CrossFit South Brooklyn

Established 2007

WOD 10.22.08

Posted on

Ten rounds for time of:
12 Burpees
12 Pull-ups

Post time to comments.

Accessory work
Jump Rope Practice 10 Minutes
FOAM ROLL

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Pat Sherwood

The Case Against CrossFit Charles Poliquin

Comments

  2. Regarding Poliquin’s article.

    It seems like his main concerns are the oft repeated lack of testing, proper coaching, focus on form, etc. It’s pretty much the main point of every Crossfit basher. If you step back and look at it what they are saying, it seems that what they are really complaining about is shitty coaching. I am sure there are some shitty coaches in Crossfit, I haven’t worked with any of them yet (thankfully) but I am certain they are out there. Find me a training protocol or athletic endeavor where this isn’t true. In my own experience I have worked with shitty Track coaches, shitty Wrestling coaches, and shitty Strength and Conditioning coaches. It didn’t invalidate those training methodologies as a whole, and it certainly didn’t make me hesitate to work with a good coach in those areas (just the opposite actually).The related complaint that anyone who pays the fee is now a Lvl certified trainer, is one that I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about. I do think the terminology should be changed from certified trainer to certified Crossfiter, however that doesn’t invalidate the idea behind the Lvl 1. Crossfit puts out 270+ workouts a year, many of which contain movements and exercises unfamiliar to someone new to crossfit and/or fitness in general. The Level 1 allows these people to get an exposure to the how and why. It’s an overview, nobody is becoming an expert that weekend and nobody is claiming that it will. If you’re a good trainer and you do a Lvl 1, now you’re a good trainer with some good Crossfit info. If you’re a novice and you do a Lvl 1, you’re a novice who’s better prepared to tackle a Crossfit WOD. It seems silly to criticize Crossfit for letting untrained people do these workouts (not sure how you would stop them since they are publicly available) on one hand, and then criticize them for providing basic level training on the other.His second point is that specialization is necessary because generalized training doesn’t make you elite at anything. From a Crossfit point of view the only answer is “So what.” Everyone with an understanding of Crossfit knows that while you will become stronger with Crossfit you could become even stronger with a specialized strength program. While you will develop cardio-respiratory endurance with Crossfit you could develop more with a dedicated Triathalon program. For that matter doing Crossfit might make you a better baseball player, but time spent swinging a bat or fielding ground balls will do a better job of it. Nobody disputes any of that, but he’s comparing apples and oranges. Getting an Olympic level shotputter to improve his shotput is a training program with little carryover to someone in the general public who who wants to get in shape. Crossfit is what is, a good way for the average person to become good at a broad range of physical skills, not a magical surefire approach to making you an elite in whatever your chosen specialization is.His problems with repetition schemes and exercise selection is something that has been dealt with by better minds than me, just recently by Glassman and Rippetoe on the the 3.5 episode of Crossfit radio, but I can say that in my personal experience the workouts are both safe and effective. I spent years working out as a wrestler, a runner, and general fitness on my own. I have never had as injury free a stretch as I have for the nearly two years I have been Crossfiting. Other than something weird like getting my thumb jammed on a clean or periods of lingering soreness that can be solved by rest and recovery, I have been fine. No pulled muscles, shins splints, torn ligaments, no injuries. As for my performance, I am stronger, faster, and capable of far more work before gassing out than I was before crossfit. So maybe these rep schemes and exercise combo’s aren’t so bad.Lastly his complaint that Crossfit endorses controversial exercises has to be some kind of joke. He says he’s seen clips on an affiliate site of people jumping onto cars and standing on swiss balls. Jumping onto cars has never been a part of a WOD, so while someone involved in crossfit may have done it, it certainly isn’t endorsed (although I’m not sure why it would be that much worse than a box jump if it was). As for standing on a swiss ball, I didn’t think it was controversial and I’m sure it isn’t crossfit. Sounds alot more like the “functional” or “core” training you’re likely to see in a globogym.

    Sorry for the lengthy post, but this stuff gets under my skin sometimes.

  3. Jeremy, let me be the first to say “tell us how you really feel.”

    Great post.

    When I first read Poliquin’s post I was taken a back by his comments about the “Pay money become certified, pay money become an affiliate” thing. The more I thnk about it, the more that becomes a really simplistic explanation of what it takes, now isn’t it?

  4. I do feel that some legitimate concerns in that article are being masked by poor arguments that do not address the actual training method.

    I think he has some interesting concerns in the following points:

    4. Inappropriate Repetition Brackets for Complex Exercises

    5. Inappropriate Exercise Order

    In my mind proper loading is the way to avoid the issues he raises in those points. Would I perform Linda as RX’d? No. I’m simply not strong enough to safely perform the WOD at those weights.

    His sixth point is more of a straw man argument. Jumping onto cars is not an “exercise”, it’s a demonstration showing a strong vertical leap capability.

    For me the key takeaway here is this phrase: “I cannot recommend CrossFit training, especially for those seeking the highest levels of athletic performance”.

    I think a more fair version of this statement would be “I cannot recommend CrossFit training, especially for those seeking the highest levels of SPECIALIZED athletic performance”.

    For a trainee who can keep his ego in check, and who seeks proper instruction in form, and who is interested in achieving a broad spectrum level of fitness, I do not see how the issues Charles Poliquin raised would adversely impact them.

  5. Well done Jeremy, your post made some great points with some common sense. Now it’s my turn.

    About the comment on the “lack of instruction on complex lifts like the oly lifts.” True. Showing up to the level I cert in no way makes you an expert trainee or trainer in the sport of olympic weightlifting. No one said it would. But, have you checked out the CrossFit site lately and looked at all the FREE info you can get on weightlifting. How many great videos and articles there are on performing these exercises with great form and technique. Coach Burgener’s amazing instruction is all there. The intent that CrossFit uses the olympic lifts is not to create olympic champions but to “increase work capacity across broad time and modal demands. Yes these lifts are tricky but CrossFit emphasizes the use of pvc pipe and medballs to learn the movements with mechanical efficiency which is also the safest way to do them. If you look at the post on Poliquin’s site after this one you will see that he shows a video of, no doubt, a CrossFitter doing medball cleans and he beefs about why she isn’t using a barbell.The truth of the matter is when a coach like Poliquin who has been around for some time and is no doubt a great coach takes time out of his busy life of training “International athletes” to bash CrossFit you know he feels like his toes are being stepped on by the popularity and success of the CrossFit program.One last thing about his mentioning of training Sam Baker an NFL player (more insecurity) it’s great to be able to bench a million pounds in the first quarter of a football game but any game I ever watched was won in the fourth quarter. My question is “Hey Sam!” “What’s your “Fran” time.”

  6. So much of the controversy and slack we’re getting from the heavy weights in the strength and conditioning world is so clearly based on a total misunderstanding of the CrossFit methodology. It blows my mind that these guys credit themselves on their depth of knowledge and experience then turn around and make broad generalizations on what seems like about half an hours worth of research on YouTube and CrossFit.com

    1. ScreeningOur screening is the ramp up Foundations period. More often than not major imbalanced are addressed by careful execution of the most fundamental exercises at low intensity. Many popular screens (The FMS comes to mind) are highly specialized themselves and offer limited meaningful information to the strength and conditioning specialist. To my experience, no other protocol offers as much valuable information as watching someone perform body weight squats, planks, push-ups dislocates and a handful of other rudimentary movements.

    2. Focus on a single training protocolOur speciality is not specializing, our sport is CrossFit. End of story. If you’re using CF to supplement a different sport then you can easily tailor the program to meet the metabolic demands of your endeavor but you will no longer be doing CF in the purest sense. Our ultimate goal is to develop work capacity along broad time and modal domains.

    3. Insufficient instruction.There are good and bad teachers in ever discipline imaginable. No one walks out of a Level 1 thinking they’re king shit of CrossFit. If anything it shows them how much they’ve got left to learn.

    4. Repetition BracketsThe classic argument that no one should be using the O-lifts for more than 3 reps. We Do use the clean to develop explosive power on ME days. We also use the clean as a metabolic tool which is not only is tremendously effective and practical, it also challenges our coordination, accuracy, balance and agility under fatigue. Dumbing down the movements for metcons dumbs down our neuromuscular abilities under duress.

    5. Exercise orderHis example of Linda’s exercise order becomes moot after 1-2 rounds. Mr. Poliquin’s argument that we’re muting the specific responses of the exercises is an unwarranted reduction of the workout as a whole. The SPECIFIC responses of the exercises are cultivated in isolation on ME days. Metcons prepare us for when the shit hit’s the fan.

    6. Controversial Exercises.Again, anyone with more than about a week’s worth of exposure to CrossFit knows that we’re not standing on Swissballs and jumping on cars. If you see someone standing on a swissball i suggest you pop it.

    All that being said, CrossFit is not perfect, nothing can be. It works for us and is an open model which continues to develop as more people begin to participate in it. If rugby and soccer competed with market share as much as CrossFit does, these guys would be waving their flags of protest in that direction too.

  7. Warm-up:10 Min Jump Rope- Best consecutive DUs= 22DROMS

    WOD: 15:55 as rx’dAbout a minute or so slower than last time. Kept the reps pretty steady. Burpees were mostly 6/6 and Pull-ups were mostly 6/3/3

    I like this Wod a lot.

  8. I usually don’t do the main site wod in case we do it the day after in class, but yesterday was like yeah what the hell, this looks like a fun one. cursed! 🙂

  10. So good to be back.

    15:38 with squat thrusts

    I have no idea why, but I got some serious pain in my right shoulder on the pushup part of the burpees. This has never happened before and came with no warning; I hope it goes away soon. The weird thing is that the last workout I did was 50 burpees, which felt fine, and I’ve been doing a lot of handstand pushups because I can all of a sudden. I did a hspu at home and the shoulder felt fine.

    I also strung together at least 10 double unders a few times today. I think my previous best was a few continuous rounds of one double and two singles. I might have gotten more if the lycem floor wasn’t ice cold. Time to invest in some chucks.

  12. For me this article is a piggyback of the very poorly written NY Times piece. These are writers who are looking for sensational sound bites to promote their own way of thinking.

    For me it boils down to two simple things.1. In any discipline, first find a great coach. Hey look! We got one!2. I remember the mantra that David said to me in my first class. “form before intensity”.This seems to get missed when “investigating” the “cult” of crossfit.

    I don’t pay much attention to these people. I have found someting which works for me and I feel good about it. And to Jeremy’s point – I am knocking on a year in and not one injury.Wish I could say that about baseball.

  13. i, on the other hand, didn’t like this wod. i think it was the overall state i was in/have been in.

    i’m going to give it another shot in a few weeks.

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