Thursday, June 26, 2014

CrossFit is NOT for Everyone

Well that was a very sharp title, considering I advocate CrossFit to just about anyone who is actually willing to listen and have a willing conversation with me. But really though, it isn’t for everyone and I acknowledge that completely. However, there are different reasons why training only CrossFit may not be for you.

You are a pure strength athlete:
Now when I say that, I mean that you are either a competitive weightlifter or powerlifter, and only those 2 things. It is actually pretty simple why CrossFit may not be for you in that case. The conditioning done won’t make you stronger, it may make you fitter, but those sports are about 1 thing, and 1 thing only: lifting as much weight as physically possible at once. Now yes, there are people like Lauren Fisher who is a fairly competitive weightlifter and CrossFitter, in fact she just competed at the Junior World Championships and will be competing at the CrossFit Games, but she is an anomaly who also has a long history of weightlifting. Her weightlifting benefits her CrossFit, but her CrossFit doesn’t benefit her weightlifting, there is a reason she doesn’t place better and lift more when competing, it’s because she spends too much time doing things other than weightlifting. Now for her, that’s fine, she wants to do both, but if she wanted to really excel at weightlifting, she would definitely have to cut out a lot of her CrossFit because the conditioning alone weakens you (note: I love Lauren Fisher and am a huge fan of hers, and think that her ability to be successful in both, especially at only age 20 is incredible). It is however possible to use some techniques from CrossFit to improve weightlifting, just not the conditioning. A lot of the gymnastics could greatly benefit weightlifters, especially any handstand work to develop strength and stability in the shoulders. On the Barbell Shrugged podcast, Mike Bledsoe mentioned that doing ring handstand –push-ups always increase his jerk by developing unilateral strength and stability at a full range of motion. There is also a reason you see people like Dmitry Klokov doing lots of gymnastics work, he is doing whatever he can to just get stronger.

You play another sport:
Now this one is a little tougher to argue because I do think it can be incredibly helpful. There are countless stories of strength coaches who have incorporated CrossFit Football into their programs and have seen both increases in strength and speed of their athletes. What I mean in this point though is that if you play another sport, whether it is football, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, or anything else, you have to spend time playing your sport. Playing that sport and practicing specific skills is the only way in which you can truly be better at your sport. Think about that for a second, if you don’t practice your sport, then how do you plan on excelling at your sport? However, for their strength and conditioning program, I do think it is fine to use some CrossFit protocols, but I wouldn’t do it all the time, especially for the in-season programming. In-season is when you need to maintain your strength and conditioning and while some gains can be made, it is also very taxing because you are spending so much time practicing as well and that can inhibit your recovery. In the off-season however, I think it is fine to use it for your programming, but also make sure you are keeping it relative to your sport. For example, a running back doesn’t need to be doing 20-minute workouts everyday in the off-season when the average play lasts 5 seconds. However that running back also needs to build and maintain the conditioning to be able to maintain explosiveness throughout an entire game, and depending on his particular strengths and weaknesses as an athlete is how you will do specific programming. However, that running back, and any other athlete, should be doing plenty of strength training (and I am also a large advocate of gymnastics (gymnastics in the way that CrossFit defines gymnastics, not necessarily doing high level gymnastics that professional gymnasts are doing) as a means of both developing strength and stability but also in the development of body awareness) in the off-season for that is when serious gains can be made.

Those are actually the 2 major groups that I feel should not be doing CrossFit for the majority of their training. In general, if you need a specific skill for whatever your goals are, you should spend enough time to become proficient in that skill, but you can use CrossFit as a strength and conditioning program to supplement their specific training.


If you feel that I have missed any groups or have any questions regarding this, feel free to leave comments. I want this to be a dialogue.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Is CrossFit a cult?

I'd like to preface this with the fact that I am a CrossFitter and I already know that making this post that no matter what I say will be controversial. My plan here isn't to be super controversial, it's more that will all the CrossFit bashing going on, especially the post written by Erin Simmons here (I'm not going to go into defending CrossFit from her article because that has been done in countless other places and I won't be writing anything new. I will say though that I think that if she is going to write something, she really needs to write more intelligently because she has a lot of unintelligent things in her post. It's actually quite ridiculous how blind she is). What I want to talk about is the criticism on the social aspect of CrossFit and how it has been labeled as cult by many people.

To begin with, a lot of definitions of cults are religious based, so I felt like I had to pick more general definitions of cult. From Merriam-Webster there are two definitions. 1st: "a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <health cults>". 2nd: "great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work". From dictionary.com there is one good definition I'd like to use: "an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers". From those definitions I feel like I can create a rough definition of what a cult is: it is a group of people who strongly believe in some set of values and act upon that belief. 

CrossFit has been labeled as a cult for being a group of crazy people who do this crazy exercise and eat this weird diet, oh and they make sure to post about it on Facebook too. 

We also apparently only want to go out of our ways to recruit others to join our evil ways and will do anything to do so. Oh, and the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar staff is preaching the gospel created by the great and powerful Greg Glassman (our messiah and savior), and those attending are becoming brain washed to spread the gospel to further people who don't want to think for themselves. 

Now to put a somewhat realistic and actual take on what all of that means. CrossFit is, more than anything else, a fitness methodology that was created by Greg Glassman, that has been defined as "Constantly varied, high intensity, functional movements" and the goal is to create fitness. I'll give a brief explanation of that in hopes that people know what it means already. Constantly varied is that you are usually always doing something different in hopes to create a slightly different stimulus for your body so it never adapts and you can continue to improve. High intensity is just as it seems, you are either doing as many reps as you can in a certain period of time, doing a set amount of work as quickly as you can, or you're lifting heavy weights. Functional movements are those that are engrained into our DNA and we are meant to do, squat, pull, push, hinge, and carry. There have been other movements added like the olympic lifts (snatch, clean & jerk) because they are great at developing large amounts of the 10 general physical skills and athleticism. 

Based on that, all a CrossFitter is is someone who follows that methodology in order to get as fit as possible. Now Greg Glassman also found that people will work harder and get greater results when training others and that is why there are affiliates all over the world. CrossFitters don't come together because we are insane, we come together to work out because that will just get us fitter. So yes, what we do in order to get fit may be different than what other people do, but it is simply our chosen path; instead of running, boxing, yoga, zumba, or any other methodology, we simply chose CrossFit.

Now onto this funky diet we have. At the Level 1 seminar, they teach the basics on the Zone Diet which was created by Dr. Barry Sears which is aimed at achieving stable blood sugar levels, hormonal balance, low inflammation, and good health. It is a diet based on macronutrient ratios of your caloric intake. They also mention the foods we should eat in order to achieve optimal fitness and health "meats and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar". CrossFitters have also become popular for eating a Paleo Diet which is very similar to the foods that CrossFit recommends we should eat. The basis behind that is that our DNA has not changed very much in thousands of years and our diet shouldn't change much either, whereas the modern western diet is made of things that are killing our bodies because they aren't meant to handle those foods. Again yes, CrossFitters generally have a different diet than most people eating a modern western diet, but what about things like the Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, Grapefruit Diet, and any other crazy diet you may have heard of. All of those diets have their own purpose and for some work. This diet that CrossFitters follow has just been shown to give optimal health and for most optimal performance. 

The other points I mentioned were mostly jokes, but have some validity. Yes you will find many CrossFitters posting things on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or some other site, but that isn't because we're nuts. It's because we are starting to prioritize health and fitness in our lives and our goals change to things like getting that first muscle up, a big squat, or some other thing. We get excited about these things now. That's like a fashion designer posting all of these different outfits because that's what that person is incredibly excited about, or a dancer posting some crazy routine that they did because it is awesome for that person. And yes, a lot of us will try and recruit those closest to us to try, but that again isn't because we are insane, it is because we have seen the amazing results that have come from CrossFit and want the people we care about to experience the same. Plus, we have found some of our closest friends through CrossFit and want to share that world with you. I promise, most (there are always the crazy ones in any activity) of us just want you to see the benefits that thousands of people have seen and it is because we care about you. 

I have talked about some of the criticisms, but still is the comment about CrossFit being a cult incorrect? After writing this out, honestly, I don't think so. CrossFit is a cult. CROSSFIT IS A CULT!!! Now people may think I'm a little crazy for saying that since I am a CrossFitter, but I'm proud to be a part of  a community of people who prioritize health and fitness and are willing to invest in that and work really hard to get there. We are a group of people that get excited about our friends doing the same. Yes, CrossFit may be a cult, but I can't think of a better cult than one that has the goal of getting healthier and doing it in a way that gives you a community of friends.