http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME7Pswhet00&feature=player_embedded#!
I saw this clip on a forum I follow and I was shocked. I really want to shake the hand of the person who designed this workout… then punch him with my free hand! Like I’ve said before, Crossfit is unsafe.
Agreed. I know 2 guys who do it and I just shake my head at the stupidity of these people. I played Lacrosse and ran Track in high school and since then I’ve had to work out the traditional way (high intensity interval training) to stay in shape. Interestingly enough, both of these guys didn’t have an ounce of athleticism in them in high school so I was surprised when I heard they were doing this new to me at the time workout. Those who seem to be doing it are those who aren’t athletes by nature, people who woke up on day and decided they wanted to become athletes. People who were athletes from childhood would look at this and see the danger and stupidity of it. It’s just a bunch of stupid people doing dangerous things with heavy weights.
Well said! I think it’s going to be another fad in the fitness world, just like the aerobics and Nautilus crazes. Glad to see people with common sense are finally starting to analyze their program under an absolute microscope.
Hi Jaime. A couple comments/questions about your response:
What is wrong with someone deciding they want to get off the couch and become physically active?
Did you know that part of the definition of athlete is “..a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.”?
By nature, we were all designed to move and work hard. Some are more genetically gifted at it but by nature – we all have the capability, unless born with physical disabilities which require adaptive thinking.
Also – there are thousands of people who do/have done CrossFit that have previous background of being physically active to a high performance level, myself included. So your claim here is unfounded and false.
I would estimate that more than 500,000 people worldwide currently have CrossFit memberships – and by your claim every single one of these people stupid. Can you please provide proof of this?
Crossfit is beyond annoying.
I have a friend who has been at it for months now, saw him today, he looks fat. Bulky and big, no lean, toned or defined. What a waste of time on his part, he is always being sold the stupidness by trainers. Plus Crossfit seems crazy unsafe, who in their right mind wants to pull cars (seriously my friend does this nonsense), do 250 push ups or swing stupid ropes till my arms fall off? Abusive to ones body much?
You can sell fools anything, especially fools who want to lose weight.
Daniel,
I’ll be honest..I first tried CF back around 2005 and went until 06. I will be the first to sat that I met some great people there including athletes, military people and the like. However, over time the WODS were not about proper form, but high reps and as much weight as you throw around. Folks were getting hurt and I simply left and never looked back. Given the fact that boxes are opening at an enourmous pace, more and more people are going to get injured by this protocol.
Unfortunately, you have so many people who are so far gone on the CF kool-aid, they will never and refuse to see the pitfalls of this program.
Should CF go out of style. Absolutely not. However, the program needs a severe overhaul and re-design. Then again, CF HQ insists nothing is wrong.
It is unfortunate that your experience with CrossFit was with a location that perhaps stressed the wrong intentions, being a disregard for proper form and technique vs focusing on as much weight as possible. This is certainly a fault of CrossFit but I encourage you to understand and believe that it is not system-wide practice.
The location I train out of puts the highest priority on proper form and technique and will simply not allow its clients to use weight that puts this objective at jeopardy – regardless if they have the strength to lift it. I have also experience time in many other locations that do practice these same philosophies.
Would you not agree that perhaps a “severe overhaul” is a bit of a severe us of terms however?
Ok…Why are you trying to infiltrate my blog with several pro-cross$hit comments? Is it not very clear that I despise the organization/cult?
I used to be a multi sport athlete in high school. I was a tight end in football, played lacrosse, and basketball. Today, I have graduated college and I am still into weight lifting.
I agree with the above comment on cross fitters not being “athletes.” I knew several guys from high school that were the “ass backs” or the bench warmers on the teams. Now ever since they have gotten into CF they think they are elite athletes. I would pay money to step onto any field and compete with them, again, haha. Ill admit, I have tried CF and there is some level of difficulty to it, but it is an accident waiting to happen. The workouts have no correlation to real life movements or actions. It is merely a sideshow “look at what I’m doing” type of thing. I dont care that you are swinging a rope around, come down in the low post with me and see whats good homie. Or better yet lets see who’s faster, can bench more, or can win in the ring?? Bottom Line, real athletes have been training in the basic methods for as long as we know, and not any of this “look at me” bs
Hi Ben.
I am confused by how you have decided that CrossFit has no correlation to real-life movements? The foundation of CrossFit is based on training the body to be efficient in the 10 most common Physical Skills of life, being Cardio, strength, stamina, flexibility, power, coordination, accuracy, agility, speed and balance.
Also, there workouts are designed to simulate real-life movements skills, such as pushing, pulling, jumping, squatting, running, pressing with free and moving objects. When doing rope climbs
What, in your opinion, defines “elite athlete”? Is it someone who is supreme in one single sport, or is it someone who can do almost anything thrown at them proficiently and above average? If your opinion is that its someone who is only very very good in one or two things then there is no debate I guess.
Seldom (in my experience) do CrossFitters do there workouts with the intention of having others look at them. If you feel this, then perhaps it is because you cannot stop looking at what they are doing, otherwise why would you point this out? Please clarify so that I may understand better what you mean.
Finally someone who says the obvious. I do regular training everyday. But I have never seen such unhealthy exercises likei in crossfit. Alone seeing it causes me pain in my back and my knees and my ellbows. But maybe it is the right thing for certain kind of people, but sure not for me.
Hi Riccimer.
Can you further define what is un-healthy about the exercises you have witnessed so that your point has some validity?
I’d caution anyone against assuming that a so-so athlete in high school and college can’t become a good or great athlete later in life. That said, CF ain’t the way, and this video exemplifies what’s wrong with CF. People are doing what amounts to attention-getting stunts that are unsafe. I mean, why else would anyone invite people to a race track stadium to watch four people pull a cop car around the track with ropes? What does it really prove?
ONE person could have done this. All they needed was enough strength to get the car moving while it’s in neutral and just keep chugging to keep the momentum up. But the fact that no one even thought of the fact that people get tired and momentum can increase… well, that speaks for itself. A symptom of a greater problem.
HI proactive.
I feel you are jumping to conclusions here. While the video proved that improper safety precautions were taken and the whole thing was not thought out well enough, understand that this is a single video depicting one event.
There are thousands of videos relating to thousands of different fields of activity where stupid stunts are performed and these videos are all over youtube and other sites.
One video of one stupid event does not make and entire physical training program wrong.
I am a powerlifter and fitness nerd, I study Louie Simmons (West Side Barbell) concepts with a micrscope and fine-toothed comb and it works. I and Louie Simmons would both tell you the problems with crossfit.One of the main problems is they have no form, they throw you out there and let you do the lifts as a NOOB, often times having other crossfags who do the lift wrong teach the lift to you. Another problem I have is Olympic lifts are not meant to be done for 10 sets of 20 in a circuit. Olympic lifts are meant to generate fast twich exsplosion and build raw strength, not a toned body. You are asking for injury when you do snatches for 8 sets of 20 after you just finished box jumps and rope climbs etc and you are exausted, your posterior chain is shot, and you cant hold form.
I always include one to two core lifts with my workouts. Say I am doing deadlifts on my dynamic effort day, I am going for bar speed, moving that weight as fast as possible for 8 sets of 2 to 3 reps with great attention to form! I gain as much power and explosion as a crossfag and I get the same results. Doing this I also increase my overall raw max AND VOLUME. I also think Olympic lifts are overrated one can generate the same exsplosive power doing a power squat or deadlift seing as hip explosion and a strong posterior chain are all one needs to generate exsplosion. Finally, so I will repeat myself YOU DONT rep out on olympic lifts. I get infuriated when watching the dumb CF games WHAT the hell are they trying to accomplish the lifts are not functional!!!!! They dont play ball!!!!
I work with a doctor who does CF, he always complains about his knees aching (squat form is bad) and pain radiating from his anterior delt to his rhomboid ( over extension on snatches and jerks due to bad form and relying on momentum and the actual flexibility of the joint to stop the bar and not the support chain surrounding the rotator cuff he also probably has a weak posterior chain) one day he his going to tear his rotator cuff or blow out his knee. I routinely lift in thr 450′s to 500′s on deadlifts during my max effort days and go up to around 450 on squats (dont lift as heavy since ACL surgery) I NEVER have back or knee pain, even from bench NEVER any shoulder pain.
I have some nerve damage from crutching around after knee surgery but I am finding that deadlifts with proper form are helping to correct that issue.
Eventually someone is going to tear in half the muscles that support the clavicle and rotator cuff and their arms are going to bend all the way behind them wile doing a snatch… Then maybe crossfit will change.
Thanks for your comments Robert.
First of all, repeatedly using the term “Crossfag(s)” is simply childish and immature, and immediately brings down your credibility appearance in my opinion.
One problem with CrossFit is the fact they do have some people teaching it that aren’t qualified to teach it. This I cannot nor will not deny. That is the main issue with it being a free-market business that is simply looking to expand and grow.
However, this practice is not limited to CrossFit. Anyone in this world has the power to teach anything to anyone at anytime based on what they think is right. If people choose to listen, then there is really nothing that can be done.
It is common practice at most CrossFit locations to have brand new members go through a 4-week “Intro to CrossFit” program usually comprised of 8 sessions. These classes are designed to teach the members about all the different movement patterns involved and how to do them correctly.
What is NOT the standard practice (although I cannot deny it occurs) is for someone to walk in off the street with no experience with Olympic or Power lift movements and get thrown into a workout involving them. This sort of thing is the extreme minority.
Never have I participated in nor heard of a CrossFit workout that makes an athlete do a max weight Olympic lift or Power lift for as many reps as possible. The idea is that it is a manageable weight for high rep volume. If it does get to the point where near max weight has to be used (for an official competition lets say) then it is often highly scrutinized for correct form and movement patterns and technique.
One of the benefits of Olympic Lifts is that they do generate fast twitch and raw power – but who are you to say that they are only ment to do this and cannot be modified into a regular workout movement? That’s like saying sports cars are only designed to be driven fast and cannot be driven slow.
When you start with low weight and incorporate into multi-movement workouts (like you say box jumps and rope climbs) then you slowly start to strengthen your posterior chain and train it to be efficient in this type of transition between exercises. That’s why training is called training. As you become stronger and more adaptive to this type of metabolic conditioning, then you can increase weight slowly. And just to point out – I have never seen a Crossfit workout that required 8 sets of 20 reps with and Olympic lifting movement….or any other movement for that matter.
CrossFit athletes put themselves at risk of injury. This I cannot deny. However, strict Olympic Lifters or Power Lifters put themselves at risk of injury as well – to say they do not is simply incorrect. I have seen enough videos and read enough blogs from Olympic or Power lifters in regards to their injuries.
I would challenge you to point out any high intensity or high weight physical sport, activity or game where there is no chance of injury at all.