Crossfit Craze

Is Crossfit Worth it?

In honor of the Crossfit games on TV this weekend I decided this would be an appropriate topic.  According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, Crossfit defines their program as:

 “a strength and conditioning program as “constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement," with the stated goal of improving fitness (and therefore general physical preparedness), which it defines as "work capacity across broad time and modal domains." Workouts are typically short—20 minutes or less—and intense, demanding all-out physical exertion. They combine movements such as sprinting, rowing, jumping rope, climbing rope, weightlifting, and carrying odd objects; they use barbells, dumbbells, gymnastics rings, pull-up bars, kettlebells, medicine balls, and many bodyweight exercises. These elements are mixed in numerous combinations to form prescribed "Workouts of the Day" or "WODs."

Crossfit is basically a form of cross training that incorporates multiples forms of exercises and focusing on high intensity workouts with daily variations.  There are some components of Crossfit that I really like and I believe can be very beneficial and there are other parts that aren’t as beneficial and may in fact be harmful.  Below is a descriptions of the positives and negatives of Crossfit:

Positives:

I think Crossfit does a great job of providing a wide variety of exercises utilizing various loads and intensities.  Crossfit provides tough, intense workouts that are ever changing and incorporate several different modes of training.  For example, some of their workouts focus on muscular endurance, some on agility, some strength and others on power.  This allows you to improve across all of these areas versus single mode training, such as running, that just allows you to improve in one area.

Negatives:

Sometimes the “randomness” can be detrimental to health and performance.  Crossfit gets a lot of criticism because they don’t periodize their workouts.  Periodization is the incorporation of an organized progression of training variables such as intensity, volume, and rest so that you can achieve different goals throughout your training cycle and peak at certain times.   Crossfit actually takes pride in the fact that they don’t do this and promote that this provides the body “muscle confusion” and constantly adapting; similar to the P90X mentality.  For the recreational athlete/exerciser this may not be that big of a deal but to a competitive athlete a more structured training program would help them peak at certain/necessary times and get the most out of their training.  Another downside of this lack of structure is the increased risk of injuries. Without a structure to your training program your body may be overtraining at times or may not get the rest and recovery time that it needs.  A lot of people actually lose muscle mass and strength throughout a Crossfit training cycle because they are overtraining and not incorporating enough rest.  This increased risk of injury is also seen in the day to day workouts.  Any time you are performing repetitions to failure and working out at a high intensity you are putting yourself at risk, especially if proper technique and form is not used.

Overall I think Crossfit is a great program for people who are looking to get in better “shape” (for lack of a better word) or just to mix up their training program.  You will burn a lot of calories, improve strength, improve agility and never get bored of the ever-changing, maximum-effort workouts.  However, for athletes or other individuals who are more specific goals it may not be the best option.