It seems the world of 20-30 somethings has been taken over by the 'sport' of crossfit. While I feel there is some merit in some of the things that go on in these gyms, I feel it is of little use to the vast majority of people out there. Especially us endurance athletes.
When you look at a lot of what crossfit WODs (workout of the day) are, they primarily focus around doing lots of olympic, full-body lifts in a short amount of time at high volume. I don't really understand the correlation here. The idea of doing some 25 deadlifts as fast as possible, I am not quite sure what the point of that is. I think the idea is great, but the execution is poor. Crossfit seems like a great way for people to get hurt.
To be honest, I would like to know how many of these crossfit 'teachers' have certification and are qualified to be 'trainers'. When I watch videos that are both on YouTube and from friends who go to crossfit classes, I see lots of things that just rub me the wrong way. The biggest thing being absolutely terrible form. It reminds me when I did a season coaching high school track. Many of the kids were solely concerned with how much weight they could move around, and not care about moving it properly. And honestly, it all came from their coaching. I sat in amazement as I watched the football coaches in the off-season getting these freshman boys in the weight room putting up as much weight as they could. They are just getting started and the coaches weren't concerned abou form, but more about gains. WRONG. The kids are still growing and their body is changing rapidly already...
Sorry, back to my point. So many of these crossfit videos I see, I see no emphasis on form and follow through, but all on how quickly the weight can move and how much you can move.
This is where I step back and concentrate on what I do and what I tell others. I would rather spend my time moving less weight properly than move more weight quickly, in poor fashion resulting in potential injury or long-term degradation and breakdown of my body. You see, when you are cross-training, the key focus, in my opinion, should be to build up that functional muscle and build/repair in the areas that we lack as endurance athletes. Much of my time is spent around the joints. Most of our sports are so one-directional in motion that we forget to move from one side to the other, creating a disproportionate build in muscle.
What we need in our cross training is to develop where we are under-developed and treat our weaknesses so we are more well-rounded. I see cross-training as injury prevention more than building up muscle. Yea, putting on some muscle weight is good and always a great thing to do, but cross-training should be looked at a vital way to make yourself a more well-rounded athlete by doing lifts and exercises properly and within control. Not full-body contortions to move a stupid amount of weight that results in injuries and a t-shirt for joining a crap gym.
-Dave
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