market to a big population and thus doesn't have to make inflated claims.

Whatever, I'm out of this discussion, we've had it a hundred times. Plus there are too many fat guys online currently, so I'm outgunned :icon_chee

 

[erco]

So, suddenly you can make bold face lies under the catch all of "marketing makes it okay?"

That's some seriously weak arguments.

 

[takeahnase]

So, suddenly you can make bold face lies under the catch all of "marketing makes it okay?"

That's some seriously weak arguments.

I still do not believe that they actually state that crossfit makes you stronger than powerlifters, that would be retarded. Nonetheless I'm aware of the fact that they use aggressive marketing. The world isn't black and white.

 

[ChaseT.]

From the same page

CrossFit is in large part derived from several simple observations garnered through hanging out with athletes for thirty years and willingness, if not eagerness, to experiment coupled with a total disregard for conventional wisdom. Let me share some of the more formative of these observations:
1. Gymnasts learn new sports faster than other athletes.
2. Olympic lifters can apply more useful power to more activities than other athletes.
3. Powerlifters are stronger than other athletes.
4. Sprinters can match the cardiovascular performance of endurance athletes � even at extended efforts.
5. Endurance athletes are woefully lacking in total physical capacity.
6. With high carb diets you either get fat or weak.
7. Bodybuilders can't punch, jump, run, or throw like athletes can.
8. Segmenting training efforts delivers a segmented capacity.
9. Optimizing physical capacity requires training at unsustainable intensities.
10. The world's most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way deer hunters rely on the accordion.

1. That's because their whole sport is based on coordination and body awareness and they start them when they are 5 years old.
2. Sure, but doing 21 reps of an olympic lift isn't going to do shit for your ability to "apply more useful power."
3. Glassman loves to talk shit about powerlifters. Even the worst propoganda has to have some amount of truth to be effective.
4. No.
5. What's your point? If marathon runners had enough upper body mass and strength to press 200lbs, their times would suffer. More "truth" used to arrive at bullshit conclusions.
6. Wow.
7. What athletes? What's your point? Bodybuilders train for hypertrophy, not power generation or fighting.
8. Oh my god, practice how you play? I have never heard that before.
9. You have to train hard to improve? Wow.
10. Duh? Saying that some pencil neck geek with a kinesiology degree should know anything about training is like saying that a fat old personal with a talent for propoganda and no personal athletic achievements is the worlds best athletic mind.

Here's another Glassman quote chock full of bullshit and hyperbole:

But here's the fascinating part. We can take you from a 200 pound max deadlift to a 500-750 pound max deadlift in two years while only pulling max singles four or five times a year. We will though work the deadlift, like most lifts, approximately once per week at higher reps and under grueling conditions. It may intuit well that if you can pull a 250 pound deadlift 21 times coming to the lift at a heart rate of 180 beats per minute, then 500 pounds for a single at a resting heart rate is perhaps manageable.

 

[takeahnase]

Well, it appears I was wrong on the inflated crossfit claims I don't think any crossfitter has a 750 deadlift.

 

[ThinkGreen]

I don't get all the hate towards CrossFit... it's much better than bodybuilding or regular people who go to the gym and have no idea what they are doing. CrossFit gets the average person in really good shape, and gives them a pretty solid strength foundation. I've seen lots of WOD's that are strength related as well, but obviously not as strength related as powerlifting. I think it's pretty obvious Oly lifters and powerlifters are stronger than CrossFitters, when has someone even argued against that point?

 

[takeahnase]

Seeing that Chase for once used words instead of pics, I'll have to do it myself

I still do not believe that they actually state that crossfit makes you stronger than powerlifters, that would be retarded.

We can take you from a 200 pound max deadlift to a 500-750 pound max deadlift in two years while only pulling max singles four or five times a year.

 

[ChaseT.]

I still do not believe that they actually state that crossfit makes you stronger than powerlifters, that would be retarded. Nonetheless I'm aware of the fact that they use aggressive marketing. The world isn't black and white.

But here's the fascinating part. We can take you from a 200 pound max deadlift to a 500-750 pound max deadlift in two years while only pulling max singles four or five times a year. We will though work the deadlift, like most lifts, approximately once per week at higher reps and under grueling conditions. It may intuit well that if you can pull a 250 pound deadlift 21 times coming to the lift at a heart rate of 180 beats per minute, then 500 pounds for a single at a resting heart rate is perhaps manageable.

Dave Tate powerlifted for over 20 years and never deadlifted 750lbs. Glassman is completely full of shit.

Believe it.

 

[thethirddiaz]

I don't have a problem with Crossfit as a training regime

I do. They don't have a set program. If they are marketing to fat people, they can't do the workouts anyway so they would probably do better to start at a lower workrate and work up. For people that can do the workouts, there is no way to judge your progress. No matter what your goals are, there are better ways to judge your progress.

That being said, there workouts are grueling and awesome for GPP. I like Urban's idea of taking one of the workouts and using it for a few weeks to get more reps or less time.

In short, the problems with Crossfit are shitty marketing and lack of quantitative ways to judge progress.

 

[hughes]

Here is a hierarchy of training for mass from greater to lesser efficacy:
1. Bodybuilding on steroids
2. CrossFitting on steroids
3. CrossFitting without steroids
4. Bodybuilding without steroids

I'm convinced this is the biggest lie on the internet.

 

[Merrill]

"Bodybuilding" is a very vague term for a training method.

 

[TheNerdKing]

10. The world's most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way deer hunters rely on the accordion."

So is this Glassman crossfit guy a kick ass superman athlete who can run, jump and fuck better than everybody else?

If not, he's contradicting himself right here and further cementing his douchedom to the world.

 

[Urban]

I gotta be honest, while there are several feats I can't do currently in that video, none of them are overwhelmingly impressive. What was the toughest thing in that video (with regards to current world records)? the 265 overhead squat? It would have been more impressive had he snatched it first and even then it would have only been about 77 percent of the US record. And I don't beleive that those guys only do the crossfit WOD.

Are they good performances? sure, are they amazing evidence that xfit is some incredible strenght building program to rival all others? hardly. and you don't know the history of those lifters they could have been at those levels before putting on an xfit t-shirt.

 

[akakabuto]

I don't get all the hate towards CrossFit... it's much better than bodybuilding

It's better than bodybuilding if u want to get fit but most people who bodybuild are mainly after hypertrophy. By bodybuilding i mean training ur whole body equally not just doing arms or whatever.

 

[ThinkGreen]

It's better than bodybuilding if u want to get fit but most people who bodybuild are mainly after hypertrophy. By bodybuilding i mean training ur whole body equally not just doing arms or whatever.

Well I never said CrossFit is better for bodybuilders looking for hypertrophy, but thanks for the heads up :icon_chee

 

[SingleDoubleGuy]

Here's a quote from Greg Glassman:

Quote:
If you train the WODs hard, and eat right and get lots of sleep, you will definitely gain lean mass, lose fat, and yes, you can build muscle mass with the crossfit protocol. More specifically, according to Coach,
Here is a hierarchy of training for mass from greater to lesser efficacy:
1. Bodybuilding on steroids
2. CrossFitting on steroids
3. CrossFitting without steroids
4. Bodybuilding without steroids


---------

Nice find. So if Cross Fit builds more mass than BB without steroids, why do so many natural BBers still follow BB/PL routines?

Because CrossFit is such a secret? And none of them has tried it?

Thats just utter crap. If CrossFit would be more efficient, especially the BB crowd would hop on it within the blink of an eye. These guys hang out on forums, have large networks and probably a bunch of intelligent trainers. Even if it is just a few of the latter: As soon as the method is more successful for putting on mass, BBers would adopt it.

So this ranking is yet another outrageous claim or it contains a secret definition of BB in a way that CrossFit would be truly superior. Cause that's what marketing people like to do: Turning things into "truths" under their premises and definitions...

I hate these claims. Thanks for pointing it out.