Crossfit?

[Rabbit]

Anyone do crossfit?
What's it like?
What is it even?

[chud]

CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret: click

[Pandrews1982]

Don't do it, have been a bit put off by the negative press and competitive nature.

Basically it's timed circuit training with often with weights. Lifting weights and doing bodyweight exercises, usually trying to do as many reps within a given time or complete a circuit as fast as possible, also they try to lift heavy weights too. Often these sessions are done competitively with the rest of the group and there are competitions where heaviest weights, highest number of reps and quickest times are aimed for.

I think done correctly it can be a good workout but its come into a lot of criticism because by trying to do lots of reps quickly people's form usually suffers and can lead to injury. Another thing they've been criticised for is overtraining and pushing people too far to the point of exhaustion and damaging muscles etc.

I think you need to go to a good gym with a good instructor to get the benefits but everything they do in crossfit you can probably do yourself in a gym anyway...

[GrahamB]

They certainly don't seem short of clients, judging from the crossfit next to my jiujitsu gym. Interestingly there's hardly anybody - possibly nobody - from my gym doing crossfit, even when it's next door....

[David Boxen]

Forget crossfit. If you want to lift weights look up "Starting Strength", which has been discussed here before.

[Pandrews1982]

I find http://www.bodybuilding.com to be a good resource for workouts, good form videos, articles and information related to exercise, bodybuilding, resistance training and nutrition for weight lifting.

I like Vince Delmonte's videos on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/VinceDelMonte) for tips on resistance training - I was doing his isometric based shoulder presses earlier today and got a good burn in the delts!

Also a guy called Scooby who presents the basics really well and genuinely seems to be a really nice guy, though a bit eccentric maybe! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eV33roibqc)

For bodyweight exercise and strength building look up freeletics they have some hardcore workouts without the need for much equipment.

There is so much info out there online and on youtube that you can easily create your own serious workouts if you have access to a gym.

[neijia_boxer]

I did it and do not recommend it unless you are really young like under 30. it is a waste of time. the only thing I found it good for was some Pre-fight strength/stamina/endurance training and I still hated it. David Boxen is on target with Starting Strength, aka the bible of strength training.

But this is a martial arts forum and i will say just train hard in your martial art for strength. Body weight stuff like push ups, sit ups. horse stance, stance training, running, burpies. Burpies, burpies.

[Rabbit]

Wow! Thanks for the article, I will explore the links

A couple of things...

A lot of students at roger Gracie's academy about Ted years ago (fuck I'm getting old) where doing it as and doing well in comps

In both kendo and aikido we were regularly pushed way beyond our 'phisical' limits for 'mental' benefits

How does this fit with the whole 'subtle leopard' kelly starrett injury free high performance shtick?

I realise this is not IMA related exactly but I feel that fields may be converging but perhaps that's a different thread

Ta

[Wuyizidi]

When I was in New York I was lucky enough to find a place where they do crossfit type exercises, but not at the crazy intensity.

I love their selection of exercises (traditional power lifting, gymnastic, track). And I love the fact you are saving so much time doing strength training and getting a lot of cardio benefits at the same time. Bodybuilding exercises are specifically targeted to increase the size of individual muscles. It's all about isolation. Whereas in sports, we want to get every part of the body to participate in a movement, to apply force in the most efficient, skillful manner. That's all about integration. The exercises crossfit does is all about integration, so they are compatible with athletic development.

The bad part of crossfit is their methodology and model. When I go to a yoga class, it's like any other class in schoool, I am there to learn. I understand it's my responsibility to spend bulk of my yoga time practicing on my own. But I think most people want that to be their practice as well. Or as Mark Rippetoe puts it, they go there to "get a workout" instead of training. With so much equipment requirements, it's hard to find a place you can go and train at your own pace, paying attention to specific areas you need to focus on (say muscle imbalance). You have to go to a class. In the class then the instructor want to satisfy the majority clients' purpose of getting a workout.

So that's the difference between workout and training. Training, as Rippetoe puts it, is a highly planned activity with specific goals beyond general feeling of fitness. It's highly individual. It's hard to do training at a crossfit facility vs working out. It's expensive to have all that equipment around, and given the space requirements for many of the exercises (pushing sled), it's not practical or safe to have a lot of people doing exercises on their own.

Another big problem is their methodology. For most places, every time you go you are doing something different. That violates perhaps the most fundamental law of training discovered/clarified by modern sports science - progression. There is no progression when you're doing different exercises every time. To really improve, you need to the same exercises, and gradually, intelligently varying it to make it more difficult. This I hear is one of the biggest reasons traditional strength athletes like Rippetoe ultimately broke with Crossfit.

Crossfit people like to brag they can do well in many things, and professional athletes only good at one thing. Well, what does the highest level crossfit people do - they compete in Crossfit Games, rather than winning at any sport. So there's a lot of attitudes and BS to sort through when joining a crossfit box. It's not a place where you can go in with the attitude of, if I just put my own ideas aside, just listen to everything the teacher says, and I practice hard without questioning it, I'll reach my goal. You really need to be clear on what you are trying to accomplish there, and use what they offer intelligently.

In conclusion, crossfit exercises represent a much needed reversal / correction from bodybuilding toward the right type of exercises we should do for athletic development. Where it fails has to do with with demand (expectation of majority of clients) and the way they have to operate to deliver on those expectations in a profitable, group-exercise setting. I would suggest find a place where they really teach you the form, gradually acquire the equipment needed, and do most of training on your own while paying very close attention to your form.

[Peacedog]

Pandrews1982 hit it on the head. Form breakdown using barbell exercises for high reps is a recipe for bad injuries. No bueno.

Rippetoe's book is the gold standard for barbell training. Also, classical barbell training is both highly efficient (high level power lifters frequently train less than 6-8 hours a week), and very good for IMA performance. Really, if you just squat/press twice a week and pull once per week that is all the resistance exercise you need. Throw in some pullups and chins as well for good measure. And that should take you less than 3 HOURS PER WEEK.

If you want to do classical barbell training find a serious gym. Don't train at a commercial gym unless you have no choice. Most big cities have at least one, a lot of them do not advertise or even have web pages. They don't want the elliptical/treadmill crowd. You know you have found one when you see multiple squat/power racks and using chalk is required.

Examples of these are: Westminster Strength and Conditioning https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westmins ... e_internal

And Supreme Sports Performance and Training http://www.supremesportspt.com/

I like Olympic lifting as well, but finding someone who can teach the lifts with proper form is not easy. If you want to go that route, look here: http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Weightliftin ... ind-a-club

or here: http://www.eastcoastgold.org/training/training.php

If you are outside the US, look up your country's Olympic weightlifting association and they can direct you to a local club. Again, most large cities have one.

Just make sure it is an Olympic lifting club you are learning from. Not some asshat who went to a seminar and learned how to coach the basic lifts....

The way most Crossfit affiliates teach the Olympic lifts is incorrect and can hurt you severely. Find a qualified Olympic lifting coach to properly teach you this stuff. Plus, it is fun.

[NoSword]

In conclusion, crossfit exercises represent a much needed reversal / correction from bodybuilding toward the right type of exercises we should do for athletic development. Where it fails has to do with with demand (expectation of majority of clients) and the way they have to operate to deliver on those expectations in a profitable, group-exercise setting. I would suggest find a place where they really teach you the form, gradually acquire the equipment needed, and do most of training on your own while paying very close attention to your form.

+1

It is also worth mentioning that there is a lot of variability amongst different Crossfit gyms. Crossfit was THE movement in fitness over the last 15 years, so few people in the fitness community have avoided any sort of interaction with the organization. A lot of trainers get a Crossfit Level 1 certification as an alternative to a basic trainer cert like NASM or ACE. This does not mean they are good trainers or bad trainers, just that it is a very minimal, widely accepted certification, and doesn't say a great deal about the individual trainer.

Amongst Crossfit gyms there seem to be some gyms that are very fanatical and dogmatic, toe the party line, etc. Others (perhaps the majority) can be very open minded and only loosely tied to the parent organization. I wouldn't write off any gym just because it has a Crossfit affiliation -- it makes a lot of financial sense for them to do so.

Think of very successful IMA schools, like aikido or CMC taiji. These types of schools are "big boats": they produce a lot of skilled practitioners. But because they are so successful, they often wind up victims of their own success and produce a lot more horrible ones.

If, for instance, you live in a small town, you might not have any alternative to an organization like this as your introduction to IMA (or to fitness). The hip, niche training tends to cluster in major metropolitan areas.

The more I've trained with Crossfitters, the more grudging respect I've come to give them. They have one thing down very well: metabolic conditioning, or "metcon" (basically work capacity). Athletes in all disciplines (not just martial arts) would do well to learn a thing or two from them in this regard.

Crossfit's approach to strength training in particular disgusts purists in the powerlifting community. However, I think there is a lot to recommend it over the "classical" approach espoused by Rippetoe et al., especially where martial arts is concerned. In general, if you see someone doing something differently from the way you do it or the way you were taught, you might want to consider the possibility that there might be reasons for it that you don't understand.

AK

[NoSword]

On that note, http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/201 ... htlifting/

Since the dawn of man – or at least since the popularization of CrossFit – the intranets has been ablaze with coaches vilifying high rep weightlifting.



“The snatch and clean & jerk are meant to be done at low reps.”



“Doing the snatch and clean & jerk for high reps is dangerous.”



“The snatch and clean & jerk are not effective conditioning tools.”



Though there are variations, these are probably the three most common arguments against high rep weightlifting. I’m here to help you understand why they’re all wrong. And why high rep weightlifting is actually a tremendously valuable training tool.

Let’s first define high rep: I don’t mean sets of five. The Russians routinely do sets of four to five reps. So do some of the best weightlifting coaches in the U.S., including Glenn Pendlay, who is fond of having his lifters hang snatch sets of five from below the knee, and Kyle Pierce of LSU Shreveport, whose programming often includes snatch and clean five rep maxes from various hang positions.

No, I’m talking about things like “Grace” (30 clean & jerks for time with 135lbs, usually scaled to 95lbs for women,) and other workouts where the load is relatively light compared to the athletes 1RM, and the goal is to get through the reps quickly enough to elicit a conditioning effect.

Further, I’m not just saying they’re useful for those athletes looking to compete in the CrossFit Games. In fact, I’m not going to bother addressing the idea that those athletes shouldn’t be doing high rep weightlifting. If you are of the opinion that an athlete should ignore an integral component of their sport because you don’t like that it’s an integral component of their sport, you are, frankly, too stupid to bother with. I think all of baseball is dumb, but I don’t tell baseball players not to practice.

No, I’m here to convince you that high rep weightlifting, properly taught and applied, can be valuable for almost any trainee, and to give you some ideas on how to implement it safely and effectively in your gym.

Let’s start by debunking these bogus claims against it.

1. THE SNATCH AND CLEAN & JERK ARE MEANT TO BE DONE FOR 1-3 REPS/TO BUILD EXPLOSIVE POWER

I literally do not even know what this means. The snatch and clean & jerk aren’t “meant” for anything, because we made them up. Through trial and error, weightlifters figured out that these were the best ways to get weight overhead by the rules specified by the IWF. The sport of weightlifting does not have a monopoly on the use of the snatch and clean & jerk. Powerlifters compete one rep at a time, but no one complains about sets of 20 in the squat (well, people complain about sets of 20 in the squat, but not in the same way.)

The point is, no matter how much someone wants to call them “functional” or “natural,” the snatch and clean & jerk are man made. We can do whatever the hell we want with them. They were originally utilized for competition. Then people outside of weightlifting figured out that they could use those same lifts to get stronger and more explosive for their sport. And then people started to realize that they can get you in great shape, too. Deal with it, bro.

2. DOING THE SNATCH AND CLEAN & JERK FOR HIGH REPS IS DANGEROUS.

Credit where it is due for this first part of my defense with this item: it was first pointed out to me by my good friend and former training partner (and nefarious troll) Russ Greene.

When we evaluate the statement “the snatch and clean & jerk for high reps are dangerous,” the statement we are actually evaluating is “the snatch and clean & jerk done in a state of fatigue cause mechanics to break down and injuries to occur.”

Change “in a state of fatigue” for “at near maximal loads” and tell me what changes?

(Nothing changes.)

What does change the situation, in either case, is the athlete knowing how to perform the lifts correctly. With good coaching, neither scenario – max loads, or submaximal loads in a fatigued state – will be inherently dangerous. If anyone has actual data to invalidate that claim, I would love to see it. However, I have owned a CrossFit gym where we regularly do high rep weightlifting for over five years, I can confidently tell you that the injury rate is really fucking low. But then, we’re good at teaching the snatch and clean & jerk. Maybe you’re not?

There are issues with brand new athletes doing the lifts for high reps in a fatigued state, but they have little to do with injury – more on this later.

3. DOING THE SNATCH AND CLEAN & JERK FOR CONDITIONING DOESN’T PROVIDE ANYTHING YOU CAN’T GET ELSEWHERE

Apparently we should use dumbbells or kettlebells instead. I’ve never understood this argument, but I want you to understand something about why kettlebells are so popular: while they’re a nice training tool in and of themselves, they’re also an amazingly effective way to trick women into lifting weights.

Because that’s what they’re doing. Lifting weights. Except somehow, it’s okay to do kettlebell snatches with light weight and high reps, but not barbell snatches. I’m not sure why. Supposedly it’s “more technical” with a barbell, but you know what? I can get someone to safely snatch a barbell under fatigue more quickly than I can get them to do the same with a kettlebell, because I’m a weightlifting coach and not a kettlebell coach. Funny how it comes back to good coaching.

However, it is crucial to understand that the barbell affords us some opportunities which kettlebells or dumbbells simply do not.

The dumbbell and kettlebell are not as well suited for developing maximal strength as the barbell. This is not merely due to the larger size of the barbell allowing us to load more weight on it. The design of the barbell also allows the lifter to keep the load closer to the center of mass, and thus to engage more musculature to effectively deliver force to the implement.

This is as valuable a trait when doing conditioning as it is when trying to get stronger. Just like the barbell allows us to use heavier loads in the pursuit of greater maximal strength, it also allows us to use heavier loads to improve both general and specific fitness. It lets us move more mass, more quickly, whether we are trying to improve our 1RM clean & jerk, or our ability to do 20 reps with 75% as quickly as possible. Apart from developing the useful quality of being able to work with relatively heavy loads in semi-technical movements while in a fatigued state, the training effect of conditioning with such methods is significant.

This is a sport specific case, but enlightening with regards to the benefits of using weightlifting for conditioning: it is perhaps the single best training tool for grappling athletes.

I come from an extensive background in martial arts, and before opening my own gym, my job was primarily working with competitive MMA fighters and jiu-jitsu players. A crucial component of these sports is being able to complete semi-technical, relatively powerful movements, while under load and in a state of oxygen deprivation and muscular fatigue. Nothing gets as close to an effective mimicry of these conditions as high rep snatches and clean & jerks with a barbell with relatively heavy weight, which not only teach the athlete how to breathe under another body, but also ingrain in the athlete an understanding that especially when tired, they need to let their hips do the work.

Now that those of you who cannot be convinced are busy bashing me to your buddies, those of you who are actually interested in learning how to properly implement high rep weightlifting can read on in peace.



MAKING IT WORK

You’ve probably realized by now that what I’m saying is, you have to be able to coach the lifts correctly if you want people to do them correctly, and that holds true for one rep, three reps, or thirty reps. If you cannot teach someone how to clean correctly for high reps, you cannot teach them how to clean correctly for low reps either. Get off your high horse and just acknowledge that you don’t really know what you’re doing.

Now, on to the practicum.

Firstly, it is important to understand that optimal mechanics for the lifts differ when focusing on high reps versus maximal load. The basics of safety and efficiency stay the same: the back should be neutral, the hips and legs should be the prime movers, and the athlete should avoid common faults like pulling early with the arms.

Perhaps the single most important difference is in the pull from the floor – as Rudy Nielsen once put it “the lift looks exactly the same, once the bar is above the knees.” From the floor, it is common to see the athlete use a much higher hip and straighter knee than would be optimal for max loads. By keeping the knees out of the way and not loading the quads at the start of the movement, the athlete reduces the cycle time of the lift, as well as the metabolic cost incurred by each repetition.

1. BEGINNERS. Folks who are just learning the lifts do not need to do them with barbells for conditioning. Not because there is some massive risk of injury inherent to the practice. No, the issue is ingraining motor patterns. While they’re learning to snatch and clean & jerk with a barbell, doing it for conditioning is going to interfere with the process. During this phase (at our gym, on average, it lasts 5-6 months,) I recommend the use of dumbbells in place of barbells. We replace snatches with single arm hang power snatches, cleans with hang power cleans with the dumbbells held at the athletes sides, and jerks with push presses or power jerks.

It is worth noting that at this stage of training, the athlete is not going for max loads either. They are using variations to learn the lifts with weights which are light enough for them to be consistent, but heavy enough for them to feel the difference between a good lift and a bad lift. In other words, we are avoiding factors which could lead to the athlete learning improper movement patterns, whether that factor be load or fatigue.

2. INTERMEDIATE. At this stage, the athlete has a physical “understanding” of the lifts, and we begin introducing the snatch and clean & jerk with a barbell into the athlete’s conditioning work. We generally keep snatches and cleans from the hang, and will typically prescribe power snatch + overhead squat instead of a full snatch. Our athletes are allowed to power or split jerk the weight for their conditioning workouts, and most by far choose to power jerk.

3. ADVANCED. The athlete is now competent with the snatch and clean & jerk at maximal loads, and his technique is ingrained enough that he can perform the lifts for high reps without changing the way he will lift when attempting PRs. We no longer scale the use of of the classic lifts in conditioning pieces for athletes at this level.

For those of you who are interested in learning to use the lifts to improve your conditioning, I hope I have provided some insight into how best do it. Those of you who were against high rep weightlifting before reading this article, are likely still against it now. But I will leave you with a quote on the subject of high rep weightlifting for conditioning from a weightlifting coach with far more experience, knowledge, and accolades than I:


“IF YOU’RE A COMPETITIVE WEIGHTLIFTER, WHY WOULD YOU DO IT? IF YOU’RE NOT, WHY DOES IT MATTER?” -GLENN PENDLAY

The snatch and clean & jerk are invaluable training tools. Unless you’re a competitive weightlifter, it is foolish to limit your use of the lifts to only building strength and power, when they are capable of improving so much more.

RELATED ARTICLES: A System for Developing Competitive CrossFitters by Jacob Tsypkin

CrossFit-A Sport of Specificity by Chad Wesley Smith

Jacob Tsypkin is a CrossFit and weightlifting coach, and the co-owner of CrossFit Monterey and the Monterey Bay Barbell Club in Monterey, CA.
Website, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

[gimpster]

I'd avoid Crossfit like the plague. Even Rippetoe has pretty much disavowed it. It's a fad and a arm pit for sado-masochists and wannabe tough guys who confuse sweating with being tough.

If you want to do circuit training and have the space at home, buy a weight set and do it there or at a well equipped gym. Powerlifting? Just get a gym membership at a place with squat racks and go for it 2-3x a week. You don't need to compete with others, just do your best with a progressive program.

In regards to powerlifting or Olympic lifting, I'd steer clear of the crossfit types. There is a right and wrong way to do them. I've been at the Iron game for 30+ years and most of what crossfit does makes me wince, that stuff isn't longevity producing at all. And longevity is the name of the game, you want to be lifting strong and smartly well into your senior years. Besides weight training should be enjoyable not a ball busting grind.

Rodger

[Wuyizidi]

Obligatory

[Ian]

Any idiot can beast you until you puke.