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Crossfit... Yes or No?


angiepole
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I was taking crossfit classes a year ago. I had to give it up due to a shoulder injury. Probably a result of lifting too much weight with an imbalance from a previous poorly healed collar bone injury.

 

So do I think it is dangerous... Yes, there are tons of injuries in crossfit. But I think there are a lot of injuries in other sports too depending which sports you do. You have to decide if you like it enough, if the benefits outweigh the risks to you, and also be aware of how you can minimize your risk of injury. Because you will make zero progress once you are injured.

 

The above notwithstanding, I am planning to go back in the New Year because I love it that much. They have the best and most intense workouts I've ever done. Even after more than a year off though, I know I will need to go easy on the shoulder and be careful not to push it. (and it is hard not to push yourself in that environment).

 

Some boxes push you harder than others and some will have far better coaches than others, but in the end I think it is important for you to be aware of your limitations, play it safe rather than playing to win (ie. make sure you have your form down before increasing your weights), and know that you need to look after yourself.. you are the one that needs to live with the consequence of your actions. Be aware that the 'coaches' do not really get a whole lot of training... quite honestly the ones I've met are imo less knowledgeable on fitness than I am and definitely have less knowledge in nutrition. I would not put too much faith (or any really) in what they 'think' they know - ie. always do your own research before following blindly.

 

I would advise that you continue with your regular workouts to work on supporting muscles they are not hitting in crossfit classes. For example if you do a lot of shoulder presses and bench presses you will develop an imbalance of muscle in front vs back which often leads to injury.

 

If you do decide to get into it, there is a supportive group on facebook (crossfit vegans and vegetarians).

 

GL

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Probably could be dangerous if you try to do it on your own. If you're with an instructor either as a one-on-one or class situation, probably lessens the injury risk considerably.

 

People can get injured doing anything so I would say if you like the look of it then go for it! You should see the accident rates for Zumba, crazy.

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Hey Jungle,

 

I was wondering what happened to you. Congrats on going back to competing.

 

Jillian Michaels and a lot of fitness and nutrient talk shows on Sirius radio are totally against cross fit and paleo diet. However most would agree the crossfit community is positive in regards of motivating each other and building friendships.

 

A lot of the men love crossfit because it is competitive. I notice a lot of females will complain the coaches pushes them too hard in regards of heavy weights. It is very easy to get injured.

 

Crossfit is a fad. Another fad will replace crossfit in another couple years

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I love it - like anything you need to check the credentials of the owner/coaches to make sure they have more experience than just the crossfit certification. My box has an Olypic lifting platform and a 5/3/1 methodology for the strength work - then we WOD. I started in different box where it was metcom WODs all the time and I tore up a shoulder doing that - since changing to the box I am in now where there is purposeful training I have rehabbed the injury and am full speed ahead. The crossfit community is a little suspicious of vegans but my coach now doesnt try to discourage me/talk me out of it - he looks for resources for me since he doesnt know much about how I eat.

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I love it - like anything you need to check the credentials of the owner/coaches to make sure they have more experience than just the crossfit certification. My box has an Olypic lifting platform and a 5/3/1 methodology for the strength work - then we WOD. I started in different box where it was metcom WODs all the time and I tore up a shoulder doing that - since changing to the box I am in now where there is purposeful training I have rehabbed the injury and am full speed ahead. The crossfit community is a little suspicious of vegans but my coach now doesnt try to discourage me/talk me out of it - he looks for resources for me since he doesnt know much about how I eat.
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Crossfit is like anything else - you get a lot of places that have shitty trainers who think "Let me throw in some gimmicky and potentially unsafe lifts from Strongman or some other training system and tell people it'll change their lives unlike any other program!" who should be strung up by their privates for jeopardizing the safety of their clients. You'll also get good, experienced coaches who know what they're doing - it's simply another case of "buyer beware" - just because someone's certified to teach something doesn't mean they're any good at it (this goes for all aspects of life, just that in training like Crossfit, it can mess you up royally in a hurry when under the guidance of an idiot). Do your research first, compare local facilities from feedback you'll get from past and current members, and of course, look for results. If a Crossfit coach has an entirely new client base every few months because people either keep getting hurt/get lackluster results/get bored with it, that's a bad sign, but if you see people who have made great transformations who keep coming back month after month, year after year, it's probably safe to assume that it's one of the better facilities you could go to. Just check out a facility thoroughly to avoid being caught in a mess of training under some dope who thinks that someone who has only touched a barbell once before should be doing heavy kettlebell complexes on their first day training.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with Crossfit, but ultimately, you have to figure whether or not it is going to do what you want. Consider that the people you see on ESPN doing the Crossfit Games are NOT people who came into it as average folks, rather, you'll find that they almost all have extensive high-level athletic backgrounds in things like gymnastics, olympic lifting, etc. that gave them a great base for years prior to taking up Crossfit. Most people are going to get stronger to some degree (but, not as strong as those who simply lift for the sake of strength), will get in better overall conditioning (but not in the same ways as someone who trains for conditioning for a specific purpose, like endurance cycling), and obviously, when combined with a solid diet, it can do great improvements for one's body. But, Crossfit is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type program where you're pretty much trained to be ready to be able to tackle anything within reason for overall fitness, but if you're after a specific goal of being able to, say, bench press double your bodyweight, be able to run a marathon, or anything else that's specific to a goal, it won't be ideal for someone who is after something of that nature. For the average fitness fan who is looking for something new who may have avoided weight training in the past, it's a step in the right direction, and it never hurts to improve one's conditioning, either.

 

I don't see Crossfit going anywhere any time soon since it started decades ago and has had a few good years entrenched as something fun and marketable, but it's definitely saturated right now, and probably won't be as large in 5 years as it is today. What'll inevitably happen is that the hucksters who are in it just to make a quick buck off something popular will fade away over the next few years, and eventually it'll be down to a pool of those who actually SHOULD be training people in Crossfit, and that's not a bad thing by any means.

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from what I understand of Crossfit, it is common to do olympic lifts for time, either against a clock, against other people or trying to beat your previous record. the olympic lifts are technical and NOT appropriate for conditioning purposes, as crossfit seems to use them. you want to do them when you're fresh and focused. so i would say if your crossfit location does this-- then it is unsafe

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At the end of the day Crossfit is no safer than any other variation of weight lifting, whether this be Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, powerlifting or just working out to stay in shape. I would bet that a large majority of people who get injured can attribute that to a particular reason RATHER than Crossfit itself, eg not being warmed up, poor technique etc etc.

 

I'm not really for or against Crossfit, I'm pretty impartial. But it's promoting weight training, CV conditioning and getting people up off their butts and doing some good hard physical exercise, and in today's society that can only be a good thing.

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from what I understand of Crossfit, it is common to do olympic lifts for time, either against a clock, against other people or trying to beat your previous record. the olympic lifts are technical and NOT appropriate for conditioning purposes, as crossfit seems to use them. you want to do them when you're fresh and focused. so i would say if your crossfit location does this-- then it is unsafe

 

You'd be hard-pressed to find a facility that isn't making their clients do olympic lifts. This is where it comes into play that people SHOULD make sure that their Crossfit facility has someone who is USAWA certified in teaching proper form on olympic lifting to clients and that it's not left to someone who may well have no idea what they're doing. It doesn't take more than one light barbell snatch that drifts too far backward without the shoulders fixing the bar in place properly before a rotator cuff can blow out, so obviously, the better the technique, the better off trainees will be.

 

It isn't that one can't do the o-lifts safely without having proper coaching (I never got hurt doing them with my crappy technique even when going for max lifts), but since Crossfit tends to throw people right into the fire and then put them under pressure by making them race against the clock, it can be a recipe for disaster when a novice lifter is trying to make 20 snatches in 90 seconds because he doesn't want to fail on his WOD.

 

Ideally, anyone who will do the o-lifts would have at least a few weeks of coaching on building ideal technique, but that's counter-productive to the general mission of Crossfit's intense atmosphere of "train hard, train fast", which is why the injury potential is greatly increased.

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My workout today:

Warm up

Strength work:

Bench press

3x10@60% 1RM

1xAMRAP@ 60% (I got 16)

WOD:

10 OH squats (155/75 rx/scaled) I used 53lbs (I use the 33lb chick bar)

30 KB swings (24/16) I was rx

4 rounds

50 HRPU

 

The four rounds + 50 push ups for time

I did it in 17:35 - slow for me but OH squats are hard for me technically so I am coached to do them slower to get them right.

 

When I started I hadn't trained at all in about 18 months. My deadlift has gone up 80lbs, my squat went up 60lbs in our recent "30 days of squats" super compensation set and I've gone from literally a 15lb snatch to 73lbs in 6 months. I get in, I get out, I get stronger. Not for everyone I'm sure - like I said earlier it's the wild west out there with the box coaches and credentials - but if you do your homework you can find a good box! (I'll get off my soap box now I clearly drank the kook-aid!)

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  • 2 weeks later...

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