Let's Talk: How to improve CrossFit

[FlexLuthor]

Require a serious and thorough application and testing process to certify to teach or coach crossfit.

Require a curriculum of progressive mastery of movement patterns and lifts for the athletes.

Remove high rep powerlifting movements.

Stop. Fucking. Kipping.

 

[PUO3]

The games are sort of cool, aren't they?

Anyway, I have to accept Miaou's argument- the Crossfit Games aren't really that different from Strongman. Is there that much difference between max reps on log presses, when you continental clean the log, and, and max reps with a lighter (but still reasonably heavy) clean? Less emphasis on strength, more on muscular endurance. I mean, personally I see enough similarities to be uncomfortable saying "WSM is awesome but the Crossfit Games are evil and dumb".

The Lift Big Eat Big strongman guy had an article talking about how Crossfit was similar to Strongman.

Interesting comparison imo.

 

[PUO3]

Remove kips forever.

My chick is a CF cult member and she was raving about how many pulls ups she can do. Being supportive I told her I wanted to see, so she starts doing that shit for a lot of reps. Had her do an actual pull up and she got 7.

I dont care what they do but man that kipping pullup shit is stupid.

 

[pine snake]

http://www.t-nation.com/training/crossfit-apology

 

[PUO3]

Read that one before and thought it was retarded.

 

[FlexLuthor]

http://www.t-nation.com/training/crossfit-apology

Nice article.

PU03, what are your criticisms of it?

 

[PUO3]

Nice article.

PU03, what are your criticisms of it?

It seems like a hyperbole article to me. I dont know much about the writer but I have a hard time believing some CF folks are, next to powerlifters, the strongest athletes a qualified trainer has been around. Im friends with a lot of people at several CF gyms and the strongest one I know of squats 500, benches 350, and pulls 650. Hes also 290lbs with a highschool and college football background.

The promotion of very high rep lifts, I love volume work but not at the compromise of injuies. I just dont see the backing behind it, and maybe thats my own lack of knowledge.

Lastly, he really comes across with the thing I hate most about CF, the bullshit mentality that they push themselves and train harder than anyone else. The comment about lifters seeing the big guns hitting 1000lbs and what not and pretending no one other than CF'ers go for it is just ridiculous.

I think the intertwining of lifters and CF that is starting to happen is great and Ive read a lot of advocacy articles on it, but to me this one read like a guy just trying to make a few bucks off of it.

 

[Kiwi Tricker]

My chick is a CF cult member and she was raving about how many pulls ups she can do. Being supportive I told her I wanted to see, so she starts doing that shit for a lot of reps. Had her do an actual pull up and she got 7.

I dont care what they do but man that kipping pullup shit is stupid.

I don't necessarily have anything against kipping pull-ups done in a safe and controlled manner, but I hate when people equivocate them to actual deadhang pull-ups.

 

[Dan O]

Well, things have changed in the forum a bit. A regular starting an xf thread.

 

[Dessyboy]

I tend to favour Ross training style conditioning but i do some crossfit style workouts

The change i make is i keep the HIGH REP OLYMPIC lifting out of it. I do olympic lifting separately like a normal olympic lifter and i will use other movements (like sandbag cleans for example) instead of high rep snatches

 

[Obscure Terror]

I think we can all agree that regardless of what modifications were made to Crossfit, we need to keep the chicks as they are.

 

[JauntyAngle]

Evil? that's a hyperbolic misnomer if I've ever read an excuse to exercise an uneducated opinion on a subject. Endurance exercise and HITT training are far from this thing they call "Crossfit". If you want the real scoopful of ice cream just look at the results of the training and where it's utilized by professional athletes, care to name a successful UFC fighter that swears by "Crossfit"?

I don't think you read or understood my post properly. The sentence that containing the word evil was in a quote, describing a belief that I said I wasn't comfortable with. I was saying that I personally find it hard to hate on the Crossfit Games when I love Strongman so much.

I would suggest more attention to reading and less attention to seizing opportunities to demonstrate your flashy vocabulary. And, as a side point, more care with that vocabulary- "misnomer" is usually applied to names and terms (nouns) not adjectives.

 

[StevenCrowder]

This is an actual conversation that I had this week with a current Olympic gold medalist (in a very power-oriented sport).

Her: Sorry I missed your call, I'm just coming out of my strength and conditioning session.

Me: *sarcastically* Sooo... Crossfit?

Her: *uncontrollable laughter* Oh you know it. Haha no no, we've got a real strength coach here at *info withheld for privacy purposes*. Not looking to be the best at exercising.



So maybe Crossfit should look to high level athletes/Olympians for a few tips?

 

[Rambo121]

Crossfit is a fad in my opinion.

Only negative is I have seen alot of people getting hurt and injured doing it.

Just Google image the creator of cross fit (Greg Glassman) and enjoy your laughs.

But, what ever floats your boat. I cant really hate on anyone at the "gym" trying to improve themselves.

Edit: O one other thing, if you do cross fit please shut up about it. Cross fitters are like Vegans in that way.

 

[grrthetree]

Well I'm going to address only the workouts themselves and not CF HQ or marketing.

The CF workouts need to be tailored to individuals who are doing it for recreation and fitness, and those who are doing it to succeed in CF-style competitions.

For recreational CF'ers the structured plan should look more or less like a S+C program, with a sample workout being something like:

mobility warm up/prehab/ movement prep
skill or strength session (power and olympic lifts, or gymnastics)
conditioning (either one METCON 10-20 mins, several short ones, or interval running/rowing/airdyne work)

Some days may not have a skill or strength component, and will be entirely focused on conditioning. This is taking into consideration the average CF'er, who attends a group class which lasts an hour. The METCONs (metabolic conditioning, not my choice of words) will be a traditional CF workout but with low skill movements only. A sample "METCON" might be something like 30-20-10 reps of walking overhead plate lunges, push ups, and russian KB swings. The environment should also encourage low-intensity, long duration work like jogging, mountain biking, hiking, etc. to get adequate aerobic benefits.

For a CF'er looking to compete, the approach must be similar to the above (if they are not going to do the traditional needs assessment and address weaknesses, and just follow a cookie cutter program for competitors) but there needs to be a balance between workouts that are focused on low-skill movements and high skill movements, to prepare for competitions where they WILL have to do oly lifts and gymnastics under stress. If all they did were high skill movement focused workouts, they would likely get injured, but they need to prepare for them. The athlete(or coach) themselves needs to determine how many workouts that may lead to injury they will add to the program.

Some coaches have been taking a periodized approach to cf preparation, OPT and athleteWOD for example. I have been interning at a CF site for school, and continued to lift there for a month or two after graduation, and the owner is a CSCS, MD and ATC. His approach to CF is the best I've seen, and he understands the physiological needs of athletes and recreational CF'ers. He has done a lot of work with go ruck as well.

I hope this made sense.

 

[miaou]

It is what it is. And what it is is really a sport (with a high injury risk) and not a specific training system.

Beyond that, most important thing is good and safe coaching for beginners. I'm sure some gyms are already paying attention to that.

 

[PUO3]

They have some bad ass equipment.

 

[FlexLuthor]

I will say, the crossfit gym moving into my fight gym is best thing that's ever happened.

We had thousands and thousands of dollars worth of machines.

Now there are pullup bars, rings, squat racks and KBs everywhere. So stoked.

 

[Mike Hagger]

I don't think there's anything to fix in Crossfit. I think fully understanding what CrossFIT is, and is NOT, is the key. Of course some Olypmic, or pro athlete is not going to take much training advice from CrossFIT. That assertion that CrossFIT would be successful in training IE NFL players is ridiculous. Much the same as NFL strength programs would not be optimal to a striving CrossFIT competitor. Take a look at guys like Donny Shankle, he has a main goal Oly Lifting. Being in the Olympics. He'll lecture crossfitians, and probably do a WOD here and there but his cornerstone of training would never be Crossfit.

As a spectator I find the games to be boring, as are cross fit competitions. I cannot for the life me bring myself to be that interested watching someone working out. I understand what they're doing and I suppose it's impressive but it's nothing like watching Oly lifting or the great strength feats of Strongman or Powerlifting comps.

As mentioned about Outlaw Crossfit and other brands out there. They're pulling away from Glassmans programming and developing their own stock. They're taking advice from trainers from all across the spectrum. Some gyms have good trainers with more knowledge than a 2 day class. Some hire schmucks with 0 experience and level a 1 certificate. You know what kind of Crossfit gym you're in within the first 5min of being there. That would be my fix: the level 1 class needs to be harder, modified, or removed in-lieu of something else.

I follow Mountain Athlete/Military Athlete programming. I am certain Rob Shaul has taken some things from Crossfit and incorporated those into his programming. So some of it definitely suits my needs. Which are climbing, moving out with weight, being explosive, and mostly being durable.

 

[Rod1]

There is zero government regulation in physical training, so i guess awareness of the importance of having qualified coaches and suing those that do false claims?

Pointless to go to college and study sport science, spending years of hard work in education when random idiot can just open a crossFIT gym and start selling their product with zero education.