The "CrossFit Culture" is a bunch of DORKS!!!

Freefalling said:
awesomethread.jpg
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If it wasn't already, this pic made it so! A T Rex flying a jet? Fuck yes!
 
ebiaihi said:
It wasn't intentional. Let's say I said if athletes were to compete against Crossfiters in a competition that includes the bench press and squat as an event that the athletes would win, someone could use an athlete like Kevin Durant as an example and he doesn't have a great potential to be strong at either event regardless of training. Same with saying traditional training is superior to Crossfit/interval training. Someone could stick to the strength side of the force-velocity curve with traditional training and speed side of the force-velocity curve with Crossfit, then neither method of training is superior to the other.

If someone were to take 20 untrained people of similar size and average athleticism, 10 doing traditional training and 10 doing Crossfit, and then have them compete against each other I wouldn't expect the ones that were doing Crossfit to win many events.
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Compete against each other doing what, exactly? Under water basket weaving? 3 point shooting? Re-building a big-block engine?
This thread was hanging on to its last little bit of merit for a while... :rolleyes:
 
SkrewzLoose said:
Freefalling , how dare you bring the awesomeness of Calvin & Hobbes into (what's devolved into) a horrendous thread like this! Blasphemy!!
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When Afghanistan needed to fall, we sent our best in 2001. When Haiti was in ruins (not the time before or the time before that or the hundreds of times before that, but recently) we sent our best to run their airport. UBL needs killing? Send the best. Tell all books need writing? Send the be....well, you get the picture.

So, if you have a problem, if no other clip art can help, and you can find them, maybe you can hire...

Calvin and Hobbes.
 
ThunderHorse said:
In regards to clothing worn by CFers...the overwhelming majority at Audie Murphy appears to be really short running shorts...not even Ranger panties but some nike or adidas crap (I chafe, I know lots of guys with big legs chafe, so I'm like WTF) and five finger vibrams. I personally wear basketball gym shorts...newest addition being some nike baseball shorts. Hello comfort. When I run I wear shorter gym shorts.
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Invest in some compression shorts, Sir.
 
I thought this was a great opinion piece on Crossfit from Glenn Pendlay, who is very well respected in the Weightlifting community.

Lots of good stuff on this thread. This post will probably repeat some of it, but here goes...

As weightlifters, or those that use weightlifting movements in training, squat deep, and worry more about lifting more weight than about how defined our arms are (I would guess this describes most on this board)... what did we used to complain about?

1. No place to train with bumpers and chalk.
2. Getting hassled about dropping weight
3. "Trainers" at the local globo gym telling us squatting deep was gonna ruin our knees.
4. Girlfriends not wanting to squat because she is afraid she will get "bulky"
5. For the competitive weightlifters among us, getting asked "how much ya bench?" after telling someone you are a weightlifter.
6. Trying to explain what a snatch is to someone, usually ending with a pantomime then the words "you know, like they do in the Olympics"
7. If you ever tell someone, hey you should try it its fun, being told "oh no, I could never do that"
8. Being surrounded in any gym by folks that think eating red meat or fat is the enemy of good health or a good looking body.
9. Curls in the squat rack.
10. Pink dumbells.

So with Crossfit you get...

1. 2000 + more gyms around the country with bumpers and chalk.
2. Most Crossfitters would think you were weird if you DIDN'T drop weights.
3. They may debate where to put the bar on their backs, but they all squat deep.
4. Crossfit girls squat heavy and are proud of getting a rounder butt from it.
5. Most Crossfitters don't bench press, they might ask you how much you squat instead.
6. Most Crossfitter's snatch, those that dont certainly know what it is.
7. Crossfit is filled with people people who not only want to try new things, but are willing to work hard to learn and won't be put off by falling on their butt a few times.
8. Crossfitters, as a whole seem to be proud that they not only eat meat, but are able to eat GOOD (meaning eat a LOT) and still look good because they train so hard. A couple cookouts at Crossfit boxes remain the only two times I have seen women bragging about how many ribs they ate. And not fatties. Young, in shape women.
9. Crossfitters are the ones who will make fun of YOU, if YOU do curls in the squat rack.
10. Crossfitters only use pink kettlebells.

Are their assholes in CF? I am sure their are, but off the top of my head I can't think of many that I have met, and, there are certainly assholes in the weightlifting community also.

Are their elitists in CF? Yes, there are. But what is a common criticism of the weightlifting community? That we are elitist. And just like in CF, yeah, there are elitists among us. I don't think its the norm, but they are there.

The fact that CF has exposed quite literally hundreds of thousands of people to weightlifting aside, do you know what I most like about Crossfit?

They appreciate what we do. I quite often find myself in front of a group of crossfitters with someone like Donny, or Jon, or Caleb demonstrating a heavy snatch or clean and jerk. And you know what, these people appreciate what they are seeing. They appreciate what it took to accomplish it, the work, the years of work, the athleticism, the strength and power. The years of pain, the sacrifice. And for these lifters, there is finally a community, a rather large one, that appreciates what they do, that admires them for it. And that is a beautiful thing. Especially when the average person watching someone do a 140kg snatch has about the same ability to appreciate it as someone who doesnt know how to play chess does to appreciate what they are seeing if they watched a Bobby Fisher chess game.

Weightlifting finally has a fan base. And it's growing. And that is gonna open up all sorts of new opportunities for the sport.

I will leave you with one last thought. Donny Shankle has been able to drop most of his personal training clients, while finally getting the access to chiropractic, massage, etc, that was always financially tough to get when he needed it. Why is he able to work much less, rest and train more, and still financially swing all those little things that help him?

To a large extent, its been Crossfitters. Now I don't want to ignore others who have helped, and even donated. But it's the Crossfit boxes that are holding fund raisers for him, its the Crossfit websites that are encouraging their members to go to his blog and hit the donate button that are the most active in raising money.

You can certainly find the bad in anything. But I prefer to say the glass is half full. In this instance, maybe even 3/4 full.
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http://www.pendlayforum.com/showpost.php?p=29453&postcount=36
 
As good as that write-up was, I am certain that amlove will have a rebuttal statement that is sure to be funny.

Just for the record I take no sides in this debate, I like seeing everyone's point of view on this topic.
 
I like Crossfit because before I started I could hardly do 3 pull ups. Crossfit exposed me to a whole new method of training. After about a month of Crossfit I was able to knock out 10 dead hangs easy. Are there some things that I don't agree with yes, but you are never going to make everyone happy 100% all the time. I currently follow MA programing because of where I am at right now location wise and fitness wise.
 
MA is good stuff. I used it for about 6 months before I adapted a strength training program. I loved it, although I didn't always have access to all the equipment I needed and it does tend to get repetitive. I still use the BB complex as a warm up on some days though. It's very much a love/hate relationship. :-)
 
Crossfit, Gym Jones, Military Athlete, Olympic Lifting Power Lifting, Track, gymnastics....Its all good. Just don't be a douche. The more you get into physical fitness the more massive ego's you encounter. I've been to a multitude of Crossfit Certs & Gyms. I've never had a bad experience. One or two places I didn't like the programming, but it wasn't my gym or my place to talk about it. I've talked with Greg Glassman, Mark Rippitoe, Jeff Martone, John Welborne, Mike Burgener, Rob Shaul, Mark Toomey.....Rob Wolf, and a lot more etc. They all have tons of useful information. I'd like to meet Pendley, Greg Everett and many others to see their particular method for skinning the cat.

Pendley is right. The biggest problem with all of the various sports that I mentioned above is that they are viewed as Elitest, they're viewed as weird sub-cultures that require a secret code to get into. They are not wiedely known outside of certain segments of the population. But Crossfit is educating people about: Track & Field, Olympic Lifting, Power Lifting, Gymnastics, etc. I've got two children, I know enough about useful fitness to expose them to the aforementioned sports. If the next generation 3-7 year olds see mom and dad Clean and jerking and running 400's I think we'll be better off than me seeing my mom doing Jane Fonda and my dad smoking cigarettes. There are some ego's and some issues as well as some WOD's that I think are stupid, but who cares.
 
Just to keep the XFit related shitty items in one thread- we had a member here post his hospital stay for rhabdo due to- you guessed it- XFit. I would have to assume the verified cases of rhabdo across all fitness levels attributed directly to xfit has to be over the 300 mark now. Can anyone here name me another "sport" that has 300 confirmed cases of rhabdo (and hundreds more suspected) in less than 15 years of existence? What happens when we have the first death at a cf box? Oh yea, that already happened.

Can anyone name an activity with a higher incidence of injury to participants than xfit? Some of their most elite athletes have gotten rhabdo AT THE GAMES. It's for this reason that I refuse to believe that any impact xfit may/may not have had can be labeled as "all good". Especially since they embrace things like "Uncle Rhabdo" and the like.
 
amlove21 said:
Can anyone name an activity with a higher incidence of injury to participants than xfit? Some of their most elite athletes have gotten rhabdo AT THE GAMES. It's for this reason that I refuse to believe that any impact xfit may/may not have had can be labeled as "all good". Especially since they embrace things like "Uncle Rhabdo" and the like.
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I'm no fan of Xfit, but to be fair (and in the interest of discussion) is that a failure of the program or the people? The exercises or the mindset of the trainers, staff, and community as a whole?
 
Freefalling said:
I'm no fan of Xfit, but to be fair (and in the interest of discussion) is that a failure of the program or the people? The exercises or the mindset of the trainers, staff, and community as a whole?
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Well, to your question I would say "Yes", with the exception of "the exercises". Saying that an exercise causes rhabdo is like saying "guns kill people" or "spoons make people fat".

The community embraces acute overtraining like no other. What other event prides itself on making its participants puke? And makes cartoons of such a thing? The entire community has this idea that to be edgy, hardcore, elite, beastmode, whatever- you have to put forth 110% intensity with every workout, or you aren't trying hard enough. Greg Glassman had a quote that previously I had admired, and now I use to point out its relevance to this conversation. I paraphrase from "Sport of Fitness", from the HQ website circa 2007."The days of a drill sgt standing over you saying 'Do more pushups maggot!' are over. I can get far more effort from one single thing. All I need is a whiteboard, and a list of names. What do I say? 3-2-1 go. You don't wanna do that well? Then don't 3-2-1 go. You stayed up late last night studying, you're not feeling well- fine. I don't care if you wanna be a pussy. 3-2-1 go. I have seen people hurt themselves- metabolically hurt themselves- for a good score on the whiteboard." You simply can not reason that the leader of that community states that as a party line and then distance the over-intense reaction as unrelated or a small percentage. Well, you could, but I would be inclined to stop listening to your opinion.

Couple that community attitude with a legion of "XFit Certified Level 1 Trainers" who were selling pizza last weekend and running a class as the "professional" this week, and you get a community of the willing being led by the blind. Lots of these "trainers"certainly mean well, but xfit is well documented in their complete and total lack of oversight once the affiliate has paid their bill to HQ. No further education, no legal protection for injury or malfeasance, no direction at all. And all this is guised under "We don't want to tell our affiliates what to do, those affiliates are not a franchise. They operate under us in name alone." Why? So when bad shit happens, HQ can assassinate their character, cut ties, and avoid legal liability.

It's both a failure of the community and the programming. It's fielding a crap product under the false flag of science and data. It's playing on the sensibilities of people not accustomed to intense physical activity by telling them they're part of a community that cares. It's telling people that they can be the same as Policemen, Firemen, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, MMA Fighters- for the low, low price of $150 a month.

And then that product injures it's participants at a staggering rate and the inventor of the product brushes those injuries off by saying, "If the thought of falling off the rings and breaking your neck is foreign to you, we don't want you in our ranks."
 
I got Rhabdo doing a USMC PFT last summer. I've probably had it from other events in life as well. But in hind site so many of my Teammates and Friends from training relate story's similar that have nothing to do with Crossfit. I never heard of Rhabdo prior to Crossfit. As per the Video you referenced is the theme song a Hip Hop number about waving your shirt in the air? I am in that video doing 10:00 of Cindy. Mostly Dead-hanging pullups I got 11 rounds. I think somewhere in Para-Rescue/CCT/BUD/s/ITC/Ranger/SF case's of Rhabdo are very common and probably not reported. As in my case, I pissed a little blood in the shower, said oh shit. Cleaned up and hydrated up. That day I drank 600 ounce's or water (Gatorade, Soda water,water) throughout the course of the day.

Does Crossfit have some stupid shit in it, absolutely. Are some of Greg Glassman's Libertarian-unfettered-Capitolism the market will decid-isms going to cause problems? Yes of course. I got into Crossfit in October 2004. I watched the videos, and read the articles. I soon realized that if you wanted to get any value I needed to learn the exercises. You do not dead lift 225lbs 21 times super-seted with 21 handstand pushups if you can't safely pull 135 off of the ground. I spent roughly 6 months working on technique until I could safely lift 135 and do an actual handstand push up( I was in Iraq and could not afford to fuck my back up.) What really got to me was the importance of squatting. All throughout my Recon training I was a great runner, could do cal's all day and swim forever. But put a ruck on me and I was weak. I had great abs from those Navy Seal workout books I had, but my back was weak and would have spasm's about every month. Once I started Air Squatting and slowly getting into barbell squatting I got strong. My back did not get tweaked and I get fitter. I got into Crossfit when I was suffering from some terrible over training. I had about two years of constant training to get through. I started slowly training the Crossfit way and my overt-raining was gone.

I get that your not a fan of Crossfit. Many people that I have worked with, many who are very high level in the fitness business feel the same way. But the over-riding factor is people want to do stuff. They are willing to pay to train because a lot of the gyms are fun. Just learn how to do the movements, and listen to your body. They have a great community attitude and the people genuinely care. Now I know what your saying about bad-programming, and lack of training besides a Level I cert. I feel the same way. Most of the good Crossfit's have Instructors with all sorts of outside training. When Crossfit first started it seemed to attract Physical Fitness trainers from Bally's, Sport Coaches from High Schools and Cops, not to mention Mountain Climbers from Utah and some other folks. The common factor was they all had physical fitness or sport background. I too am troubled by a guy in board shorts with no real background but Crossfit Level I Cert in Hand teaching my Mother to do Fran.
 
Uncle Petey said:
I think somewhere in Para-Rescue/CCT/BUD/s/ITC/Ranger/SF case's of Rhabdo are very common and probably not reported.
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Well, I can only speak as a PJ with friends in the selection course- but I disagree with you. I would not say rhabdo is "very common". I would say it is decidedly uncommon. As a matter of fact, I challenge you to show me any data with rhabdo as a diagnosis from those courses. In the 4 classes it took me to graduate indoc, (make fun, I am good now!) I never had a single person talk about or be diagnosed with rhabdo, certainly never serious enough to be hospitalized. The same can not be said for xfit.
 
That's what I mean. Did you even know about it? The PJ's are a different animal altogether; the Course being run by the Best medics (my belief) in the world. Common doesn't mean everybody all the time. How many guys post ruck run mistook it for just being tired. We as a community self-correct, we drink heaps of water post training, pre-training, etc. I do wonder what the real numbers are for Rhabdo in Crossfit, probably pretty high. In fact it is probably the highest in any "sport" that I know of, they advertise that it could happen. I think about all of the useless exercise's I did in training for or going to school. How much better could I have been if people we're teaching the big lifts? Or learning how to increase your work capacity through circuits that didn't involve dirty dogs and jane fondas?
 

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