Someone Explain Crossfit To Me.

[Cannon]

Let me start by saying I have almost no prior knowledge of Crossfit except that I believe it operates on a "workout of the day" and you just train whatever comes up, right?

I just looked through a gallery of photos for the 2011 Crossfit games. Good lord these people seem fit.

Are we to believe they all got this way on the "workout of the day"?

How do you get the official workout of the day?

Can someone give me a once-over on what's going on with Crossfit?

[KRC]

Are we to believe they all got this way on the "workout of the day"?

They don't explicitly suggest this, but they don't deny it either when in many instances they should. Josh Everett is a guy CF likes to (or at least used to like to) market as super epic/fit/awesome but if I remember correctly he built most of his base as a very successful olympic lifter years before crossfit as we know it even existed.

But beyond examples of specific people, the "programming" CF employs is necessarily poor at developing the top level strength that they promote through pics/marketing of the top CF-Games athletes. It is almost the exact opposite of progressive loading.

There are a lot of ways that CF can get under peoples skin (and I agree with a lot of those people), but all in all it's a good tool FOR CONDITIONING provided you have a competent teacher who won't have you doing sets of 30 rep snatches for time on your first week, and provided -- and to me, this is the key -- you realize that CF is a conditioning tool, not a method for building max strength or developing any other modality to any respectable level other than conditioning.

[Scott Styles]

My understanding is people that win the crossfit games build themselves up using other methods.

The workouts are posted on the home page of the website every day.

[Bill Piche]

This "kipping" stuff.....well......

Do real chins...please.

[jad]

The Irongarm forum has a 600+ page thread (last I checked) that will give you all the information you need. If I remember correctly, it's the Couch thread

[Cannon]

So what's the deal with the "trainers." Do they decide the workout of the day or is there an official one from Oz or wherever?

[kyleec]

Nobody at the Games does the website WODs. It's all periodized strength training with very specific metabolic conditioning thrown in. If you only ever do what's on the page, you will improve your conditioning (and maybe your strength a little if you aren't strong to begin with). The thing to remember is that it's a brand. Some gyms may follow the main page. They may be staffed by some husband and wife who attended the weekend Level 1 cert seminar. Or you could have coaches like Rippetoe, Greg Everett, Robb Wolf, etc. who all ran or still run an affiliate, and certainly make their own programming. I don't like the mainpage programming at all, and a lot of the individual gyms' programming that I've seen is just insert-random-hard-exercises-here for tons of reps and rounds. That said, there are also very intelligent coaches who build well-balanced athletes. The ones in the games either know what they're doing, or have a coach who does. Many come from competitive athletic backgrounds.

I've never done CF but I know a lot of CF folks. If I had to follow some webstie WODs, I'd absolutely go with Crossfit Football. It has a good strength and power component, scales for various training levels, just enough metabolic conditioning, and Wellbourn is the real deal. Compare the programming there to the mainpage, and it's night and day.

[Electron]

Crossfit is an incredible exercise system... You too, can gain the power and endurance to execute 100 pull ups!

/sarcasm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeobRHs35J4&feature=related

[nickr104]

Circuit training. Most of the high level crossfiters were high level athlets before crossfit.

[AP]

Hypnotic

sorry I was mesmerized, comment should be for tentaclegrips post

Edited February 14, 2012 by AP

[Scott Styles]

There's a crossfit a few miles from my house. Maybe I'll go offer to run the camera.

[Autolupus]

This "kipping" stuff.....well...... Do real chins...please.

OK but only if you use it to turn it into a muscle-up!

[bwwm]

They way they do pull-ups makes me fear for my chin. That's gotta hurt if they come to far forward on the down stroke.

[bwwm]

By the way Matt, given your level of grip strength (as evidenced in the other post), I don't think any CrossFitter's have anything up on you. Just my opinion.

[bwwm]

I don't know if what is in here is true, but it's pretty funny to watch:

[Cannon]

I wanted to comment that I'm not considering training Crossfit. I just really didn't understand what was going on. And so mnay of the competitiors are....(ahem)........"mesmerizing".

Those pullups are seriously weird. That's cheating.

[Jedd Johnson]

It's not really cheating, because it does take skill and strength to perform those pull-ups, but they are definitely not a pull-up.

I often wonder what these people's joints are going to feel like a few years down the road. Hopefully not as bad as mine would seemingly feel if I tried them.

It would also be cool to see how many actual pull-ups she could do. Hopefully she puts up another video soon.

[lifesnotfair]

Well I've been reading up un CF since early 2008 and a member of their forum and I can tell by you guys replies that many of you don't have a clue about their methodology so I'll share some insight. I am not claiming to be an expert but I've picked up a thing or two.

1. The Kipping Pull-up. This has been beaten to death, and it amazes me people still "make fun" of it, it's rather ignorant. Just so you know, ocationally a weighted strict pull-up comes up as the WOD (Workout of the Day) and people who've done CF for a number of years WILL put up a decent number. The Kipping Pull-up is not used "To Build Big Lats", people, get this right. It is all a matter of power output. These timed workouts (which they call MetCons, short for metabolic conditioning) are supossed to be done fast. They are structured in a way that a good crossfitter would do the movements without much resting, BUT IF HE RESTS, it's just literally a couple of seconds to CATCH HIS BREATH. Put in other words:

-The workouts want people to train at a very High Intensity.

-Intensity is defined by them as Work divided by time: I = W/t

-Intensity is increased then if you increase W, reduce T, or both.

-The Kipping Pull-up is a FULL BODY movement that aims to let folks do a lot of Work (remember Work = Force x Distance) in a short period of time. Yes, you use your Hips/Legs. Yes, you use momentum. But you still move your entire bodyweight from the Arms-Extended possition to Chin-Over-Bar possition. So they do indeed perform a lot of Work in a much shorter period of Time, hence, intensity is high.

If they were to program strict pull-ups in the middle of a MetCon, guys would be resting a ton not due to their LUNGS being tired, but because of Muscular Fatigue.

That said, I'm personally not a fan of the Kipping PU because I have naturally loose ligaments, and in the "coming down" portion there's a lot of stress on the shoulder joint, so I stopped doing them of course. Well, I should note I haven't done a "metcon" in about a year, or CF programming for that matter.

I actually wanted to touch on more things but this got long enough as it is. Making fun of the kipping PU without understanding WHY they use it, just shows a bit of ignorance IMHO. Sure it's fun to make fun of CF, and I agree some youtube videos are really funny, but if you're gonna bash something it's good to actually understand what you're criticizing.

Ok I decided to touch on somethingelse

Cannon: many people do follow mainpage WOD's. But experienced fellows sometimes morph into their own programming. A complain many guys have come up with the years, is lack of pure strength work, although many times the WOD is a strength move done for low reps with rest, it's not always a MetCon. From what I've observed, the elite guys, the ones who go to the games, do both, some times in the same session. For example, one day they may do back squats 5x5 .... and a few minutes later a MetCon. There has been debates wether it's wise to include very squat-cenctric movements in the metcon that follows the strengthwork or not (ie: should it have a lot of Thrusters or should it avoid?) but that's definitely not a discussion for guys who are still at the "do real chin-ups" stage of understanding the methodology.

They do a lot of strength work because some MetCons are getting heavier and heavier. But they have to keep their conditioning up because at the CF Games you can expect anything... the first event is a rather long/endurance event... some are short metcons that are done like a sprint (almost no rest), and there ARE max-effort lifts events at the CF Games, since the first games were contested. So yeah you have to be both strong and with good endurance to win this thing, that's why they're claiming that the winner can claim the "fittest on earth" title (not saying I agree with that or not). In fact,in the website's FAQ there's a description of CF and I think it mentions trying to develop 10 areas of fitness, but I don't remember them by heart and have to do something now. Hope I helped any.

[Cannon]

VERY helpful Arturo. This is the kind of thing I was looking for. Thank you.

[lifesnotfair]

VERY helpful Arturo. This is the kind of thing I was looking for. Thank you.

No problem Matt. I've got some more time now that a few hours have passed. So I'll share a couple of other things.

It is my own personal opinion (please keep this in mind), that CF has been getting a bad rap because of all the so-called CrossFitters who act elitist. That's it. They discover CF, the novelty of the "metcons" has them hooked ("drinking the koolaid", as they say), and they go to gyms thinking they're "The Sh*t" because they do CF, but in reality they can't even do the mainsite WOD's as RX'd. (This means using the prescribed weights posted in the mainpage WODS).

You see, the WODs are posted in a fashion that the top dogs can do them as RX'd, but newbies wont be able to do them. Lets take a popular metcon for example, a short one that is supossed to be done as a "sprint", called Fran: it's 21, 15 and 9 reps of 95# thrusters and kipping pull-ups. Top dogs can do this in just over 2 minutes, taking virtually no breaks. A guy with a 1RM Thruster of 135# is not gonna crank out the first 21 reps unbroken, let alone finish the entire workout in a reasonable time. So the workouts can be "scaled" by either reducing weigths used, or the reps prescribed. But it ceased to be "as RX'd". You will find that many mainpage WODs are very hard to do as Rx'd even for "fit" people, as some of them have, in the middle of other things, 21 reps of 225# deadlifts (much harder to dowhen you're entering the set with your heart rate through the roof), tons of L-pull-ups (theses are prescribed often and these AREN'T kipped, for those of you enjoying making fun of the kipping PU), tons of handstand push-ups and Ring Muscle-ups, to name a few moves that are hard to do for many a "fit" guy, specially when you're out of breath.

Like I said, I think an elitist attitude caused this. Guys scaling all workouts, getting ripped but weighing 140# at 6' tall, thinking everyone should train like they do. Is it any wonder the guys in the "get huge" crowd make fun of said people?

The truth is, at the top level, the guys are MONSTERS. To have the ability to DL 500# and at the same time run 5km in sub-20 minutes, is no easy task. To be able to string 15 consecutive Ring Muscle-ups when fatigued, while half an hour later being able to Clean+Jerk 275# is, again, a tough combination to posses. You can find in Youtube a group of guys doing ONE or the OTHER and find it easy... but those men who are well rounded to do both things, these are the CF Games competitors and knowing what they're capable of I'd never make fun of them.

Part of the problem, again in my humble opinion, is that most people that join CF gyms do it for the looks! Yes, appearance! You wanna, the good ol' "I wanna look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club" deal, "I don't care if I bench 135 as long as I look like that", LOL. So many supossed CF'ers remain weak in comparisson to guys who care about strength and of course they get a bad rap. Truth is in order to be competitve you have to be pretty strong. Not powerlifter strong, but quite strong. Of course, I would assume all the competitors train for Performance, not looks. But you know, with all the studies showing HIIT training to be so effective for fatloss, and so many people more concerned about their looks (and not concerned with 200 DL 1RM)..... they see the pics of CF'ers, very lean, learn about it, drink the koolaid, then talk crap about people doing any other routine..... you can see it just wont end well :P

Sorry if I got off-topic a little bit..? Hehe.

[bwwm]

I share Jedd's concerns regarding joint health. I know just doing regular pull-ups faster than normal tends to ding my elbow now & then. Additionally the CF's like to swing their kettlebells directly overhead, which brings with it some shoulder impingement concerns, depending on the shoulder health/construction of the individual. Having said all that, I do admire their fitness levels. I'm sure there's many CFs that could outlast me in many events. For myself, my joints just will not allow me to do CF. Instead I choose to do hardstyle kettlebell swings & snatches to improve my VO2max.

[KRC]

I don't really have a staunch hatred of CF (though I generally do very much dislike the CF bro's many of whom I've had the unfortunate pleasure of coming across), but honeslty I don't know that there's anything in a CF workout that you can't get by supplementing heavy lifting with sprinting, prowler pushing/sled dragging, or certain kinds of strongman training, all of which have been proven safe and extremely effective.

The claims they make about "fitness" or "the sport of fitness" are dubious at best (especially considering how weak the average CF'er is at any one modality of fitness), and the claims from the "founder" himself about generating a 700lb deadlift doing CF alone is downright stupid.

[climber511]

"Crossfit" is a business and as such has a product to sell and it reminds me of the old Nautilus days - almost a Cult like experience. Whether or not you want to buy comes down to a personal choice. It's usually not at all cheap to join an affiliate to work out there. If you like what they are doing - enjoy working out with lots of people around - and can learn the new skills and hold up to the programming - then maybe it's for you. The only thing I see that I like is the eye candy in lycra. I've only met a few guys into Crossfit - and they were neither strong or fit - which doesn't mean much really as most people doing any workout program aren't either. Crossfit doesn't seem to be making athletes - already good athletes seem to be making Crossfit.

Being prepared for any random task is not the same thing as preparing randomly for any task.

Greg Everett

The above is a quote I like as it applies to Crossfit.

[kyleec]

On kipping pullups: Arturo is right, and I would also like to make the distinction between two types of kipping pullups. The standard one involves pushing the bar away from yourself on the way down, swinging through the window, and rebounding back up with a powerful hip extension. By pushing the bar away as you fall, the shoulders remain tight and there is less chance of connective tissue damage.

The butterfly kip involves descending as you move closer to the bar, so there's a freefall period when there is little tension on the muscles surrounding the glenohumeral joint, and when you hit bottom, you feel a sudden snap as tension is reapplied. This is a much more dangerous version in terms of shoulder health. It also happens to be easier and faster, which is why a lot of CF'ers use it in competition.

Personally, I train to be stronger and fitter, so I don't want to put my shoulders at risk just to finish faster, and would use the standard kip if I had to choose.

[naturalstrength]

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I have no dislike towards CF. Bottom line is your body gets used to what it experiences. CF will be better at the exercises they perform routinely that may not jive in line with other "strength " circles. They are neither weaker or stronger than another athlete of different discipline, just better at CF! More power to them I guess. If your aim is a 200# weighted chin up, it ain't going to happen training for 100 kipping "butterfly" pullups CF style!

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I have no dislike towards CF. Bottom line is your body gets used to what it experiences. CF will be better at the exercises they perform routinely that may not jive in line with other "strength " circles. They are neither weaker or stronger than another athlete of different discipline, just better at CF! More power to them I guess. If your aim is a 200# weighted chin up, it ain't going to happen training for 100 kipping "butterfly" pullups CF style!