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Kettlebell Strength is the Foundation

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conor78

conor78

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Strength: it serves the NUMBER ONE GOAL of all arguably every person that walks through your door: improve how they look and feel. Moreover, this work will greatly decrease the risk of injury when they are ready for higher-skill work, giving them a solid foundation of strength FIRST.

Seems we are on the right track
The Future of CrossFit
 
Interesting, a sensible evolution of programming.

I'll be curious to see if it catches on more widely.
 
In other words, the future of Crossfit as a brand is to abandon Crossfit's historical culture, philosophy and training practices.

The author of the article states:
I'm not saying completely abandon everything about CrossFit — what I'm saying is, structure your plan around modalities that address your core clients’ needs and goals.​

But the entire article is about all the things about Crossfit he thinks should be abandoned because they DON'T serve his clients' needs and goals, and it's not clear to me as a Crossfit outsider what he wants to preserve.
 
While strength is a significant factor, mental acknowledgement of what is necessary and when is still the real foundation. Shifting the foundation to reward poor technique as the better performance has definitely been a disservice to many clients. In most sports, performance is enhanced from improved strength/form/technique and to train something else hurts the performance in addition to the person so it's avoided more.

However, I think that learning to harden up helps a lot of people - until it doesn't. It's a tipping point for sure to walk someone up pain mountain. Once the benefits of learning to suffer are achieved, it's time to change the focus. I think really hard stuff is a great introduction, especially when the weights used and intensities reached are still considerably below biological thresholds of the individual. Tons of volume at a high intensity will likely hurt a new client but it won't injure them. As clients advance it becomes more likely to be injured due to the relativity of their limits. When strength is the foundation, there isn't a bad tipping point and it can't be "taken too far" or stop having positive benefits.
 
Bro Mo said:
While strength is a significant factor, mental acknowledgement of what is necessary and when is still the real foundation. Shifting the foundation to reward poor technique as the better performance has definitely been a disservice to many clients. In most sports, performance is enhanced from improved strength/form/technique and to train something else hurts the performance in addition to the person so it's avoided more.

However, I think that learning to harden up helps a lot of people - until it doesn't. It's a tipping point for sure to walk someone up pain mountain. Once the benefits of learning to suffer are achieved, it's time to change the focus. I think really hard stuff is a great introduction, especially when the weights used and intensities reached are still considerably below biological thresholds of the individual. Tons of volume at a high intensity will likely hurt a new client but it won't injure them. As clients advance it becomes more likely to be injured due to the relativity of their limits. When strength is the foundation, there isn't a bad tipping point and it can't be "taken too far" or stop having positive benefits.
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I agree that random workouts and pushing endurance constantly is not effective programming, but I think BroMo has a great point that it can be a very valuable experience to stretch one's perception of your physical limits at least a few times.
 
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Avoid Olympic lifting: Much like high-volume gymnastics, Olympic lifting will have little effect on your clients' overall goals and will drastically increase the risk of injury when consistently performed in conditioning work. If someone wants to focus on the Olympic lifts, then it should be done in a specialty class or in a one-on-one training session, not in a conditioning piece when their heart rate is at 180.
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I really hope this one sticks. I have huge respect for the sport of Olympic lifting and I always felt that doing it WOD style is a desecration of it's great legacy.
 
If I understood correctly he suggests CF boxes should adopt SF principals. Sounds reasonable to me.
 
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watchnerd said:
Interesting, a sensible evolution of programming.

I'll be curious to see if it catches on more widely.
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Catching On

It is definitely "a sensible evolution of programming."

However, it's not going to catch on in the majority of CrossFit Boxes for a multitude of reasons.

That's the reality of it.

Kenny Croxdale
 
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watchnerd said:
Marketing "sensible" vs "hardcore"...
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The Ego Mentality Issue

One the issues is the hardcore, tough guy/gal (primarily a guy thing) egomentality of CrossFitters; gut it out and get it up at all cost. I am a former member of that club. It's a right of passage.

The article mentioned that, "It's simple: ego. Your friend is performing the WOD as prescribed and doesn't want to be left behind on the gains-train."

The "Heard Mentality" prevails.

A High School Football Coach that I spoke with years ago had that mentality. The foundation of his weight training program for high school kids revolved around, "Push them until they puke."

Kenny Croxdale
 
Just as there are good and bad coaches for running, power lifting, personal fitness and everything else, crossfit is the same. It's community nature is a draw into fitness for many and a downfall toward injury for many. Taking advantage of one while minimizing the other is where better boxes succeed. Though i don't do crossfit myself, i have been impressed at the approach of places like crossfit invictus. They offer fitness programming online (never replaces personal coaching...) which is GPP. Lots of swings, goblet squats, unilaterals, carries, gymnastics etc and zero barbell Olympic lifts or barbells in conditioning pieces. They also offer more complicated Performance or Competition programming for more advanced with periodized programming off percentages etc (a friend of mine followed Comp in order to reach Regionals. Jerked 365# kind of level). So while many are dangerous, i think some do understand movement and development well... And the community draw shouldn't be underestimated in its value to people.

But i still do mostly swings and get ups in my garage.... ;)
 
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This idea that CF needs to focus more on strength has been around a long time. The Max Effort Black Box programming came about in 2005 or earlier to address the lack of programming for strength and to de-emphasize all the metcons. This article just takes it further.

I suspect most CF gyms will continue to do whatever sells memberships, which as best I can tell is programming that gets folks sweaty and sore, which in turn lets them pat themselves on the back and receive attaboys and high fives from the rest of the gym goers.
 
Tirofijo said:
This idea that CF needs to focus more on strength has been around a long time. The Max Effort Black Box programming came about in 2005 or earlier to address the lack of programming for strength and to de-emphasize all the metcons. This article just takes it further.

I suspect most CF gyms will continue to do whatever sells memberships, which as best I can tell is programming that gets folks sweaty and sore, which in turn lets them pat themselves on the back and receive attaboys and high fives from the rest of the gym goers.
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If it doesn't draw them in, they'll stay on the couch or at the box or treadmill. If it isn't smart they won't last. Take what people need and present it in a way they're drawn to?
 
The fact that this article felt the need to be written confirms my hunch that I'm not missing much by not doing crossfit.
 
Kozushi said:
The fact that this article felt the need to be written confirms my hunch that I'm not missing much by not doing crossfit.
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I think it was written to evolve a popular thing to be better. Over 400,000 people pay and participate in the formal Crossfit Open competition each year. What progress the health of the world would see if that many were training intently for TSC or SFG test?
 
Steve W. said:
But the entire article is about all the things about Crossfit he thinks should be abandoned because they DON'T serve his clients' needs and goals, and it's not clear to me as a Crossfit outsider what he wants to preserve.
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I thought the same thing myself - at what point do his recommended changes make it something else? He recommends doing more strength work and more sled pushes. That's just Wendler's 5/3/1 plan with the "more conditioning" option.
 
MikeTheBear said:
I thought the same thing myself - at what point do his recommended changes make it something else? He recommends doing more strength work and more sled pushes. That's just Wendler's 5/3/1 plan with the "more conditioning" option.
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Wendler actually wrote a Crossfit template in one of his 531 books.
 
Nate said:
Wendler actually wrote a Crossfit template in one of his 531 books.
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Yep, it's in the 5/3/1 Second Edition. The 5/3/1 template has really evolved with Beyond 5/3/1 and now 5/3/1 Forever, so the original book may not be as sexy as the newer books, but I still read the original for motivation purposes. Start your workout by jumping rope. Work a "Big 4" lift. Do some assistance work, which can be as simple as doing more sets of the Big 4 lift. If you like kettlebells, no problem. Wendler even says that using kettlebells for assistance work is a great idea. On the days you don't lift push the prowler. No prowler? Sprint hills. If you do this, here is yhour reward:

You’ll actually be able to move because your feet will be fast from jumping rope. You won’t be
out of breath all the time. You’ll be able to take on any physical activity you want. You’ll be
different once you’ve spent time straining to get a rep PR in the squat or pushed a Prowler for
40 minutes. Dealing with the idiots at work or your boss will no longer be an issue. It’s hard to
bring a man down after he’s had three weeks of personal records in the gym. It’s hard to get
mad at the guy who cuts you off in traffic after you’ve left your lunch on top of the hill after bear
crawling up it. Who cares about all that meaningless stuff? When your training and your life are
moving forward, you certainly won’t.

That's some philosophy right there.
 
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