Crossfit gym and program anyone doing it?

I have been listening to a very good podcast, Fat2Fit radio. I have learned tons in the last few weeks listening to the old shows.

Yesterday I was listening to a show about Crossfit. I have never heard of it. I have not been back to the states in a few years but I have never even heard the name before. From the podcast, it sounds like they are a pretty big chain. I have just glanced at the crossfit website and it appears that they have created a type of sport out of their workouts.

Is anyone doing this program? From the breif info i have heard and read, it sounds like you can do it on your own as well, but I imagine the support of others helps.

I have gotten in pretty good shape, work out daily 6 days a week and run mountains on weekends, so dont think there is a risk of getting hurt. Any comments about the program in general? Sounds like you have to work hard, not afraid of that and it sounds like it gets results.

I need to change my routine. I go to a gym with free weights and it looks like you only need free weights, pull up bars and dip bars and that sort of equipment.

 Crossfit is good for general athleticism to a limited extent but they're overrated and overhyped for most goals.

 They have no measurable and sane progression, their workout-of-the-day is frequently guilty of placing exercises in the wrong order for injury prevention never mind workout progression, there's no control over repetitive stress injuries and they tend to have workouts hitting the same muscle groups too close together.

 Approach with caution: while the philosophy of general all-round fitness is attractive they're definitely of the jack-of-all-trades, master of none school of fitness, substituting pain for planning.

Thanks, it sounded pretty wild, on the web sites some pretty strange photos of guys running on tires and other strange photos. Oh well another fad thing not to spend time on. thanks again.

 It can be fun, and approached with a bit of sanity their workout-of-the-day can provide you with useful inspiration. And if you don't have any performance goals or preferred training methods to start with doing something like CF exposes you to a wide variety of things to try so you can find your 'thing' .

But if you do have sports-specific performance goals you'll get further, faster by actually training for your sport instead of messing around with a program consisting of haphazardly thrown-together exercises.

I've got to disagree with Melkor here. I've been doing CrossFit for nearly a year, and I've seen phenomenal improvement in that time. If you're looking to change up your workout, CrossFit is a great way to do it. My gym doesn't follow the Workout of the Day (WOD) posted on the main site, so I can't really speak to getting hurt via their program.

I'm not sure what Melkor means by "no measurable and sane progression." Everyone at my gym keeps a little Steno notebook with their workout results, and I've definitely been able to track my progress. Additionally, one of the core components of CrossFit is a workout called CrossFit Totals (CFT). Every 8 weeks or so, you test your max lifts for back squat, deadlift, and static press. You add the weights together to get a composite score, so you are able to track your progress very easily.

If Melkor is saying that you can't track improvement in a specific workout, that is also incorrect. Most WODs are designed to be varied in order to prevent over-adaptation, but there are certain "benchmark" workouts that are occasionally repeated (look on the CrossFit site for Fran, as an example).

Additionally, the research by Greg Glassman has shown that training for General Physical Preparedness (GPP) gives benefits to every other sport that they've ever tested. That is to say, increased upper body strength yields better runners, power lifters benefit from increased cardio capacity, etc.

If you'd like to try CrossFit, I definitely recommend finding a local gym if possible. The workouts are definitely hard, and the social aspect of a gym makes it harder to walk back to the couch when it gets too tough.

The saying actually says"Jack of all trades, master of none, is often better than a master of one", which I think describes the goal of CrossFit rather succinctly.

 No, Glassman is pretty much full of it. The research he refers to he mostly cribbed off Dan John and at that he didn't manage to interpret it correctly.

 Going by the WoD Crossfit has excessive volume for most trainees, inappropriate muscle loading, inappropriate fatigue management, and judging by the demonstration videos in youtube, inappropriate coaching in the Olympic lifts.

 CrossFit "oly lifting" bears the same resemblance to the real deal that Tae-Bo does to MMA.

 'course, if you don't have any specific fitness goals in mind it makes a kind of sense to train to be mediocre at everything. But Crossfit is not good for anyone with any kind of athletic goals and often leads beginners to do workouts with excessive volume and loading parameters due to social pressure.

 There are situations where Crossfit is the appropriate contitioning tool - fire fighters, police officers, SWAT team members, Army personnel, and various martial artists have all benefited from a certain level of crosstraining and general conditioning work at volumes and intensities that the typical CrossFit workout has.

 However, like any tool, Crossfit isn't the answer to everything - and adherents tend to overrate the usefulness and applicability of that particular training model.

Charles Poliquin's response to a question about CrossFit was "I have no clue what the hell that is," so there are probably better sources for information than his T-Nation column.

Your contention that CrossFit can lead to excessive volume and weight is hardly something that's unique to CrossFit. I can walk into any gym and put more weight on a bar than I can handle or run myself into dehydration. I guess your message here is to ensure that you're at a gym with competent coaching?

It seems like you have a misconception about loading and volume in CrossFit. Just because a WOD lists a 135# pushpress, that doesn't mean everyone does that weight. One of the key components to the CrossFit methodology is scalability. I've made great strides in my strength, but I can't do 135# on that exercise, so I do as much as I can safely do. CrossFit can help elite athletes, but it scales down for sedentary computer programmers (like me!) too.

If your goal is to get into shape, CrossFit is excellent. If it's to be a great powerlifter/soccer player/etc, you probably need something more specific to that goal, but I'd still contend that CrossFit helps.

I would certainly agree that CrossFit isn't the answer to every training goal, but it's put me into the best shape in my life. My gym is owned by two police officers and attended by many more, as well as race car drivers, their pit crew, teachers, social workers, stay at home moms, and occasionally even pro-athletes. I'd encourage people who are interested to find a good facility and give it a try.

 Look at this Crossfit training video.

See anything wrong?

 No? The way her knees buckle inward from rep one, her hips' dysfunctional movement patterns, the poor shoulder stability and the lack of control with the weights from the get-go for both of them tells me one thing. Their "coach" doesn't know enough to tell them both to stop what they're doing and come back with lighter weights they can actually control. Well, the woman in green shouldn't be doing this at all until she's been taught how to squat and have those hip mobility issues resolved.

 Crossfit picture of the day, from when I actually took them seriously.

 At least three of the people in that picture have serious hip and ankle mobility issues that will require some corrective training to fix, and most of them have postural dysfunctions and I see a couple shoulder girdle mobility issues as well. None of them should be doing what their coaches have them doing until that's addressed.

Want the real deal in conditioning, check out Ross Enamait's stuff.

 also, keep in mind that I'm not knocking their meta-goal of achieving a high degree of conditioning and ability, just their method for doing so.

 Do some low-rep actual olympic lifting or general strength training followed by high-rep bodyweight or medicine ball work, circuit training or other conditioning methods work a lot better than doing mediocre high-rep low-weight circuits of Oly lifting.