I tried Crossfit 1 day and I haven't been able to lower my arms for a week

"I believe that crossfit, with its many modality training, prepares and sustains your fitness when you try to specify in lets say athletics or snowboarding or squash... u get the pic"

The majority of the training should be sport specific though supplemented with 3 on 1 off wods just my opinion

This guy says he only runs 3 times a week and he broke 3 on his first try after doing Crossfit for like 6 months. It gets you into shape faster than long and slow distance work. I'm doing a half a marathon in September. I will come back and post results in September.

You must have never tried CrossFit before, or maybe you tried it once and it kicked your butt and now you're scared. At any rate....the only douche bag is you. CrossFit makes any person who commits to it a better athlete.

I started out running in hs and progressed from their... please don't confuse distance training and crossfit; it might get you into shape faster than lsd work but it doesn't train your legs for mile 21,22 and above. You have to practice running: threshold training, long-slow distance for recovery, track work, and so much more; crossfit just doesn't give you these abilities you have to prepare for them or am i deviating from the true meaning of crossfit itself?

You can't lower your arms at all? Then you obviously are not "shower dude" who asked if guys still "choke the chicken". After all, you are not able to lower your arms, so no "chicken choking" for you.

DJ Nietzche?...shouldn't that be Nietzsche?

Anyway...

1. Mark Rippetoe sells books and sells himself to the highest bidder. Yes he's been to the mountain...but he's taken quite a fall.

2. Point me to any collegiate or professional strength & conditioning programs that explicitly use Crossfit?

3. Point me to any Olympic Lifer that explicitly uses Crossfit?

4. Point me to any Powerlifer that explicitly uses Crossfit?

5. Point me to any elite level athlete that explicitly uses Crossfit?

Have fun finding that needle in a haystack.

Crossfit is nothing more than a way for bored out of shape people to get in a "workout". There is no progression. It's just a random collection of exercises.

High Rep O-Lifts...at least to the degree CF uses them...is stupid and negligent.

Want to get fit? Surf the force/velocity curve...that's one way anyhow...

Phase 1: Metabolic Conditioning. Low Loads, High Volume

Phase 2: Hypertrophy. Moderate Loads, Moderate Volume

Phase 3: Strength. High Loads, Low Volume.

Phase 4: Power. Moderate Loads, Low Volume.

Anyway, something like that. You can break it up into phases, you can conjugate it...however you want.

The problem with Crossfit is that it's high and moderate loads with a crap ton of volume. It's hard so people think it works.

I'll give you 100 people and give me 100 people. You train them Crossfit and I'll train them 'surfing the curve', including sprints/running, etc. We'll test the 5 fitness characteristics (muscle strength, muscle endurance, cardiorespiratory endurance, body comp, flexibility) and I bet my athletes perform better. Why? Because some form of progression always works.

Alan

Alan, go to one CrossFit Games event and see what physical performance is all about.

i agree with alan - although i'm not qualified to pass too much judgement other than my own experience - i just got back after two months off due to back issues and started up crossfit to get overall conditioning back in addition to my regular running training. the last WOD i did totally f'd up my back again - 75 reps power snatches for time. ok - so I wasn't doing the prescribed weight, I was lighter, but who does 75 reps for time? i won't do that again - just set myself back again, sciatica returns! the problem is that it's run by inexperienced trainers in large group settings, there is little progression and this reps for time crap just forces you to lose proper form and then get hurt! just my opinion and obviously I should have monitored myself and not succumbed to the nonsense.

A misspell i quiet assure you... but my you are a negative tool. If you look back at my past posts i wasn't advocating a program for elites just that it is a good BASE fitness regime. You took my point, that crossfit is a good program that is constantly evolving, and went on your own tangent. You have done nothing but express your argument in a way that isn't informative and made you look like an even bigger ass. good job buddy... Oh and who are your "athletes" just curious?

dj nietzche wrote:

Yes they do... if you had really spent the time looking at the web site and doing a LITTLE research then you would see your folly. From Mike Burgener(who was the oly lifting coach for the US national team) to Mark Rippitoe they have substanciated (sp?) their claims in the fitness industry with science. And im not trying to be a prick mearly putting my two cents in. Oh and this information is in the CF journal, organized all nice and neat for you to learn, but you do have to pay a whopping $25 a year to educate yourself on almost every aspect of fitness. You can sit and say crossfit does not validate any of their claims with science, by all means your entilted to your opinion, but you are WORNG. Take the time to investigate something before you make that all mighty opinion.

I've looked at the website. I've read a bunch of their crap, listened to a bunch of their "trainers" talk.

I have a masters in exercise science. They espouse crap physiology, crap science.

Go read REAL research studies. If you want to focus in on things, start with periodization. Periodizaed training kicks the crap out of random training.

dj nietzche wrote:

A misspell i quiet assure you... but my you are a negative tool. If you look back at my past posts i wasn't advocating a program for elites just that it is a good BASE fitness regime. You took my point, that crossfit is a good program that is constantly evolving, and went on your own tangent. You have done nothing but express your argument in a way that isn't informative and made you look like an even bigger ass. good job buddy... Oh and who are your "athletes" just curious?

Regimen

ok at least you sound reasonable... question since obviously this is your area

How is the programming set up for periodization vs the crossfit programming and what direction can you point me in so i can educate my self?

appreciate it

Alan, you obviously don't understand what Crossfit is about. The reason you won't find specific sports using strictly Crossfit is because Crossfit is designed for broad fitness across many areas. If you are training for a very specific sport, you have to train specific to that sport for the best results. Crossfit never says, "just do crossfit and you'll be a world champion power lifter". The goal is to be fit in many areas of fitness.

Crossfit is based entirely on progression, every number is tracked, every time is tracked, benchmark workouts are messured and re-messured at specific intervals. Everything is tracked, messured, re-messured, and adjusted.

The problem with Crossfit is that is it growing so fast that you have "trainers" running crossfit boxes that really don't have any business training people. But it's like any fitness program, you'll have good trainers and bad ones, just because someone is crossfit level 1 certified doesn't mean they know anything. But if you do find a crossfit box with legit trainers, there is no better OVERALL (not specific) fitness program out there.

I would love to see 100 vs 100 of yours, wouldnt even be close, here's an idea, train your best athletes however you want to, enter them in the Crossfit games, you don't have to do Crossfit to enter the games, its open to anyone who wants to prove they're fitter in multiple areas of fitness (which test exactly what you said above in an open forum[muscle strength, muscle endurance, cardiorespiratory endurance, body comp, flexibility] and we'll see how they stack up against crossfitters.

I've heard the Crossfit gospel before:

"The reason you won't find specific sports using strictly Crossfit is because Crossfit is designed for broad fitness across many areas. If you are training for a very specific sport, you have to train specific to that sport for the best results. Crossfit never says, "just do crossfit and you'll be a world champion power lifter". The goal is to be fit in many areas of fitness."

Crossfit is a MARKETING PLOY. Pay $1000 and you can be "Crossfit certified"...which is basically "we get to kick your butt for a weekend and then BAMM you are certified". Pay another $1000 and you can have a "Crossfit Gym". These numbers may have changed but the concept still remains the same.

You want to get in shape? Run intervals/sprints 2-3 days a week. Lift 3-5 days a week in a progressive pattern. That's it.

A 75 rep snatch is the most moronic thing I've ever heard.

I'm done. Please when you Crossfitters are ready come back to reality...

Alan

There's very little individualization to crossfit. It amazes me that people on a running website aren't inteligent enough to see through this lousy scheme.

Let me put it in running workouts for u. What if I randomly gave the SAME workout to every single person every day. Yes, paces/reps might change, but that's it. Is that going to be what Johnny who has a ton of Fast Twitch fibers needs or Jimmy who has a ton of ST fibers need. Crossfit reminds me of the old school HS coaches who basically are like "Today we're doing 400s till we puke. Do them at your pace and how many u can do, but till u r dead"...Then he wakes up the next morning and decides "Today we are doing 800s till you puke." The next day, 5 miles as hard as you can.

Crossfitters fall back on the "we're not trying to be good at one thing, just pretty good at everything." So, you are selling mediocrity at a bunch of stuff. That's fine, but then don't go and say that this is the best way to train for X event, or whatever. It's not.

Lastly, crossfit can get u in decent shape. We're not denying that. If I went and told u to do anything until u r dead, u'd get in decent shape. But, it isn't about maximizing results. Who are the athletes that NEED to be very good at all of the categories that crossfit suggests? Decathletes. Are they flocking to crossfit, hell no.

Periodization...

http://www.amazon.com/Periodization-Training-Methodology-4th-Tudor-Bompa/dp/0880118512

Here's something more fitness based:

http://www.power-systems.com/p-2893-the-essence-of-program-design.aspx

DJ N...that's the kicker...there is NO programming for crossfit. It's just random exercise. Lets' do a loaded back squat on day one and a loaded power clean on day 2...that's pure stupidity right there and a recipe for disaster. You'll see lots of that in the Crossfit world. Let's kill yourself one day, then kill yourself again the next day, and the next, and we'll have no ryme or reason for our programming so you'll do exercises that load the spine on back to back to back days just because it's HARD.

Alan

Good post RaceResults...

Here's CrossFit in Running Terms:

Day 1: 24 mile long run, sprint last 2 miles.

Day 2: 10x400m all out

Day 3: 20x400m all out

Day 4: 22 mile long run sprint, last 3 miles

Day 5: Tempo run

Day 6: Tempo Run

Day 7: 20x100m all out

Day 8: 10x1000m all out.

Random.

Alan

Alan

Show us where CrossFit has made any claims to be able to do any of this. CrossFit won't and doesn't claim to be able to make anybody elite in any certain sport, besides CrossFit it self (if you want to call it a sport). As DJ Nietzche keeps saying, and you keep ignorning, it is a great tool to use along with any sport specific training.

If you are a great marathon runner already, doing only CrossFit will not improve your marathon times. If you are a world class powerlifter, doing CrossFit only won't improve your lifts. If you are a world class sprinter, it won't improve 100m times.

From CrossFit:

"Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist."

There is progression in CrossFit, but in a different sense than with periodization. I agree that a majority of CrossFit gyms have douche bags running them that have no business owning them, and they are begging to get sued by clients whom they don't scale properly. But if you do scale your workouts to your needs, I haven't personally found a better program to get your body into a better OVERALL (general, not sport specific) fitness level. How many on this board can DL >400 lbs, Press >185, and run a 20 minute 5K? If you watch the videos from the CrossFit games and are not impressed by the fitness levels of the guys and girls competing, then you have some serious mental issues.

People think it works because they see results. I obviously wouldn't kill myself working out if I wasn't seeing an improvement in my fitness, would I? An ever increasing deadlift, better swim times, faster 5-10K times and a lower body fat % is all the proof I need that the program works. And I am not even doing much other than the CrossFit workout of the day. Is it the best way to get fit? No clue. Does it kick a$$ and fit my lifestyle? Hells yes.

It is right there. An open to everyone (if you can qualify) competition that literally puts your money where you mouth is.

raceresults, we understand most of what you're saying. Point is working with intensity and hitting all muscle groups will make you a better athlete than LSD. There are guys here that just go out and run for mileage. Those are the guys that seasoned crossfitters will be striding past in the middle of a 5k or marathon because they've trained for the pain and they're all around balanced. You sound like a guy that has never tried it.