Who Crossfits?
- Thread starter KAYNE
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MikeMartial
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Cannot argue with that. Having someone training you like Anthony vs having someone who had only their CF-1 would be like going from a dream to a nightmare. Quality control is no doubt an issue.
Bainbridge
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For the most part, Joel an I actually agree on the big principles. We just have a different approach to reach those principles. Also, his influences were the same influences for the founders of CF ... so any difference in approach has to be chalked up to interpretation or flavor. No one has the authority on sport science and for the most part, science is playing "catch up" to the top coaches anyway.
Quality control is a problem with any industry. There are good doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, priests, personal trainers ... and there are bad ones. You can't rely on degree/certification/association to dictate good or bad.
To address Kayne's issue on conditioning and strength:
1) The short intense workouts takes those monsters 2-3 minutes BECAUSE their conditioning is unparalleled. Normal folks would take A LOT longer. The good news is that even these short efforts cause an improvement in longer efforts. Obviously within reason - an elite marathon runner won't improve his 2:30 marathon with a 2 minute Fran. But I promise that a 2 minute Fran will make a 5 minute round feel like a joke.
2) 1-5RM does a great job at building strength. My wife deadlifts nearly triple body weight and she rotates through singles, triples, and 5RM on a regular basis. The reason I use her as an example is because she's a petite female with long legs relative to her torso - meaning she's not exactly built for heavy deadlifts. If SHE can be that strong, imagine a young male with better leverages.
Quality control is a problem with any industry. There are good doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, priests, personal trainers ... and there are bad ones. You can't rely on degree/certification/association to dictate good or bad.
To address Kayne's issue on conditioning and strength:
1) The short intense workouts takes those monsters 2-3 minutes BECAUSE their conditioning is unparalleled. Normal folks would take A LOT longer. The good news is that even these short efforts cause an improvement in longer efforts. Obviously within reason - an elite marathon runner won't improve his 2:30 marathon with a 2 minute Fran. But I promise that a 2 minute Fran will make a 5 minute round feel like a joke.
2) 1-5RM does a great job at building strength. My wife deadlifts nearly triple body weight and she rotates through singles, triples, and 5RM on a regular basis. The reason I use her as an example is because she's a petite female with long legs relative to her torso - meaning she's not exactly built for heavy deadlifts. If SHE can be that strong, imagine a young male with better leverages.
EZA
Joel Jamieson
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I would have a hard time seeing how my influences were the same as the founders of CrossFit to be honest. The general philosophy, principles, and methods developed by my influences are all about a targeted progression, understanding indivudality of training, and understanding very specifically how to apply the right methods at the right time. The CrossFit approach is very far off from this philosophy, I don't see a whole lot in common with their methodology and that of the european system.
For example, in their manifesto they talk about the neuroendocrine response and it's importance yet they have very little understanding of the big picture and how to apply what they are talking about. You cannot maximally stimulate the neuroendocrine system every day or totally at random as they basically advocate. Generally you should do one developmental workout and one stimulative workout per week, about 4 days apart. This is how you tap into the power of the neuroendocrine response, not by training completely randomly doing major lifts heavy all the time. This is also one of the reasons the westside approach works for many, it only has two max effort lifting days.
The CrossFit philosophy to just throw together random methods haphazardly is a far cry from the approach used by my influences or any of the those from the european system. I don't know what any of the real backgrounds is of the founders of CrossFit, but I would doubt that they have much of any scientific background or have ever had conversation with any of the major european coaches, scientists, or athletes.
They talk about concepts they have little real understanding of how to apply and their energy system develpoment protocols have no basis in any sense of understanding how the body actually produces energy. I'd love for someone to tell me just what they think is beingg developed and how exactly it's being developed through some of their random protocols? For the most part if looks like they just took a lot of random methods from different disciplines and threw them all together and called it a program.
For the average person who has no real lifting background of course doing anything consistently will produce results, but for any advanced trainee or athlete trainig with a purpose there are far superior methods and a systematic progression that should be used.
I would also disagree that science playing catch up with the top coaches. While it's true that in the US there is a huge disconnect between research scientists and coaches, this is not the case in much of the rest of the world. For example, most of the major european soccer clubs have PhD exercise physiologists who oversee the training programs for the entire club. These guys work hand in hand with the strength and conditioning coaches or with the soccer coaches to impliment very specific and very scientifically based programming. The level of sophistication and technology used to train those players far surpasses any of the training of our pro athletes in this country. Half the teams in the NFL use HIT machine circuits as the basis of their entire strength program for example.
CrossFit has the potential to be a great program if they would just apply the principles they talk about believing in correctly and appropriately. If they simply built some progressive structure into the program and used heart rate monitors to dictate pieces of the program it would be tremendously better.
For example, in their manifesto they talk about the neuroendocrine response and it's importance yet they have very little understanding of the big picture and how to apply what they are talking about. You cannot maximally stimulate the neuroendocrine system every day or totally at random as they basically advocate. Generally you should do one developmental workout and one stimulative workout per week, about 4 days apart. This is how you tap into the power of the neuroendocrine response, not by training completely randomly doing major lifts heavy all the time. This is also one of the reasons the westside approach works for many, it only has two max effort lifting days.
The CrossFit philosophy to just throw together random methods haphazardly is a far cry from the approach used by my influences or any of the those from the european system. I don't know what any of the real backgrounds is of the founders of CrossFit, but I would doubt that they have much of any scientific background or have ever had conversation with any of the major european coaches, scientists, or athletes.
They talk about concepts they have little real understanding of how to apply and their energy system develpoment protocols have no basis in any sense of understanding how the body actually produces energy. I'd love for someone to tell me just what they think is beingg developed and how exactly it's being developed through some of their random protocols? For the most part if looks like they just took a lot of random methods from different disciplines and threw them all together and called it a program.
For the average person who has no real lifting background of course doing anything consistently will produce results, but for any advanced trainee or athlete trainig with a purpose there are far superior methods and a systematic progression that should be used.
I would also disagree that science playing catch up with the top coaches. While it's true that in the US there is a huge disconnect between research scientists and coaches, this is not the case in much of the rest of the world. For example, most of the major european soccer clubs have PhD exercise physiologists who oversee the training programs for the entire club. These guys work hand in hand with the strength and conditioning coaches or with the soccer coaches to impliment very specific and very scientifically based programming. The level of sophistication and technology used to train those players far surpasses any of the training of our pro athletes in this country. Half the teams in the NFL use HIT machine circuits as the basis of their entire strength program for example.
CrossFit has the potential to be a great program if they would just apply the principles they talk about believing in correctly and appropriately. If they simply built some progressive structure into the program and used heart rate monitors to dictate pieces of the program it would be tremendously better.
Bainbridge
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Joel, they have the same influences because they read the same books, studies, articles, etc. If you want to argue about interpretations you can contact them directly.
I have a question though:
Where is the science regarding high levels of fitness across broad time and modal domains?
Decathlon would be the closest sport, the only problem is that 1500m is the longest effort (hardly long in the grand scheme), there is no strength component, and power component limited to throwing (ie, no clean or snatch). Don't get me wrong, Deca is one hell of a sport, but it doesn't cover all the bases we are looking for, so even studies and experiments done with deca athletes would be lacking for our purposes.
But, if they exist, I'm very interested. I'm thinking some type of study that formulated the best methods to achieve triple body weight deadlift, 50 consecutive chinups, sub 6 minute mile, sub 20 minute 5km, double body weight clean ... all in the same weekend. You know, something with substance and relevance.
I'm looking for exact article titles and/or page numbers.
Thanks!
I have a question though:
Where is the science regarding high levels of fitness across broad time and modal domains?
Decathlon would be the closest sport, the only problem is that 1500m is the longest effort (hardly long in the grand scheme), there is no strength component, and power component limited to throwing (ie, no clean or snatch). Don't get me wrong, Deca is one hell of a sport, but it doesn't cover all the bases we are looking for, so even studies and experiments done with deca athletes would be lacking for our purposes.
But, if they exist, I'm very interested. I'm thinking some type of study that formulated the best methods to achieve triple body weight deadlift, 50 consecutive chinups, sub 6 minute mile, sub 20 minute 5km, double body weight clean ... all in the same weekend. You know, something with substance and relevance.
I'm looking for exact article titles and/or page numbers.
Thanks!
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Anthony,
For what it's worth, reading your posts in this thread has gotten me interested in CrossFit, whereas I'd dismissed it out of hand before.
Unfortunately, there are no schools in my area, but I'm reading up online. Seems interesting. Agree about it being different location by location, however. I'm not paying $75/mo. to train out of the garage of some level-one certified guy.
For what it's worth, reading your posts in this thread has gotten me interested in CrossFit, whereas I'd dismissed it out of hand before.
Unfortunately, there are no schools in my area, but I'm reading up online. Seems interesting. Agree about it being different location by location, however. I'm not paying $75/mo. to train out of the garage of some level-one certified guy.
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Now that I have made the investment and set up my own gym in my basement I wish I had done it years ago. The rack, weights, and all the other little things only cost me about what the gym did for two ro three years and the workouts are unbelievably better. Plus I enjoyed pimping out my own gym.
oxcart
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This is a good point. Especially with the o-lifting instruction; coaching seems to vary from the very good to ridiculous.
Crossfit in my mind is like an improved exercise class. It relies on groups motivating each other and where 10 years ago people would have done step class to 'get fit', you've got compound exercises in their place.
Who knows.. maybe in 30 years there will be a couple of guys in the o-lifting in the olympics.... '...my mum used to do crossfit and I would go with her to class and do cleans with a broomstick when I was little...'
MikeMartial
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I have no idea why this was bumped, but for what it's worth, T-nation actually just put up a fairly accurate account of Crossfit.
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Yeah, it's a pretty good article, but no doubt Glassman will bitch and moan about it.
I like the part about Twight and Gym Jones.
The problem I have with Crossfit is the level of pompousness and cult mind set that it seems to breed. When ever I set up a simple complex in the gym, the Crossfiters come around and want to know which "WOD" I'm on and then get offended that I'm just making the complex up based on what I feel up to and working around injuries from MMA training.
Good program if it works for you, but geeze, ease off on the Kool-Aid
Good program if it works for you, but geeze, ease off on the Kool-Aid
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"Crossfit makes men small and women hot."
-truth
-truth
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Yes, great article by T-Nation, and I believe Charles says it best with; those who train everything get nothing. Crossfit is great if you want to be competent at many things, but seriously; Crossfit makes you great at: Crossfit. Also, I love how they make Rhabdomyolysis a slogan for their gym. Das Uber Gay.
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I've been saying this for a while. crossfit is awesome for strength and conditioning. specifically for combat sports. Having a big bench press is nice, but not functional at all in a fight. I personally do a lot of crossfit and have been referred to as "freakishly strong" time and time again while grappling. It works! Stubborn muscle heads refuse to believe it though. I'm also a certified trainer under ISSA, so I believe my opinion is somewhat valid.
TommyRyan44
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I don't see how the science could be so complicated.
You want to lift heavy objects? Lift heavy objects.
You a firefighter? Pick up sandbag, carry sandbag, go up and down ladder with sandbag,
You a mma fighter? Aside from skill training just do something than simulates a fight, throw things, punch things, and kick things trying to go faster and harder pace than last workout.
You want to lift heavy objects? Lift heavy objects.
You a firefighter? Pick up sandbag, carry sandbag, go up and down ladder with sandbag,
You a mma fighter? Aside from skill training just do something than simulates a fight, throw things, punch things, and kick things trying to go faster and harder pace than last workout.
TommyRyan44
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I don't see how the science could be so complicated.
You want to lift heavy objects? Lift heavy objects.
You a firefighter? Pick up sandbag, carry sandbag, go up and down ladder with sandbag,
You a mma fighter? Aside from skill training just do something than simulates a fight, throw things, punch things, and kick things trying to go faster and harder pace than last workout.
You want to lift heavy objects? Lift heavy objects.
You a firefighter? Pick up sandbag, carry sandbag, go up and down ladder with sandbag,
You a mma fighter? Aside from skill training just do something than simulates a fight, throw things, punch things, and kick things trying to go faster and harder pace than last workout.
Sohan
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That's just not true. The bench press is a tool like any other exercise, and if used correctly in your program, is one of the most effective exercises for strengthening the upper body. All my years of competitive bench pressing built me a very strong upper torso, and having strong pecs, delts and triceps didn't seem to hurt my fighting ability.
I have done Crossfit training and found it no more effective for my BJJ training than using Ross Enamait's workouts. Developing GPP is important, but I prefer a combination of strength with GPP, such as you get with Ross's workouts.
BTW, I am also often described as "freakishly strong" in grappling, but I think this derives from my previous powerlifting background.
And I'm a CSCS, so I'm sure my opinion is just as valid.
