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Old Forum A good reason not to do crossfit

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john maniaci

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For anyone that thinks crossfit is a good program to do. I use to be in the middle about crossfit, but not anymore.

Thank you Pavel, for getting out of this idea of training to failure.

https://medium.com/p/97bcce70356d
 
Good article, really scary effects and that even for simple push-ups there is a "too much" with a terrifying outcome.The group psych effect pushes you beyond listening to your body's signals.

Only weakness of the text: its starts little promising with a mocking tone.
 
Thanks for posting.  Good article and good links at the bottom.  People really are getting rhabdo.  Not funny anymore.
 
Not a proponent of crossfit, but its hard to point fingers without having all the facts first. For example, the persons medical history, drugs they may or have been on, sickness they may or have had, there are a lot of factors to calculate when you try to make a conclusion on the cause of something. Just the other day I read an article on the cons of kettlebells, one guy in the comments section was claiming 24kg kettlebell snatches broke his arm in many places and he is forever damaged.

 
 
While I agree there's often too much "correlation = causation" thinking out there these days, we should still think "horses" when we hear hoofbeats, not zebras.

Crazy Crossfit WODs and the constant pressure to "push through" are causing rhabdo when nothing else does.  And some of these chuckleheads are proud of that fact, and some of their clients are even drawn to it.

As an institution, Crossfit had better get to grips with this before the collective awakening happens and thir whole happy kingdom comes crashing down.
 
Correlation is not causation etc., but yes, I do also hear ducks quacking. Anecdotally at least, rhabdo happens a lot in CrossFit land and the group pressure is certainly a probable cause of it.

I have had one mild flirtation with rhabdo myself about three years ago. I had done a tough boxing workout, then gotten a second wind and sparred five rounds. Then I got a "third wind" and decided to run a military-style obstacle course behind the gym. When I told my coach about the "third wind" his face fell. "Uh oh, you're going to be in trouble." He is not a guy who could identify or spell rhabdo but he certainly had seen it before. Within the hour I was in some serious pain, exhausted, disoriented, nauseous ... and this was mild rhabdo. Do yourself a favor and watch the heck out for it. Never use a "third wind" for anything other than a winning a life-threatening fight or saving someone's life ...the third wind is your body giving you the last it has in response to a perceived crisis. It is not for everyday use or even occasional use.
 
That is crazy.  We have all pushed ourselves too hard before, especially before we learned from Pavel and others here that it us not optimal to push ourselves past exhaustion.  I am surprised there aren't more of us that at least know of someone who has had this condition before.
 
Just because people get knocked down crossing the road, do that mean we stop crossing roads?

Or should the pedestrian take more care and the driver be more observant?

I train on a regular basis at a Crossfit facility, although I dont do Crossfit. The owner is smart, diligent and definitely agrees and uses StrongFirst principles. I have never seen any of the "typical" Crossfit stuff you hear prople mention.

There are many great Crossfit coaches and trainer that dont follow the Crossfit HQ/Brand mantra and entirely indepedant of that way of thinking. Just as I bet there are (dare I say it) StrongFirst/RKC trainers who arent very good.

It is Crossfit HQ that need to answer for their short comings, but as a system I think it is each to there own.

Lets not forget we are all adults, not children. Peer pressure? Com' on, take responsibilty for our own health and fitness. If something doesnt feel right, people should stop there and then, end of. Especially as a fitness professional. I cant help but think the lady mentioned in th blog post should have known better? Just my 2 cents.
 
Well it is still Crossfit. Just done in a safe manner. They still compete, have WOD's and have a close community feel.

Crossfit is simply a style of GPP in my opinion. It will suit and work for some peoples goals, but not everyone. That is fair to say for most training systems.

Sam.
 
Until I was introduced to Pavel's teaching, I was in the "no pain, no gain" mentality.  I think most people are in that camp, even if they don't have the motivation to train that way.  Most people believe that the way Rocky Balboa got in shape in six weeks in the original Rocky movie could actually work.  Most people believe that the way Navy Seal candidates are pushed during BUDS will get them in the best shape of their lives rather than just test them to see what they are made of while tearing them down.

I sincerely believe that most people think that the harder or further they push, the stronger they will be.  at least half of the people I have known at work who have gotten into Crossfit didn't have training backgrounds.  But, they get into this and experience a comradery of sweat that makes them feel proud of themselves.  They would never back down in front of their Crossfit friends.  I had come to the place where I no longer believed in that particular mentality, but until this blog, I had never heard of  rhabdo.  I consider myself lucky that I had never encountered it.  Most people don't know about rhabdo, or that it is counterproductive to push it to the limit on a regular basis.  I wouldn't consider a person to be dumb or irresponsible if they joined a Crossfit gym and either didn't make the best progress or got injured because most people just don't know.  Most people think that I am just acting my age when I tell them I learned to not push myself so hard all the time.  They don't believe me when I tell them that even younger men would be better off to train smarter, because they still believe in Rocky Balboa.
 
I went to a local crossfit facility a couple weekends ago for the free workout they hold once a week, just to give it a try and it was a run, and row combo 400 meters 3 rounds, I destroyed it. All my training this last year has consisted of kettlebells and bodyweight, so I was pretty excited at the outcome, considering I never run or row, or train strictly conditioning.
 
@goldar, german volume training will not cause this, gvt is a strength based training program, it is not designed to destroy you make you sweaty or push you to your limits till you roll over and puke. Its designed to push your strength endurance while boosting your overall strength, slow controlled reps in a timely manner with rest between each set. I frequently do a 10x10 with front squats and clean&press with 32kg-48kg kettlebells, never have I puked from working out or been sore the next day for that matter. With GVT you don't do a 10x10 with every exercise. If yourdo 100 squats, do not do 100 clean and press. that is crazy, work on maximizing one area per workout.
 
Goldar: I believe the risk exists when you hammer a muscle with multiples of the volume and density it used to and push through all of the "STOP" signals your body is sending you.   So you need a combination of bad programing (WOD) and a meat-head culture.

If you apply a reasonable progression with your weights and volume, and proper recovery time between sets, Rhabdo seems like a non-issue.  That is why you rarely hear about it in Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, Kettlebell, etc circles.  In all of the above there is also a culture of technique - bad reps don't count - so we tend to work to technical failure and put the bar down, rather than pushing into physical breakdown.

While Rhabdo is headline grabbing, it is a symptom of the larger problem with Crossfit.  Randomized workouts (no progressions) done as fast as you can, pushed well beyond technical failure is just really bad for your body.  Add in very poor technical instruction at a lot of the upstart affiliate gyms and you have a system that is chewing up a lot of athletes and spiting them out broken.

 

 

 
 
I also think there's a certain personality type that pursues "fitness" at just about any cost - as mentioned in either the article linked here, or through a link in that article. People who can't go a day or two without working out, who will run in the pouring rain, or whatever.

These folks are probably attracted to a program like Crossfit. So, there may just be a higher concentration of overly gung-ho trainees there.

There's a local radio station that has a weekly phone interview with a "fitness expert". She's a swimsuit model or something, and seems to have this trait. She's hot and all, but it's too much sometimes.

When you start talking about doing bodyweight squats or lunges while you're standing in line at the grocery store... Maybe that's the line?
 
The Tough Mudder has a segment with electricity:

http://youtu.be/zawSX4OmCFs

One participant has drowned.

People have a psychological need for danger.  I love mountaineering; it's a question of feeling alive, while STAYING alive.  But it's a terrible idea to confuse exercise with adventure.
 
Phony bravery pisses me right the hell off. We have boys in combat facing genuine life-threatening situations and these Nancy's don't pack the gear to sever the cord of their comfortable lives and go join them so they opt for the cheaply-bought warriordom of running through an idiotic electrified obstacle "as a team, Bro" . On Monday they'll be back in their 72 degree offices at the accounting firm regaling their fellows with tales from The Land of the Hardasses before they all adjourn down to Paddy Murphy's Pub for a few Jaegerbombs and electric cigarettes right about the same time the Genuine Badasses abroad get back from a snatch-and-grab of some piece of terroristic human debris who would gladly bomb everybody in Paddy Murphy's.

A pox be upon them.
 
I have a mixed opinion. I spent many grueling days/years in a certain military unit and to get there you had to pass selection. I can recall staying in the pushup/flutter kick rotating positions for close to 8 hrs.Hit failure roll over, hit failure roll over and on and on.  Yes all day and was so sore I couldn't even raise my arms. When you go days on end without out food/water sometimes and are pushed to the limit day after day one would think it would expose you to rhabdo. I can't recall anyone ever getting it. Only when crossfit come around did I hear and read about it. I have used crossfit and only crossfit for 4 years, straight. Don't anymore, but never had it. But then I am older, where we used to play ball all day in 100 plus temperatures, TV only had 3 channels so who wanted to watch it, no playstation/x box, all we did was run,jump,swim, play from daylight to dark. I think it can happen to anyone but it seems that most people don't have the same GPP that kids or adults used to have. Then I did see one case at FLETC where the kid stayed out all night, drank to much alcohol, chewed tobacco the first time and ended up in the hospital. My opinion was it was his ignorance that caused it although he blamed everyone but himself. I used crossfit programming on 1000 plus candidates a month for almost 3 years and never had one with rhabdo. But then I followed all of my students closely and stopped it short if I had to. Just my 2 cents and you know how that is, everyone has 2 cents.
 
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