Showing posts with label crossfit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crossfit. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2015
Crossfit Strength Power Hybrid
For the first several months of Crossfit, I simply followed the workouts laid out on the Crossfit mainsite. After that, noticing slow progress on my squat & deadlift, I did a MEBB style routine for a few months. This included two days a week dedicated towards pure strength/power workouts and three days a week towards purely metcon. Although the MEBB routine worked pretty well, I felt that a more integrated approach would be even more effective. Inspired by the Gant Grimes Hybrid Program, the recently released Crossfit Strength Bias (CFSB) article and the Crossfit Football website, I present my Crossfit Strength/Power Hybrid. As the name implies, the goal is to tweak the standard Crossfit routine towards producing more strength & power without sacrificing any metcon abilities. This routine is heavily based on the aforementioned sources (ie, this is nothing new) and is very much in an experimental stage, but I felt that laying it out in this official manner would be a good way to organize myself.
The Routine
Each day consists of three components: a strength/power exercise, a metcon, and some skill work.
Sunday
Deadlift (1x5 or 1x3)
Metcon (20 min max)
Planche (tuck, 1 min total hold)
Monday
Rest day
Tuesday
Snatch (5x3 or 7x2 or 7x1)
Metcon (20 min max)
Pistols (3x5, each leg)
Wednesday
Squats (1x20) and OH Press (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3)
Metcon (10 min max)
Front or Back Lever (1 min total hold)
Thursday
Clean (5x3 or 7x2 or 7x1)
Metcon (20 min max)
L-sit (1 min total hold)
Friday
Rest day
Saturday
Squat (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3) and Bench Press (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3)
Metcon (10 min max)
Handstand (1 min total hold)
Notes
Each workout includes three main components (strength/power, metcon and skill) plus a warm-up (dynamic stretches) and a cool down (static stretches). The warm-up, cool down and skill work should take 10 minutes each. The strength/power and metcon components should generally take less than 20 minutes each, plus a 10 minute break in between. That adds up to 80 minutes total. If workouts are taking longer than this, something is wrong.
Strength/power workouts should typically use ascending sets instead of sets across. The goal is to hit a new PR (1RM, 2RM, 3RM, 5RM or 20RM) on the final set of each exercise each week. Its also a good idea to zig-zag rep schemes when you stall. For example, if you were doing a 3x5 on squats and got stuck, switch to a 5x3. When you get stuck again, try a 3x3. When you get stuck once more, go back to 3x5 and start the cycle all over again. Also, when doing strength/power workouts, its ok to do variations or similar exercises instead. For example, the power snatch and OH squat can be done instead of the full snatch and the power clean or clean & jerk can be done instead of the clean. The only exception to the zig zag rule and substitution rule is Wednesdays workout: 20 rep squats. These should always be done just as written: a single work set of 20 reps of back squats. Id suggest starting with a light weight the first week (not your 10RM as is sometimes recommended) and adding 5-10lbs every week after that. Itll get nightmarishly hard pretty quickly, but the benefits are huge.
Metcons should be kept short, always under ~20 minutes. A slightly longer workout once a week (especially right before a rest day) is ok. Although the Crossfit mainsite should still be the primary source of metcons, make frequent use of workouts from Crossfit Football and the Hybrid Program Heavy Metcons thread as they are typically shorter & heavier. Crossfit Football is especially useful as their workouts frequently include sprinting, something mainsite Crossfit oddly lacks.
The skill portion is primarily there to develop whatever skills you are weak in. In my case, these are primarily gymnastics moves, but almost anything you struggle with is fair game: double-unders, POSE technique, muscle-ups, extra o-lift practice, etc. If the skill work is actually holding back your fitness (ie, preventing you from doing workouts), you will want to move it before the metcon so you are fresh when doing it. For me, the gymnastics work is just for fun and non-essential, so I place it at the end.
Some Words on Recovery
The biggest challenge with this routine will be recovery. Doing so much heavy lifting on top of normal Crossfit workouts will seriously tax your body and push your CNS to its limits. Thats why the routine uses ascending sets (to keep volume low), is 5 days a week (rather than 3 on, 1 off), and why metcons need to be kept short. Moreover, getting sufficient sleep (8 hours minimum per night) and eating a good diet (plenty of calories and protein) are essential. Despite all that, if you are really pushing yourself, you are still likely to slowly see overtraining symptoms. To deal with these, Id suggest the following for reducing workout volume:
My Results Thus Far
Since starting this Strenth/Power hybrid in April (~4 months), Ive seen the following improvements:
Read more »
The Routine
Each day consists of three components: a strength/power exercise, a metcon, and some skill work.
Sunday
Deadlift (1x5 or 1x3)
Metcon (20 min max)
Planche (tuck, 1 min total hold)
Monday
Rest day
Tuesday
Snatch (5x3 or 7x2 or 7x1)
Metcon (20 min max)
Pistols (3x5, each leg)
Wednesday
Squats (1x20) and OH Press (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3)
Metcon (10 min max)
Front or Back Lever (1 min total hold)
Thursday
Clean (5x3 or 7x2 or 7x1)
Metcon (20 min max)
L-sit (1 min total hold)
Friday
Rest day
Saturday
Squat (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3) and Bench Press (3x5 or 5x3 or 3x3)
Metcon (10 min max)
Handstand (1 min total hold)
Notes
Each workout includes three main components (strength/power, metcon and skill) plus a warm-up (dynamic stretches) and a cool down (static stretches). The warm-up, cool down and skill work should take 10 minutes each. The strength/power and metcon components should generally take less than 20 minutes each, plus a 10 minute break in between. That adds up to 80 minutes total. If workouts are taking longer than this, something is wrong.
Strength/power workouts should typically use ascending sets instead of sets across. The goal is to hit a new PR (1RM, 2RM, 3RM, 5RM or 20RM) on the final set of each exercise each week. Its also a good idea to zig-zag rep schemes when you stall. For example, if you were doing a 3x5 on squats and got stuck, switch to a 5x3. When you get stuck again, try a 3x3. When you get stuck once more, go back to 3x5 and start the cycle all over again. Also, when doing strength/power workouts, its ok to do variations or similar exercises instead. For example, the power snatch and OH squat can be done instead of the full snatch and the power clean or clean & jerk can be done instead of the clean. The only exception to the zig zag rule and substitution rule is Wednesdays workout: 20 rep squats. These should always be done just as written: a single work set of 20 reps of back squats. Id suggest starting with a light weight the first week (not your 10RM as is sometimes recommended) and adding 5-10lbs every week after that. Itll get nightmarishly hard pretty quickly, but the benefits are huge.
Metcons should be kept short, always under ~20 minutes. A slightly longer workout once a week (especially right before a rest day) is ok. Although the Crossfit mainsite should still be the primary source of metcons, make frequent use of workouts from Crossfit Football and the Hybrid Program Heavy Metcons thread as they are typically shorter & heavier. Crossfit Football is especially useful as their workouts frequently include sprinting, something mainsite Crossfit oddly lacks.
The skill portion is primarily there to develop whatever skills you are weak in. In my case, these are primarily gymnastics moves, but almost anything you struggle with is fair game: double-unders, POSE technique, muscle-ups, extra o-lift practice, etc. If the skill work is actually holding back your fitness (ie, preventing you from doing workouts), you will want to move it before the metcon so you are fresh when doing it. For me, the gymnastics work is just for fun and non-essential, so I place it at the end.
Some Words on Recovery
The biggest challenge with this routine will be recovery. Doing so much heavy lifting on top of normal Crossfit workouts will seriously tax your body and push your CNS to its limits. Thats why the routine uses ascending sets (to keep volume low), is 5 days a week (rather than 3 on, 1 off), and why metcons need to be kept short. Moreover, getting sufficient sleep (8 hours minimum per night) and eating a good diet (plenty of calories and protein) are essential. Despite all that, if you are really pushing yourself, you are still likely to slowly see overtraining symptoms. To deal with these, Id suggest the following for reducing workout volume:
- If youre really fried after a metcon, its ok to skip the skill work: when youre that tired, you probably wont get much out of it anyway.
- In general, Ive found that the o-lifts (snatch, clean) and upper body power lifts (OH and bench press) dont impact my recovery too much. However, squats and especially deadlifts almost always do. Skipping 20 rep squats one week or deadlifts another week can go a surprisingly long way to helping you recover.
- Every 3-4 weeks, skip an entire workout and every 8-12 weeks, skip 2-3 workouts in a row. With a routine of this sort, youre often working right at the edge of overtraining, so when you come back from this extra rest, youll often find yourself a whole lot stronger.
My Results Thus Far
Since starting this Strenth/Power hybrid in April (~4 months), Ive seen the following improvements:
- Deadlift (5rm): +40lbs
- Squat (5rm): +30lbs
- Squat (20rm): +60lbs
- OH Press (3rm): +15lbs
- Bench Press (3rm): +10lbs
- Clean (1rm): +20lbs
- Snatch (1rm): +30lbs
Thursday, January 29, 2015
A Tribute to Crossfit
July 7, 2008, was the day I got my ass kicked by Murph. It was the day that I experienced a 42 minute beat down that left me lying in a pool of my own sweat with the world spinning all around me. Yup, July 7th was a good day.
"Murph" is the name of the first Crossfit (CF) workout I had ever done. It consists of:
For time:
What is Crossfit?
From the Crossfit website:
Crossfit is a program focused on developing "General Physical Preparedness" (GPP) - that is, its tailored towards improving fitness across the board. Rather than developing just strength (from a strength training routine), or just endurance (from jogging), or just speed (from sprinting), Crossfit aims to improve everything at once. The goal is to build proficiency in each of the 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy.
In this spirit, Crossfit workouts combine a little bit of everything: power lifting, olympic lifting, kettlebells, gymnastics, calisthenics, plyometrics, running, rowing, climbing, jumping and more. Each day, the Crossfit mainpage hosts a different Workout of the Day (WoD), and Crossfitters around the world do it, scaling the workout to their own abilities. It is the belief of Crossfit that following this routine produces the best all around athlete in the world, the motto being "Forging Elite Fitness". A Crossfitter might not beat a specialist in the specialists particular field, but hell do well nonetheless, and dominate the specialist in all other areas of fitness. For example, someone who only does long distance running might post a better 10K time than a Crossfitter, but not by a large margin. They will, however, perform far worse than the same Crossfitter when it comes to lifting heavy weights, sprinting, pull-ups and just about everything else.
Crossfit Workouts
Along with Murph, here are some other typical CF workouts:
"Elizabeth"
For time, 21-15-9 reps of:
Clean 135 pounds
Ring dips
"Fran"
For time, 21-15- and 9 reps of:
95 pound Thruster
Pull-ups
"Crossfit Total"
Back squat, 1 rep
Shoulder Press, 1 rep
Deadlift, 1 rep
"Griff"
For time:
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards
June 12
Seven rounds for time of:
10 One legged squats, alternating
12 Ring dips
15 Pull-ups
Looking at the list above, its important to understand that CF workouts consist of constantly varied, functional movements executed at high intensity. Every day is a different workout, and a given workout is unlikely to repeat more than once or twice per month. This is *not* the same old routine day in and day out at the gym and boredom is never an issue. Ive been doing Crossfit for 5 months now, and just about every time I go to do a workout, I feel like Im learning something new and fresh.
This might seem like a strange way to exercise, since repetition is typically needed for improvement, but you have to remember that while the workouts are constantly changing, the actual exercises used in the workouts are repeated quite often. From just the short list above, you can see, for example, that pull-ups are done both in Fran and in the June 12th workout. Running is done in both Murph and Griff. Squats are done in almost every workout: back squats in Crossfit Total, (squat) cleans in Elizabeth, the thrusters (front squat + push press) in Fran and the one legged squats on the June 12 workout. These movements are repeated again and again, but the actual workout changes the weight, reps, sets, etc. The result is that a Crossfitter gets damn good at doing just about any of these movements in almost any scenario.
Moreover, Crossfit exclusively focuses on functional movements - proficiency developed in these movements transfers extremely well to other applications. For example, the squat is so prevalent because it is the quintessential strength movement needed in the real world: a better squat helps you run faster, jump higher, lift heavy objects, and so on. Pull-ups appear very frequently because the ability to move your own body weight is essential in almost every sport and the grip strength developed is useful in almost any physical endevour. Moreover, proficiency at one functional movement often transfers to another: a good squat, for example, often produces a good deadlift. A good clean often helps produce a good box jump. The advantage here is that we can get better at a wide variety of exercises without having to spend a huge amount of time doing each individual one.
The movements done in Crossfit intentionally do NOT include a number of exercises seen in other workout routines: in particular, there are no isolation exercises (bicep curls, tricep extensions, etc) and no machines (leg press, smith rack, etc) of any kind. Why? For one thing, they are simply not as effective: compound exercises that involve multiple muscles & joints tend to produce much more rapid increases in strength than isolation exercises. Moreover, machines do not allow you to develop strength in the same way youd use it in the real world. In particular, the balance and coordination needed to do a free weight exercise, such as the balance needed for squatting with a heavy weight on your back, is just as important as the actual strength. You can build some of that strength using a leg press machine, but it wont develop the same levels of balance & coordination, and therefore wont transfer to the real world or other exercises. Finally, machines and isolation exercises often lead to injuries. By separating the body into various parts, they make it possible to develop muscles in a very unbalanced manner. For example, the quadriceps and hamstrings pull on the knee joint in different directions and should be balanced in a healthy knee. If one gets much stronger than the other - which could happen from lots of leg press, which over-emphasizes the quads - the result is often knee injuries.
Finally, Crossfit is all about intensity. What most gym goers dont seem to understand is the concept of specific adaptation. Heres a great example from Starting Strength: imagine that every single day, you spend exactly 10 minutes outside in the sun. The question is, would you be more tan if you did this for two months than if you did it for just one month? Most people assume you would. The reality, however, is that your tan will basically be exactly the same. Tanning is your body adapting to the stress of the sun trying to damage your skin. The amount of tanning depends on - is specific to - the maximum stress your skin encounters. Since this amount is exactly 10 minutes each day, once the initial tan is established, which probably takes just a few days, your body will NOT tan any further - otherwise, wouldnt we all gradually end up extremely tan after a few years of life on earth? The only way to become more tan is to spend more than 10 minutes in the sun, which produces greater stress and consequently, a greater adaptation.
Well, the same principle applies to exercise. "Moderate exercise", by its very nature, can only produce moderate results. If you want to run faster, jump higher, lift more weight and see more abs, you have to dial up the intensity, which is exactly what Crossfit does. As you may have noticed, many CF workouts are "for time", which means the workout should be completed in as little time as possible. Next time the workout repeats, you should be trying to do it still faster. The result is that you waste no time waiting around, minimize rest periods and are pushing your body to its absolute limits. I cannot overstate how those two little words, "for time", can change a workout. Alternatively, some workouts set a fixed time but tell you to do "as many rounds as possible" of some workout during that time: e.g. as many rounds as possible of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats in 20 minutes.
Does the Average Person Really Need "Elite Fitness"?
Let me come out and say it immediately: Crossfit is not for everyone. It is physically and mentally far more gruelling than any exercise I have ever done, and as I have a long history of doing all sorts of exercise, that means a lot. Moreover, Crossfit is not without its dangers. As the "What is Crossfit" page explains:
However, having said that, Crossfit has been the single most rewarding and effective exercise program I have ever done. Period. I have seen incredibly rapid improvements in my fitness across the board (see below) and Ive accomplished things I never thought Id be able to do. I cringe at the hours I wasted before I found Crossfit and cant imagine doing anything else now.
Its worth pointing out that while not everyone should do Crossfit, everyone can. Most people that see the workouts become intimidated and figure you need to already be an elite athlete just to start. This is not true, at all. Again, from "What is CrossFit?":
Every single Crossfit workout, by design, can - and for beginners, should - be scaled to anyones ability. In fact, the BrandX messageboard lists scaled versions of every single WoD. For example, consider this workout:
"Nasty Girls"
3 rounds for time of:
50 Squats
7 Muscle-ups
135 pound Hang power cleans, 10 reps
There are a number of scaled versions of this workout: for example, if you cant do a muscle-up, you could try jumping muscle-ups. Cant do those either? Do pull-ups and dips. Still no? Do assisted pull-ups and dips. Not ready for that? Try push-ups and body rows. In a similar manner, every part of this workout, and any workout, can be scaled down. As you do Crossfit and your fitness improves, youll slowly be able to scale back up to the original workout until you finally reach the point where you can do them exactly as written, aka "as Rxd".
Not sure how to do an exercise? Youve got tons of options:
Need more inspiration? Just about every WoD in the archive comes with a video and some of them have to be seen to be believed. Some of my favorites include 14 year old Kallista competing with adults in the Crossfit Games, Fran in full firefighter gear, "Turkish Get-Up with Wife", the "Everymans Gymnastics", the "one armed Grace", "King Kong", the burpee muscle-up, and bodyweight overhead squat for 15 reps by Nicole.
My Results
Since I started Crossfit back on July 7, Ive seen enormous improvements in every aspect of my fitness. Ive used the Anandtech message boards to keep a workout journal and am amazed at the progress Ive made in just 5 months. For example, Ive learned how to do a whole ton of new exercises:
Of course, Crossfit itself is by no means perfect, but its damn close. Let me put it this way: my endurance is through the roof, Im stronger, faster, and feel more in shape than Ive ever been in my life. Sweet.
Read more »
"Murph" is the name of the first Crossfit (CF) workout I had ever done. It consists of:
For time:
- 1 mile Run
- 100 Pull-ups
- 200 Push-ups
- 300 Squats
- 1 mile Run
- Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run.
What is Crossfit?
From the Crossfit website:
CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.
Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.
Crossfit is a program focused on developing "General Physical Preparedness" (GPP) - that is, its tailored towards improving fitness across the board. Rather than developing just strength (from a strength training routine), or just endurance (from jogging), or just speed (from sprinting), Crossfit aims to improve everything at once. The goal is to build proficiency in each of the 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy.
In this spirit, Crossfit workouts combine a little bit of everything: power lifting, olympic lifting, kettlebells, gymnastics, calisthenics, plyometrics, running, rowing, climbing, jumping and more. Each day, the Crossfit mainpage hosts a different Workout of the Day (WoD), and Crossfitters around the world do it, scaling the workout to their own abilities. It is the belief of Crossfit that following this routine produces the best all around athlete in the world, the motto being "Forging Elite Fitness". A Crossfitter might not beat a specialist in the specialists particular field, but hell do well nonetheless, and dominate the specialist in all other areas of fitness. For example, someone who only does long distance running might post a better 10K time than a Crossfitter, but not by a large margin. They will, however, perform far worse than the same Crossfitter when it comes to lifting heavy weights, sprinting, pull-ups and just about everything else.
Crossfit Workouts
Along with Murph, here are some other typical CF workouts:
"Elizabeth"
For time, 21-15-9 reps of:
Clean 135 pounds
Ring dips
"Fran"
For time, 21-15- and 9 reps of:
95 pound Thruster
Pull-ups
"Crossfit Total"
Back squat, 1 rep
Shoulder Press, 1 rep
Deadlift, 1 rep
"Griff"
For time:
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards
Run 800 meters
Run 400 meters backwards
June 12
Seven rounds for time of:
10 One legged squats, alternating
12 Ring dips
15 Pull-ups
Looking at the list above, its important to understand that CF workouts consist of constantly varied, functional movements executed at high intensity. Every day is a different workout, and a given workout is unlikely to repeat more than once or twice per month. This is *not* the same old routine day in and day out at the gym and boredom is never an issue. Ive been doing Crossfit for 5 months now, and just about every time I go to do a workout, I feel like Im learning something new and fresh.
This might seem like a strange way to exercise, since repetition is typically needed for improvement, but you have to remember that while the workouts are constantly changing, the actual exercises used in the workouts are repeated quite often. From just the short list above, you can see, for example, that pull-ups are done both in Fran and in the June 12th workout. Running is done in both Murph and Griff. Squats are done in almost every workout: back squats in Crossfit Total, (squat) cleans in Elizabeth, the thrusters (front squat + push press) in Fran and the one legged squats on the June 12 workout. These movements are repeated again and again, but the actual workout changes the weight, reps, sets, etc. The result is that a Crossfitter gets damn good at doing just about any of these movements in almost any scenario.
Moreover, Crossfit exclusively focuses on functional movements - proficiency developed in these movements transfers extremely well to other applications. For example, the squat is so prevalent because it is the quintessential strength movement needed in the real world: a better squat helps you run faster, jump higher, lift heavy objects, and so on. Pull-ups appear very frequently because the ability to move your own body weight is essential in almost every sport and the grip strength developed is useful in almost any physical endevour. Moreover, proficiency at one functional movement often transfers to another: a good squat, for example, often produces a good deadlift. A good clean often helps produce a good box jump. The advantage here is that we can get better at a wide variety of exercises without having to spend a huge amount of time doing each individual one.
The movements done in Crossfit intentionally do NOT include a number of exercises seen in other workout routines: in particular, there are no isolation exercises (bicep curls, tricep extensions, etc) and no machines (leg press, smith rack, etc) of any kind. Why? For one thing, they are simply not as effective: compound exercises that involve multiple muscles & joints tend to produce much more rapid increases in strength than isolation exercises. Moreover, machines do not allow you to develop strength in the same way youd use it in the real world. In particular, the balance and coordination needed to do a free weight exercise, such as the balance needed for squatting with a heavy weight on your back, is just as important as the actual strength. You can build some of that strength using a leg press machine, but it wont develop the same levels of balance & coordination, and therefore wont transfer to the real world or other exercises. Finally, machines and isolation exercises often lead to injuries. By separating the body into various parts, they make it possible to develop muscles in a very unbalanced manner. For example, the quadriceps and hamstrings pull on the knee joint in different directions and should be balanced in a healthy knee. If one gets much stronger than the other - which could happen from lots of leg press, which over-emphasizes the quads - the result is often knee injuries.
Finally, Crossfit is all about intensity. What most gym goers dont seem to understand is the concept of specific adaptation. Heres a great example from Starting Strength: imagine that every single day, you spend exactly 10 minutes outside in the sun. The question is, would you be more tan if you did this for two months than if you did it for just one month? Most people assume you would. The reality, however, is that your tan will basically be exactly the same. Tanning is your body adapting to the stress of the sun trying to damage your skin. The amount of tanning depends on - is specific to - the maximum stress your skin encounters. Since this amount is exactly 10 minutes each day, once the initial tan is established, which probably takes just a few days, your body will NOT tan any further - otherwise, wouldnt we all gradually end up extremely tan after a few years of life on earth? The only way to become more tan is to spend more than 10 minutes in the sun, which produces greater stress and consequently, a greater adaptation.
Well, the same principle applies to exercise. "Moderate exercise", by its very nature, can only produce moderate results. If you want to run faster, jump higher, lift more weight and see more abs, you have to dial up the intensity, which is exactly what Crossfit does. As you may have noticed, many CF workouts are "for time", which means the workout should be completed in as little time as possible. Next time the workout repeats, you should be trying to do it still faster. The result is that you waste no time waiting around, minimize rest periods and are pushing your body to its absolute limits. I cannot overstate how those two little words, "for time", can change a workout. Alternatively, some workouts set a fixed time but tell you to do "as many rounds as possible" of some workout during that time: e.g. as many rounds as possible of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats in 20 minutes.
Does the Average Person Really Need "Elite Fitness"?
Let me come out and say it immediately: Crossfit is not for everyone. It is physically and mentally far more gruelling than any exercise I have ever done, and as I have a long history of doing all sorts of exercise, that means a lot. Moreover, Crossfit is not without its dangers. As the "What is Crossfit" page explains:
In any case it must be understood that the CrossFit workouts are extremely demanding and will tax the capacities of even the worlds best athletes. You would be well advised to take on the WOD carefully, cautiously, and work first towards completing the workouts comfortably and consistently before "throwing" yourself at them 100%. The best results have come for those whove "gone through the motions" of the WOD by reducing recommended loads, reps, and sets while not endeavoring towards impressive times for a month before turning up the heat. We counsel you to establish consistency with the WOD before maximizing intensity.
However, having said that, Crossfit has been the single most rewarding and effective exercise program I have ever done. Period. I have seen incredibly rapid improvements in my fitness across the board (see below) and Ive accomplished things I never thought Id be able to do. I cringe at the hours I wasted before I found Crossfit and cant imagine doing anything else now.
Its worth pointing out that while not everyone should do Crossfit, everyone can. Most people that see the workouts become intimidated and figure you need to already be an elite athlete just to start. This is not true, at all. Again, from "What is CrossFit?":
We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs. The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind.
Every single Crossfit workout, by design, can - and for beginners, should - be scaled to anyones ability. In fact, the BrandX messageboard lists scaled versions of every single WoD. For example, consider this workout:
"Nasty Girls"
3 rounds for time of:
50 Squats
7 Muscle-ups
135 pound Hang power cleans, 10 reps
There are a number of scaled versions of this workout: for example, if you cant do a muscle-up, you could try jumping muscle-ups. Cant do those either? Do pull-ups and dips. Still no? Do assisted pull-ups and dips. Not ready for that? Try push-ups and body rows. In a similar manner, every part of this workout, and any workout, can be scaled down. As you do Crossfit and your fitness improves, youll slowly be able to scale back up to the original workout until you finally reach the point where you can do them exactly as written, aka "as Rxd".
Not sure how to do an exercise? Youve got tons of options:
- Check out the Crossfit Exercises Page for tons of instructional videos.
- Post a question on the Crossfit Message Boards - the Crossfit community is very enthusiastic, helpful and a wonderful resource.
- Pick up a copy of Starting Strength
- Hell, ask me.
Need more inspiration? Just about every WoD in the archive comes with a video and some of them have to be seen to be believed. Some of my favorites include 14 year old Kallista competing with adults in the Crossfit Games, Fran in full firefighter gear, "Turkish Get-Up with Wife", the "Everymans Gymnastics", the "one armed Grace", "King Kong", the burpee muscle-up, and bodyweight overhead squat for 15 reps by Nicole.
My Results
Since I started Crossfit back on July 7, Ive seen enormous improvements in every aspect of my fitness. Ive used the Anandtech message boards to keep a workout journal and am amazed at the progress Ive made in just 5 months. For example, Ive learned how to do a whole ton of new exercises:
- Kipping pull-ups, clapping pull-ups, and L pull-ups
- Muscle-ups on a pull-up bar and on rings
- Handstand push-ups
- L-sits on the floor and on rings
- Tuck planche for ~15 seconds
- Single-legged squats
- Back lever on rings
- Double-unders
- Clean and Jerk
- Snatch
- Ran a 10K and a 15K
- Deadlifted 415lbs at a bodyweight of 185lbs (Ive lost 43lbs since April, but thats a story for another post)
- Cleaned 245lbs
- Completed the "Filthy Fifty" in 28:00
- Won a competition at work by posting the fastest time for the "300 workout" (its one of the workouts done by the guys in the move "The 300") in 17:01
- "Fran" in 5:58
- Weighted pull-up with BW + 125lbs
Of course, Crossfit itself is by no means perfect, but its damn close. Let me put it this way: my endurance is through the roof, Im stronger, faster, and feel more in shape than Ive ever been in my life. Sweet.
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