Crossfit

Lofland - Some people think that doing back-intensive lifts as fast as possible with shitty form could lead to injury.



Some people think Crossfitters are wimpy because the only good workout for "real men" is the old Arnold-style bodypart split weight training, who cares if you can't jog 400 meters without having to stop to catch your breath.



Some people wonder why they do plain old sit-ups for abs when many sports science researchers say they are a poor exercise for strengthening the abs/core. Planks, cable wood chops, pikes off a stability ball, etc. would make more sense.



Some people wonder what it means do do a "Crossfit" workout when most people don't do the Workout of the Day, and many don't even do a scaled version of it.



Some people don't like the fact that the organization allows people to open Crossfit affiliate gyms after a two-day "certification" that doesn't test the participants on their knowledge. The Crossfit people suggest that the good gyms will survive and the bad gyms will disappear because of the natural operation of the market. However, thousands of people have wasted millions of dollars and some have gotten injured by unqualified trainers before all the bad gyms close. No one seems to mention this cost of the "market."



You can find the other reasons by doing a search for "Crossfit" in this forum.


Some of this is totally legit.

Level 2 crossfit is a big jump from level 1, I'd look for a gym run by someone with that.

The back intensive lifts thing is true as well, but you have to use some judgement and not worry too much about being the fastest all the time. 

The gym where I train uses various other core exercises including planks. Also situps on a glute ham machine, which crossfit uses a lot, are nothing like normal situps.

The workout of the day seems like as big part of crossfit to me, if you're doing something else you would want to be sure that it was designed by someone who knew what they were doing.

I think crossfit is a good system, but you should take each gym as a separate entity and not look on them all as being the same thing.

 

The slavmoral, cult-like adherence to a sub-culture that (like any successful subculture) gives its members the ability to feel superior to any non-members of the group ostensibly on the basis of their utilization of a mode of exercise they feel is superior, regardless of the debatable nature of these claims (this is a wholly separate debate requiring a large number of qualifications; regardless, it is about the us-vs-them group mentality, rather than exercise, for most of the offensive crossfitters) causes a large amount of disdain in some circles.

The staggering cost to attend one of the indoctrination seminars (or teaching certifications, depending on your position) seems to suggest that the lackadaisical attitude mentioned above is a somewhat glib and unsatisfying justification for the chance to earn buckets and buckets of cash producing affiliate gyms of questionable quality that are required to tithe their liege in an almost feudal system.

You could say: Coach has come up with an effective system of exercise that brings people together as a group; it is only fair that he be able to profit from sharing his expertise and knowledge, particularly in light of the free service he has provided for years (and continues to do so) on the main website.

Alternately, you could say that glassman crouches in the middle of a loathsome web of shoddily trained affiliate gyms growing fat off of the sweat, pain, and injuries of the clients his brainwashed minions incompetently attempt to "train" and "instruct" (given that they have potentially only 2 days of training and education). He has successfully managed to build an identity that he can offer to the faceless sheeple who desperately need to find some measure of meaning in their unending and mind-numbingly dull lives by allowing themselves to live out the fantasy of being "hardcore" without actually attaining or sacrificing anything (under the guise of an exercise system) for staggeringly large amounts of money. He has cleverly constructed his throne of lies to allow him to do almost nothing but continue to churn out some random gibberish on a daily basis (the WOD) while accruing HUGE amounts of other people's honestly-garned wages, allowing him plenty of time to spew his conservative agenda into the willing ears of his blindly-obedient minions (whom are all characteristically desperate to have someone to tell them what to do, what to eat, and how to think).

It depends on your perspective (and whether or not you think it's cool to kip when you do pull-ups).

Some folk also have different goals (other than generalized GPP) which would necessitate a program of exercise tailored to fit their specific needs; in these instances, crossfit is not necessarily and efficient way to train.