Crossfit
gyms are springing up everywhere. Their growing popularity has even
spawned an ESPN show "Crossfit Games," which displays gifted, attractive
athletes competing in intense competitions. Unsurprisingly, I’ve
received numerous emails, texts and questions about the new craze. After
studying Crossfit, listening to CF podcasts, watching videos, and
talking to former and current participants, I’ve formed my educated
conclusion: Crossfit is too risky and too inefficient.
In
an exercise program, one main goal should be enhancing movement
capabilities. The better your movement, the more functional you become
in sports and everyday life. You reduce your chance of injury, increase
your range of motion, increase your strength and become more athletic. Crossfit
doesn’t promote these traits. Crossfit promotes ass-kicking workouts
that get you sore, burn calories, and might make you fit in your
swimsuit better—but it’s not worth a lifelong dysfunctional shoulder,
back or hip.
Crossfit’s
too risky for a serious athlete, someone with an old injury, and anyone
over 35 years old. CF’s random routine can exacerbate an injury or
eventually cause a new one. There’s no progressive plan of action. Each
workout is tailored to that day, without an overall fitness plan and
long-term strategy in place. Today’s workout of the day (WOD) won’t help
you next week. There’s no deep concentration on initial assessments,
warm-up strategies, corrective exercise, and functional training.
Crossfit
coaches provide little help. While some are pretty knowledgeable, very
few actually have a broad understanding of biomechanics and human
movement. Few coaches can teach clients about health or technique, and
CF routines rarely employ proper workout progression. Additionally,
coaches’ weekend certification process only provides the bare essentials
to train people—they’re mostly “certified” to run clients through the
WODs.
There are smarter ways to reach your goal.
Looking
at recent WODs, I see high repetition workouts combining too many
pull-ups with excessive amounts of jumps, dead lifts, and risky cleans
and lifts—often with the goal of completing as many rounds as possible
in 20 minutes. I’m already warming my X-ray machine up for the
dislocated shoulders and thrown hips that will wind up in my office.
This
routine may look intense and even fun to non-educated enthusiasts, but
to the educated eye, this is a terribly designed program suffering from
poor structure that neglects the functional elements good programs
implement.
Some
Crossfit exercises are unnecessarily risky, and can lead to serious
injury due to improper form. One suspect exercise is the “Kipping"
pull-up, where you kick your legs up before pulling yourself up to the
bar. It’s a sure-fire way to ruin your gleno-humeral joint and wind up
with a bum shoulder due to excessive friction, especially when done in
high repetitions. CF trainers claim kipping pull-ups are great for
explosiveness and power—they’re not!—and fail to mention the risk of
injury from such a ballistic motion. Any other pull-up variation is much
tougher and much more effective.
Another high-risk movement is the Olympic lift, which is actually a decent exercise when performed correctly.
Unfortunately, bad form is very common, so beginners shouldn’t attempt
it. For most people, the full range of motion required to perform this
exercise properly is difficult or near-impossible to achieve, especially
since many have restrictions in their knees, hips, lower back, and
shoulders.
Additionally,
Crossfit Endurance provides a very poor selection of strength work for
endurance athletes, who should be focusing on clean and functional
movements that will enhance balance, symmetry, stability and
bio-mechanical movement in their specific sports. They already risk
overtraining and CF’s high repetition workouts only exacerbate their
muscles.
I
won’t be surprised if the Crossfit craze fades in five years and people
return to smarter, more functional methods. I advise any CF current
members, or anyone interested in CF, to take a step back and think about
the long haul of training. Performing a Crossfit workout once a week to
help with metabolism or add some variety to your routine won’t hurt
you, but doing it everyday will eventually hurt you—it may take days,
may take months, but your chances of injury go through the roof with
erratic exercise selection. You don’t want chronic pain to affect you
and your lifestyle. A workout should leave you feeling better, opened up
and your functional movement has been increased. Not sore and burdened
with chronic pain.
Remember:
Hard training doesn't mean smart training. Anyone can throw together a
series of exercises and make someone sweat. It’s harder to develop a
progressive program that actually helps athletes achieve their goals.
Smart, consistent and functional training will improve your life and
your performance and keep you injury free.
Stay healthy LA
Robert Pomahac, D.C.
Clinic Owner and Head Chiropractor
Clinic Owner and Head Chiropractor
