What's crossfit ?

waldo56

I don't care what people think about crossfit, I was just surprised at the negative responses since I'm enjoying it so much! Bet to each his own, right?

Fanaticism breeds fanaticism. Many Crossfitters treat it as the greatest thing ever in life, the universe, and everything; thus those that don't care for it have to oppose it as if it is the worst thing ever in the life, universe, and everything.

Same as how the Crossfitter diet, Paleo, has a cult-like following that preaches the good word about how it is better than sliced bread and the cure of all the maladies of man, thus pretty much everyone who doesn't do the paleo diet ends up with vile revulsion for all things paleo and its followers. The rhetoric leaves you with only two opions, love or hate, indifference isn't really on the table.

Jessiebell527

How do you know someone does Crossfit? Don't worry, they will tell you.....

iAMsmiling

sedentary individuals face little if any risk because their body cannot handle the workload necessary to injure themselves.

Did you want to think about this part again?

Yea, that's out there in left field quite a bit.

PRMinx

I love CrossFit. I don't eat Paleo.

I think it depends on your box, but my coaches are awesome and the people in my class are really supportive. The people who get hurt are the ones who are pushing themselves too far before being in shape. You know, the old football player who thinks he still has it even though he hasn't worked out in 10 years. The point is to compete with yourself, not with others in the class.

I've never been as motivated to work out as I have been since starting CrossFit. I hope I stick with it. Honestly, anything that gets people in the gym and moving their butts has its benefits. Haters are always going to hate, but they often don't look at the big picture.

Par8hed4life

Crossfit is pure awesomeness.
I used to hate getting up an going to the gym to lift and wouldn't push myself ..
Now, I am excited when my alarm goes off at 5:15am and I push myself harder than I ever had before. I know it has a lot to do with the people I train with, my competitive nature and a coach pushing me.
That is what I pay for. Somebody to challenge and push me.
I am addicted and I love it. Today marks my 10th week of Crossfit.

Crossfit is changing my life.

iAMsmiling

Hmmm.. I pay about $72 for unlimited crossfit sessions a month. I can't compare any of your experiences with crossfit, but my instructors pay a lot of attention to good form. I actually have to follow two lessons that are soley about good (crossfit) form to even be allowed to crossfit.

I don't care what people think about crossfit, I was just surprised at the negative responses since I'm enjoying it so much! Bet to each his own, right?

I see people do it who are happy and successful in their goals. Good for them. It looks injury prone to me and at my advanced age, I'm far too risk adverse to try anything like that.

drchimpanzee

LOL threads like these always turn in to "my exercises are better than your exercises." Yay egos!

CoachDreesTraining

The concept of Crossfit is very good and has been around long before someone coined the name 'Crossfit.' In practice, I have never seen it done safely. Things like rotator cuff tears, achille tendon ruptures, and stitches in the shin are common place in most boxes. Teaching a mid age women to barbell snatch in one session is not only unsafe, it's also completely pointless.

I also despise the elitism and cult feel most CFer put off. Exercise is exercise, 95% of people could careless how many box jumps you did in 5 minutes.

With that being said, it is by far the best group class you'll find. It just has a much higher risk factor involved with it.

apotheosismax

sedentary individuals face little if any risk because their body cannot handle the workload necessary to injure themselves.

Did you want to think about this part again?

im sorry but whoever wrote that top comment is an idiot. i see your train of thought and its incorrect. What you are attempting to say is that a person that doesnt workout does no have the capacity to injure themselves because they merely dont have the strength to do so....i guess this theory works for example if someone needed a resistance of 50lbs to hurt themselves but only could lift 40lbs then they would be safe because of lack of hypertrophy and lack of full muscle recruitment......UNFORTUNATELY this is far to simplistic for the REAL world. Guess what in reality if you dont work out your muscles ATROPHY, and when your muscles atrophy things like your posture and joint stability start to dwindle. Accompanying this downward spiral you wont have as much muscle which means you burn less cals thoughout the day, this leads to excess amounts of fat that are stored as adipose, which again puts more constant stress on your heart, lungs, kidneys,joints,and suppresses your immune.With all that muscle atrophy causing severe weakness something as simple as lifting a fairly light object off the floor could put enough stress on your muscles to tear, abdominal weakness could cause inguinal,naval,or multiple hernias, weakness or your erector spinae would could excess pressure on your intervertebral discs and cause herniations there. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A GOOD WAY TO LIVE TO YOU. STOP TRYING TO SPREAD IGNORANCE.

It's a defense of the kip and addresses the fear that a properly executed crossfit exercise causes injury, especially considering the programming designed for sedentary adults is typically extremely low weight or body weight exercise. My argument above is that the dangers faced by athletes unaccustomed to crossfit are not present for people just starting their training.

DoneBroughtSexyBack

contingencyplan

Crossfit is basically just high intensity, short duration circuit training workouts conducted using very basic equipment such as traditional weights, kettlebells, medicine balls, sandbags, and jump ropes. Nothing high tech. The workouts, referred to as WODs, revolve around performing multiple high-rep sets of strength and/or power exercises with minimal rest. It gets results but is highly criticized because certain exercises they prescribe--such as the kipping pullup--are very injury prone due to the fact that the stress they place on the joints, even when done with proper form, is simply too much.

liftingbro

I have been lifting for years, checked out crossfit because it looked fun.

I think overall it's a good program to build overall fitness.

I think part of the problem is there is a lot of variation between gyms and the quality of coaching can be pretty wide. Some are trying to cater to more the powder puff crowd and some are catering more to serious athletes.

Most of the gyms that are pumping out the stereotypical crassfitters that peeople make fun of are that way because they are run by crappy coaches. Crossfit organization often have seminars on lifting that coaches should take that are taught by Mark Rippetoe who is one of the best strength coaches in the world. So you will come across some coaches and gyms that teach great technque and others that are more interested in being able to say I can do X pullups than they are about the form they are done in.

jofjltncb6

Biggest problem with it is the cost.

LOL @ $100/month Crossfit box. 'Round these parts $200-$250/month is more likely. That's just a silly amount to spend to go work out a few times a week.

Kipping pullups have their use. Anti-kipping and strict dead hangs is more the language of pullup noobs (in order to get into a dead hang you have to drop the tension in your lats, this is akin to doing "strict" pushups that include lying down on the floor each rep). I used to be very anti-kipping and have never been a fan of Crossfit, but learning to do a bar muslce-up has been very humbling (FYI, doing pullups dead hang as opposed to natural (natural =/= purposeful kipping) is nothing special at all, it reduces your rep numbers more than anything, doesn't actually make you stronger, chest to bar, THAT separates the men from the boys, not dead hanging).

Learning to kip (which is actually quite difficult, its a fairly technical skill) when you can pull >+75lbs from a dead hang in order to learn to do a muscle up is a bit of a kick in the nuts to your pride.

Yup, ^this...

...and I'm not just saying that because he's on my FL.

:checks FL:

Er, I mean, *used to be* on my FL.

:grumble:

DoneBroughtSexyBack

I have been lifting for years, checked out crossfit because it looked fun.

I think overall it's a good program to build overall fitness.

I think part of the problem is there is a lot of variation between gyms and the quality of coaching can be pretty wide. Some are trying to cater to more the powder puff crowd and some are catering more to serious athletes.

Most of the gyms that are pumping out the stereotypical crassfitters that peeople make fun of are that way because they are run by crappy coaches. Crossfit organization often have seminars on lifting that coaches should take that are taught by Mark Rippetoe who is one of the best strength coaches in the world. So you will come across some coaches and gyms that teach great technque and others that are more interested in being able to say I can do X pullups than they are about the form they are done in.

I think this is pretty well put. There are two kinds of gym owners. The ones that take it seriously, take technique seriously, and take form seriously. Then there are others that Just want to supply classes to the mass markets and teach anyone they can so they can get their money and have a successful business. Because lets face it. If your job is to be a CrossFit trainer, having 30 clients paying you 150 a month just isn't going to cut it unless you live at your box...

And just because someone does CrossFit, doesn't make them any better or worse than anyone else. If you don't like it then fine! Good for you for having an opinion. But don't go crucifying everyone else that doesn't work out the exact same way that you do... Lets grow up people! I think that Contingencyplan said it pretty well. It seems to me that he doesn't really agree with CrossFit as a whole, but at least in his argument against it he acted like an educated adult about it... Well played sir.

zealousmissjj_wechange

How do you know someone does Crossfit? Don't worry, they will tell you.....

Really? None of my friends know I've started crossfit. I don't see the need to tell them if they're not asking. I don't talk to them about running either. Aren't you stereotyping crossfitters this way?

zealousmissjj_wechange

I don't care what people think about crossfit, I was just surprised at the negative responses since I'm enjoying it so much! Bet to each his own, right?

Fanaticism breeds fanaticism. Many Crossfitters treat it as the greatest thing ever in life, the universe, and everything; thus those that don't care for it have to oppose it as if it is the worst thing ever in the life, universe, and everything.

Same as how the Crossfitter diet, Paleo, has a cult-like following that preaches the good word about how it is better than sliced bread and the cure of all the maladies of man, thus pretty much everyone who doesn't do the paleo diet ends up with vile revulsion for all things paleo and its followers. The rhetoric leaves you with only two opions, love or hate, indifference isn't really on the table.

Uhm.. I see the same thing with weightlifting and eating protein. And with cycling and carbohydrates. There are fanatics everywhere, in every sport, religion or politic preference.

Still doesnt mean I have to love or hate any of it. I can keep an open mind. To each his own. I think its a wonderful thing if someone can enjoy sports and grow from it. No matter what that sport is.

3dogsrunning

The concept of Crossfit is very good and has been around long before someone coined the name 'Crossfit.' In practice, I have never seen it done safely. Things like rotator cuff tears, achille tendon ruptures, and stitches in the shin are common place in most boxes. Teaching a mid age women to barbell snatch in one session is not only unsafe, it's also completely pointless.

I also despise the elitism and cult feel most CFer put off. Exercise is exercise, 95% of people could careless how many box jumps you did in 5 minutes.

With that being said, it is by far the best group class you'll find. It just has a much higher risk factor involved with it.

I'll ignore the dig at middle aged women.

No cares how fast I ran my last half marathon or how much I can bench press either.

There is terrible form everywhere, I've seen trainers in the gym teaching some horrible stuff. Crossfit is no exception.

I honestly avoided crossfit for a lot of the reasons I have read here. And yes, I know the annoying crossfitters who preach the gospel as well. My husband decided he wanted to try it. I want him to be more active, he hates the gym and only slightly hates running less. He has tried a lot of thing with me, so I tried this with him.

I talked to people, I went to the gym, I watched. I am pretty familiar with a lot of the moves anyway. I liked what I saw. I'm still in the on ramp program, my husband and I go together to see the trainer who teaches us correct form and we do shorter workouts, we haven't done a group class. I can understand while people love it. I am the type of person who pushes myself more when there are people around. I am also goal oriented and can keep going if I have a target.
Jury is still out for me but so far hasn't proven to be as horrible as I once thought.

And I don't eat paleo.

TKRV

I joined a crossfit in January with no knowledge of how to use a barbel or lift weight. Part of the reason I joined is because I would have people watching over me.

My crossfit gym is wonderful. They did NOT teach me a movement in one day and continuously corrected my form until they felt like I had it down. I'm still new enough, that they pay a little more attention to me than the people who have been there for years. But now, they do more looking than correcting. I'm finally at the point where i can start challenging myself with weight because I have the movement down!

That being said, I hear that each crossfit is managed differently. People at my own gym have been to places where they just put the WOD on the board and leave it to their members to do it. I wouldn't be surprised if some people had bad experiences if they attended a poorly managed crossfit.

Health_Gal

While some good coaches and trainers decide to work within the Crossfit franchise to get more clients, I am not a fan of the Crossfit organization because as a whole, the organization is all about pushing people to do things to the extreme -- which in many cases can cause injury. If your Crossfit doesn't operate as a "do it or die trying" class, fine.

But for anyone that has decided to get involved with Crossfit, especially if you are not familiar with heavy lifting or the other exercise moves in that program, make sure that your trainer has experience and certification beyond whatever they issue from Crossfit. Because Crossfit certification, especially Level 1, is a JOKE. All people have to do to get a Crossfit level 1 certification is to fork over money to Crossfit and answer some multiple choice questions.

brittaney10811

<-- 4 month crossfit results.


i'm in love with this. perhaps because it's the ONLY thing i've been able to stick to. I know a lot of people dislike it for their own reasons... but for ME, it's totally changed my life. and i'm so thankful for it.