CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

by gms • 13 years ago

356 209 13 years ago

rangibaby• 13 years ago

When I first started doing weights, my father and his brother both drilled one piece of advice into my head: training too much is worse than not training at all. After reading this article, I'm grateful for it!

joyeuse6701• 13 years ago

So very true.

dkarl8• 13 years ago

Overtraining is a phenomenon that is universally recognized from from football to marathon running to bodybuilding to gymnastics. Crossfit's stated philosophy is about developing fitness to support one's enjoyment of life, but like competitive sports, they fetishize results. Everything is measured and counted, and they encourage people to record and track their progress. Some people miss the point and end up fetishizing pain and effort instead, but to do that they have to overlook both the stated philosophy and the day-to-day focus on improvement.

Fourplealis• 13 years ago

Yes any overtraining can be dangerous, there was an article about how one guy running startup got rhabdo while doing p90x: http://collegespun.com/features/how-the-stress-of-running-a-...

nicholassmith• 13 years ago

My uncles gave the same advice, if you overtrain you're not helping your development but increasing your recovery time.

moccajoghurt• 13 years ago

It should be mentioned that it normally only occurs when well trained people stop working out for a couple of weeks and then get into it again at full speed.

If you are used to working out hard, you won't get rhabdomyolysis.

So if you're pretty fit but stopped working out for a while, get into it with moderation!

To everyone else: don't be scared of rhabdomyolysis and work out!

kiba• 13 years ago

Well, that's nice and all. But how fit people and everyone else are supposed to remember that?

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

Well, there you have it folks - the story in the article is obviously the fault of the very fit physical therapist having no idea and just carelessly blowing up her own arms. Can't possibly happen to you!

MortenK• 13 years ago

To everyone else: Work out, but listen to your body rather than some guy on the internet.

glimmung• 13 years ago

Since the article is not about working out in general but CrossFit specifically, and not about restarting exercise after a break, and particularly since the takeaway of the article is that it is hard to recognise this syndrome, I'll take that with a pinch of salt - best not to be complacent.

I agree re. working out in general - but this is about something more specific.

pcorsaro• 13 years ago

I hate reading articles like this because it's trying to tell you that CrossFit culture is all about pushing yourself until you've practically killed yourself doing all sorts of crazy and whacky weight lifting. 99% of the time, the problem isn't CrossFit, it's the coaches. If you're at a good gym (or box as it's called), the coaches know how to scale workouts for the athletes so they won't get hurt, and they're programming workouts so that people aren't killing themselves constantly.

Where CrossFit is to blame is its low barrier to entry to becoming a coach/affiliate owner. All you need is a weekend of your time, $1000, a passing score on a super simple test, and you get to call yourself an "L1 CrossFit Trainer." They don't advise you to immediately go start training people, but there are plenty of boxes that will let you jump in and start coaching classes. It's gotten so popular now that there are bad affiliates popping up out there that have horrible programming that hurt people, and then articles like this get written, and then everyone thinks that's all CrossFit is.

When you take the L1 CrossFit Trainer course, they have a whole section about "Uncle Rhabdo." It's a very rare thing that occurs when you do a whole lot of isometric exercises (like strict pull ups where you come down real slow) when you're not used to them. It's not a rabid thing that is 100% going to happen if you do CrossFit.

abuehrle2• 13 years ago

Well put. Evaluating "CrossFit" is difficult by design---HQ wants boxes to be almost completely autonomous. The best statement of CrossFit's philosophy is Greg Glassman's "World-Class Fitness in 100 Words"[1]. There's nothing there about doing lots of poor quality reps as quickly as possible.

I began my CrossFit career at San Francisco CrossFit and thought it was the best thing ever. Part of each session focused on mobility. Bad reps were not tolerated. It was like a daily seminar on how to maintain, tune, and fix the human machine. The skills I learned will benefit me greatly as I age.

Then I had to move, and I saw the dark side of CrossFit. Inept trainers with poor attitudes, encouraging speed and weight with no concern for proper body mechanics. I work out on my own now, practicing skills I learned at SFCF.

Bottom line: it's the box that matters.

[1] "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports. " -- http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/start-how.html

sangu1s• 13 years ago

Part of each session focused on mobility.

I'd hope so at SFCF. You ever get to work with KStar? Jealous.

callmeed• 13 years ago

This article seems a little sensationalist. Just because a journal had an article about it with a cartoon attached doesn't mean they've adopted as a "mascot" or make light of the condition.

My wife has been doing crossfit full-force for almost a year (including some competitions [1]). Along with previous standard workouts and diet changes, she's lost 60+ lbs over the past 2 years. And she's getting pretty buff.

She's never heard of rhabdomyolysis.

Every exercise/activity has some risks. If anything, I'd say crossfit puts you at risk for other injuries (back, joints, heat exhaustion at competitions, etc.).

[1] My wife at a recent competition. A male competitor here fainted and had to go to the ER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQ8ZDSmg70

Dewie• 13 years ago

Competing is one thing - in that kind of game, winning is often more important than health. But if you just want to get fit, an unfaltering belief in no pain no gain seems to be less than beneficial.

Every exercise/activity has some risks. If anything, I'd say crossfit puts you at risk for other injuries (back, joints, heat exhaustion at competitions, etc.).

One of the benefits of team sports (the few that I like to play, anyway) to me is that they are fun. One of the downsides is that, since you're engaging in a dynamic environment with other people, injury is more likely. What's great about lifting weights is that, with proper precautions, the chance of injury is very small. It's just you and the weights. Just your own form. The most advanced and ballistic move might be an olympic lift, but you don't need to get involved with those. Personally, I'm not willing to take up a solo exercise routine where the culture is so hardcore/idiotic that I am at risk of permanently damaging myself through sheer force of will, without even having any playing objects or tackling opponents involved.

scott_s4• 13 years ago

I lift regularly, with a focus on powerlifting. I would not say that the risk of injury is "very small."

dkarl8• 13 years ago

Just because a journal had an article about it with a cartoon attached doesn't mean they've adopted as a "mascot" or make light of the condition.

Unfortunately, that part is real. There were two unofficial mascots, Pukey the Clown and Rhabdo the Clown. If you puked during class, you "met one of the clowns." The clowns were celebrated on t-shirts, murals, etc. That was dumb, but it was eventually recognized as dumb, and it was stopped. Of course it provided grist for the first round of "Crossfit exposé" coverage, which has consistently attempted to portray Crossfit as a cult in which people uncritically worship ideas that are obviously problematic to anyone who hasn't been brainwashed.

There's a little bit of truth to that, in that many of the coaches are enthusiastic, rah-rah cheerleader types who don't take a critical approach to much of anything. However -- and this is a BIG however -- that is true of every approach to physical fitness I've ever been exposed to. Like other types of training, Crossfit has its share of smart and critical people as well, and they do their best to improve the practice of Crossfit and identify and fix problems.

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

Like other types of training, Crossfit has its share of smart and critical people as well, and they do their best to improve the practice of Crossfit and identify and fix problems.

The problem is that none of these people work at Crossfit HQ and CFHQ goes out its way to excommunicate them.

DenisM• 13 years ago

There are people who smoked their white lives and never got cancer. I hope you see my point.

dkarl8• 13 years ago

Rehash from five years ago? Doesn't this guy know that the new scandal is high-rep box jumps?

The "dirty secret" of Crossfit is that they don't do much to actively ensure the quality of local affiliates, and therefore the brand doesn't always mean much. My personal experiences have all been great, and my coaches have always been extremely safety-conscious, but in light of the nasty things I read on the internet, I wouldn't encourage anyone to blindly trust whatever local Crossfit affiliate happens to pop up down the block. Rather than thinking of Crossfit as a guarantee of a certain standard of quality, think of it as an approach to fitness that is interpreted in various ways by coaches of varying competence.

Also keep in mind that the coach can't always see when you need to ease up or stop. Sometimes they can, but they can only see what is apparent on the outside; they can't feel what you feel.

adamnemecek2• 13 years ago

Re: Quality assurance, this was on reddit couple days ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8up6A4QesU

kareemm2• 13 years ago

Interestingly enough this video was posted to the FB group of the CrossFit gym I go to... a gym I chose because of the quality of programming and emphasis on technique and mobility. There's no bravado there.

Here was one coach's response:

"Haha, this video is infamous! It's the "proof" that critics of CrossFit use to try and show that the entire sport is dangerous and that we don't know what we're doing. There are definitely examples in the video of athletes losing their midline, and going heavier than they safely should, but the point that is completely overlooked is that these athletes are trying classic strongman lifts for probably the very first time. The lift they're practicing is called the continental clean and, believe it or not, they're doing it more right than wrong. It's an awkward lift that's used for cleaning axle bars that are too fat to grip and clean conventionally. Anyone trying that for the first time will look similarly awkward. It's part of learning something new. Whoever originally shot and posted this video never meant for it to be taken as a typical crossfit class full of elite athletes. It's just a video of a group of people who aren't afraid to try something new, regardless of where are on the learning curve they had to start."

dkarl8• 13 years ago

Yep, that's a pretty nasty example. I guess I got lucky; I originally joined Crossfit for the sole reason of learning the Olympic lifts, because they were the only local gym that had bumper plates. Not only did I get good instruction on the Olympic lifts, but I improved my deadlift and squat PRs considerably in the very first month because of corrections my coach made in my form.

The coaches I've had have often been gung ho, yelling "GO GO GO" and "DON'T STOP WORKING" at us, but they also made me take plates off the bar when my form slipped. I can see how the first thing without the second could be dangerous.

HudsonMauer• 13 years ago

This isn't actually a Crossfit move per se, it's a strongman move called a "Continental Clean" or "Axle Clean/Jerk". The form still isn't great, but I just wanted to point out this isn't a power clean and jerk.

Edit: I missed that someone else posted this below, but thought it deserved it's own easily seen distinction.

oostevo2• 13 years ago

Not ensuring affiliate quality isn't really a dirty secret. They're pretty open about it.

From conversations I've had with higher-ups at Crossfit Headquarters, they're _terrified_ of a court finding them to have a franchise model, because that would open them up to all sorts of liability each time one of their affiliates does something dumb.

Per their legal interpretation, they become a franchisor if they do things like ensure quality or consistency.

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't comment on the soundness of their legal reasoning, but the negative effects for the clients are pretty obvious.

stevenwei• 13 years ago

Wait, they're not a franchise model? What is required for someone to open up a gym using the Crossfit name?

foobarqux2• 13 years ago

Doesn't this guy know that the new scandal is high-rep box jumps?

Are gymnastic ring muscle ups coming soon?

dkarl8• 13 years ago

I've always though push-ups would be the next thing. People can do them without a solid fitness base, the low effort means they usually have a high rep count attached to them, and a lot of people don't know how easy it is to do them wrong. The thing about muscle-ups is that most people can't do them without a little bit of coaching, so by the time they're doing them for reps, they know how to do them right.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

Wow, I thought they were kidding about the clown cartoon, but no: (pdf) http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/38_05_cf_rhabdo.pdf

chris_wot• 13 years ago

Not to mention the highly casual way the talk about the condition and how they caused it!

Someone needs to sue them. For a lot of money. Maybe they'll get it through their thick skulls that it's not cool, or funny.

iopq• 13 years ago

Oh really? Overexertion is bad? Tell me more!

There are a ton of things wrong with crossfit like their insistence of doing skill lifts for time. But training too much? That's actually your choice.

raverbashing2• 13 years ago

"Any" exercise done in excess can trigger this. I suppose Crossfit's characteristics make it easier for it to happen

"You’re supposed to push yourself to the limit, but when you hit the limit and pay the price, you’re the idiot who went too far." Isn't it? There are several "coaches" that only know how to push people but have no regards for personal limits

Diet can also cause rhabdomyolysis http://www.ergo-log.com/vegerhabdo.html (in this case, because of lack of protein - not necessarily because of vegetarianism)

xjtian• 13 years ago

The vast majority of Crossfitters are not at a level of physical fitness and mental toughness that would put them at risk of rhabdo after a WOD. They'd throw in the towel long before "meeting Uncle Rhabdo" under most normal circumstances.

However, certain external factors can affect the risk - high humidity, heat, improper hydration, and poor nutrition can significantly increase the chance of catching rhabdo from a workout. It sounds like the subject of this post got caught up in the competitiveness of the workout, turned a deaf ear to what her body was telling her that day, and paid the price for it. It's a mistake that many inexperienced athletes make when thrust into a competitive setting, and most of the time only ends with "meeting Pukey" or some really bad DOMS the next morning, but the specifics of this circumstance (pushup-overhead couplet sounds like a stupidly dangerous WOD, plus a "warm Texas evening") lead to a significantly worse outcome.

debacle• 13 years ago

Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure when it comes to physical activities. It's one of the main draws of Crossfit, and probably the strongest force for these people when they push themselves too far.

When you're working out with someone who you barely know, or may have just met, who doesn't know what to expect and doesn't know their own limits, and is trying to keep up with everyone around them, you have a recipe for someone pushing themselves too far to a dangerous extent, whether the outcome is rhabdo, a tear, or some other injury. Most desk jockies (myself included sometimes) don't take the proper care that you need when you try and start moving a body that sits idle for 8-10 hours a day.

Whitespace6• 13 years ago

TL;DR: I got rhabdo from crossfit last year. My CPK was 100,000 and I spent 5 days in the hospital. I wasn't overweight but I wasn't fit when I got it, and I got it during the first day of a beginner course.

Ask me anything.

==============================

I did crossfit for a couple of months in 2010 and loved it, but I had to stop since I moved to a new apartment and the gym times wouldn't work with the longer commute. I always wanted to go back, so in June 2012 I started up again, taking the two-week beginner course (I wasn't in the best shape and I wanted to ease into it).

During the first day back, we went through a lot of basic movements and listened to the instructor talk about what crossfit was like. In the hour-long class, we spent the last ten minutes talking about rhabdomyolysis; what it is, the symptoms, the danger, common ways to get it, etc.

The workout of the day was tabata squats (20 seconds of as many BW reps, then 10 seconds of rest, repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes and 2:40 of exercising), tabata pushups, and tabata situps.

The squats were the one that got me.

The next morning, I couldn't walk, but that was expected since it was my first day back. I pushed myself quite hard (knowing what crossfit was like), but I wasn't competing with the people in my class, I was competing with myself. I took it easy and rested.

The day after that, I couldn't really bend my legs because of the extreme soreness, and walking down the stairs was neigh impossible. It took a while, but I took the subway to the office where there's a gym with a stationary bike, as slow biking was the only thing that would ease the soreness in my quads.

After 6 hours at work, periodically biking and reading online, I noticed my urine was coca-cola colored, and that it was the telltale sign of rhabdo. I knew that because the crossfit instructor drilled it into my head two days earlier.

I looked online for a hospital that my insurance covered, took a cab, checked myself in saying I had rhabdo, and I began a 5-day stay where I received lots of saline solution (1000ml 6x a day, IIRC) to help flush the myoglobin out of my body. Luckily for me, the hospital saw a lot of cases of rhabdo from not crossfit members, but prisoners. They have little else to do than workout extremely hard, and the hospital saw dozens of prisoners a year.

My creatine kinase was almost 100,000 (excess myoglobin is the problem, but high creatine kinase is a proxy for high myoglobin, and CPK levels are commonly checked). TFA is right in that the normal is < 100. IIRC, the doctors estimated I dissolved 5 lbs of muscle tissue into my bloodstream to get a CPK that high. I was bored in the hospital so I charted my CPK to determine when they'd release me: http://imgur.com/18HYKNr

==============================

Many tests afterwards showed my kidneys are fine, and I haven't noticed (or read about) what the TFA describes as "flabbiness" or some sort of water retention in my legs. I also haven't noticed that my legs are weak; on the contrary, after lots of biking over bridges my legs are stronger than my squat days (at least when it comes to endurance, not power).

TFA is being a bit sensationalist and anecdotal about rhabdo being crossfit's "dirty little secret." To add another anecdote into the fire, everyone I know that does crossfit knows what rhabdo is, and rhabdo is mentioned in beginner classes multiple times; not only what it is, but the symptoms, what to do when you get it, and how, if left untreated, myoglobinuria can lead to acute renal failure and death.

I haven't been to crossfit in over a year, but TBH I'm itching to go back. I'm the kind of personality that will really push myself hard – probably harder than most – but now I know a little better and will hold back a tiny bit, especially when doing high reps of low weight.

==============================

Update: My first crossfit experience was at Crossfit Virtuosity in Brooklyn, NY and I got rhabdo at The Black Box in NYC.

Also, my memory isn't so great as I thought. I took the class on a Friday and, that same night, moved into a new apartment. The combination of crossfit and carrying lots of boxes/furniture on the same day was probably the cause.

domrdy• 13 years ago

I completed the beginners course at two different "boxes" in the last month and this is the first time I hear or read about this condition, so thanks for the write down.

Whitespace6• 13 years ago

No problem; I'm glad that people can get something out of my experience.

I originally wanted to write everything down and be a primary source of information on exertional rhabdo (there isn't a lot of useful information out there regarding hospital stay, CPK levels, etc.) but it got written down on a long-lost TODO somewhere and forgotten.

enraged_camel10• 13 years ago

That's scary. Thanks for sharing.

I'm an amateur bodybuilder and I workout alone. Over the years I have contemplated joining Crossfit (mostly for the comradery aspect), but the insane level of cult mentality has made me shy away from it every time. Articles like this just drive home the point.

My friend Jane, who is a physical therapist, specializes in exercise injuries. She once confided in me that local Crossfitters form by far the largest percentage of her repeat customer-base. She said she finds the level of irrationality unbelievable, in that the same people will come to her in a lot of pain and brag about their injury on the one hand, and beg her to fix them up quickly so they can go back to Crossfit ASAP. Then they will come back in a few months with a different injury but the exact same mindset.

dkarl8• 13 years ago

Over the years I have contemplated joining Crossfit (mostly for the comradery aspect), but the insane level of cult mentality has made me shy away from it every time.

That's a good reason to shun a particular location or instructor, but I and a lot of other people have had completely opposite experiences. If the workouts interest you, I encourage you to give it a try and see what the instructors are like. Maybe ask Jane where her patients work out and go someplace else.

scott_s4• 13 years ago

I don't do Crossfit, but I think it's a good system in general. I do powerlifting style strength training and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The attitude you're talking about - patch me up so I can get back to training, until my next injury - is common to all sports and physical activities.

Now, it's possible injuries are more common in Crossfit than in other sports, but that's a question for the data.

kyllo3• 13 years ago

Yeah I know a few people who have tried Crossfit and the had to quit because they got hurt within the first month.

SLAP tears from excessive kipping pull-ups is another common crossfitter injury.

I think they do a lot of exercises that are very dangerous to the shoulder / rotator cuff in general. Back injuries are pretty common too, since proper spinal posture is one of the first things to go out the window when you get fatigued.

sshillo• 13 years ago

I've been training at Crossfit Virtuousity for 5 months, 4 days a week. I think that they have an amazing program that reduces risk of injury as compared to many other non crossfit workouts I have done in the past.

First off they stress mobility, which many workout regimens don't do. I never really realized how important this was until I started crossfit. Most workouts consist of 15-20 minutes solely concentrating on mobility.

Second, no one has mentioned the concept of scaling, which is core to crossfit. Every workout has a scaling option so that you don't push yourself too hard. If you can't do a pullup you do it with a band, can't do that, do a box jump pullup, etc. Yet another way crossfit keeps one from getting injured.

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

Second, no one has mentioned the concept of scaling, which is core to crossfit.

Good point. I too remember the shock and amazement that washed over the entire training universe when Crossfit invented progressive resistance and skill progressions.

The only thing I can remember that was more impressive was that time Greg Glassman invented gravity. That was incredible.

vonseel• 13 years ago

My brother is an MD in internal medicine, got rhabdo on his first P90X workout and was in hospital 4 days. Off to read the article now...

osvaldof• 13 years ago

Wow this is a bit scary!

I started an high intensity program 2 weeks ago (p90x) and I had some pain after the first day for at least two days but I didn't pay attention to my urine. Should I go to my doctor? If I had rhabdomyolysis would I get any other symptoms after a week?

foobar• 13 years ago

I looked online for a hospital that my insurance covered, took a cab, checked myself in

Reading this feels so bizarre to me, as a European... I really don't get the American attitude towards health-care.

huhtenberg• 13 years ago

This is a normal practice in several European countries as well, so it really depends on in which "Europe" you live.

kyllo3• 13 years ago

That's horrifying. There's absolutely no excuse for pushing a recreational exerciser to the point of contracting rhabdo. Gross negligence on the instructor's part IMO.

Whitespace6• 13 years ago

Where did you read that the instructor pushed me? I pushed myself that hard, plain and simple. And then afterwards I did even more lifting (moving apartments).

I overexerted myself, plain and simple.

mightybyte14• 13 years ago

The title of this article is one of the most misleading I've ever seen. It implies that rhabdomyolysis is little known and covered up. But later the author admits that it's not little known. "How, I wondered, is it possible that the layperson exercise instructor is on a first-name basis with a serious, yet rare medical condition?" Why does he do this? Because being sensationalist draws clicks.

This article is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with mainstream media. It takes something quite rare and spins a narrative designed to incite fear, making you think that these horrible things are happening much more frequently than they actually are.

I'm no stranger to intense exercise. As a competitive swimmer at a young age, I knew what it meant to push myself to the limit. It wasn't until 2007 when I started CrossFit that I was ever educated about rhabdomyolysis. But I'd much rather be educated than ignorant. Everything in life has risk. And strangely enough, things that are more worthwhile seem to typically involve more risk. Is exercise risky? Of course. But not exercising carries its own set of risks.

As for me, I'll stick with exercise. And for that, CrossFit makes more sense than anything else I've ever seen.

jusben13693• 13 years ago

I think you might have missed the point. To the general public and other sports/activities it's little known. Yet here is a Johnny guy lay person Xfit instructor who knows what is ailing the person before she even tells him. Why would a guy guess right on something so rare?

mightybyte14• 13 years ago

Because "Johnny guy lay person" was educated. If it was a secret that CrossFit was trying to cover up, then he wouldn't have known.

skizm• 13 years ago

Crossfit charges 1000 bucks to certify that you understand the movements and general philosophy and 3000 bucks a year to use the "Crossfit" name. That's it. Each gym is only as bad as the trainers and/or person writing the programming. People got rhabdo before Crossfit and they'll get it when the fad dies down. The only thing I hate more than fanatical crossfiters is (are?) fanatical crossfit haters.

yalogin2• 13 years ago

Unrelated to the actual post, I have seen that with pages on medium the images load first and then after about 4seconds the text loads. Its a rather long wait for the text to load. Did any one else see that?

kalleboo• 13 years ago

That's the typical behavior of pages that use Web Fonts. The text doesn't show until the font has downloaded.

yalogin2• 13 years ago

Thanks! Did not know that.

ok_craig• 13 years ago

What's different about CrossFit from regular exercise? It doesn't give a summary of what it is or how it's different. That makes me scared that all exercise has this risk, especially lifting weights, which I enjoy. Is that true?

freshhawk• 13 years ago

The main difference I see is that CrossFit is presented as a sport in and of itself, rather than a way to train for other sports.

Your second point is not true if you follow the most basic guidelines for making sure you have good form and don't overtrain. It's the culture of competing against others to finish a set workout quickly that distinguishes crossfit, that both motivates people to train harder, makes people who like competition enjoy tough and normally dull workouts and also leads to bad form and overtraining.

jaredmcateer2• 13 years ago

Olympic lifting, running, rowing, swimming, and more are all sports in which the main for of training is doing the sport.

gknoy2• 13 years ago

My crossfit experiences mix the challenges of lifting with the constant encouragement of peers, or perhaps a dojo? I find that having a guided workout and others doing the same thing with me helps me to actually __do__ it. On my own, I have never been able to work out with the focus OR intensity needed to do it properly.

My coaches are always careful to talk about how safety is important, and help weaker people modify in ways that are safe but still excercise similar muscle groups. They've told me to stop a workout when they felt I was pushing too hard. They (and the other athletes at my box) have been extremely supportive of my personal focus on doing the form correctly, even if that means I am slow, or rest between reps.

Sure, our box has athletes who can whip out dozens of pullups in a row. (I'll be thrilled when I can do one.) But we also have people who have sat there after their workout is done and helped me count my last reps, or even actually done burpees with me.

The encouragement is a huge high. It's what hooked me. I can very much understand how, if one is not careful, one might push oneself Too Far. I don't think I am physically capable of doing that yet, so I'm grateful for reading this reminder to be careful.

Also, box jumps. Screw those things, and I'm glad that stepping down from them rather than jumping is the way to go. ;)

AlexanderDhoore• 13 years ago

Every single article I read on medium is near worthless.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

Pretty impressive that most diets fail and it is so easy to go the gym and not do much, this is pretty much one of the few stand out exceptions that can motivate people to the point of hurting themselves. Seems like a success if a little more precautions were added to avoid this one issue.

zobzu• 13 years ago

10 pages to say: if you over train, it's dangerous for your health. Crossfit mentality pushes for over training, over exhaustion.

thanks.

fingerprinter11• 13 years ago

To be honest, Crossfit has quite a few dark secrets. This one, though, can kill you.

What are crossfit's dark secrets?

First and foremost, well, it's terrible. The programming coming from HQ is just plain awful. There are many programs out there now (Outlaw, Competitors WOD, CF Football etc) that fill the gap and actually give decent programming, but the programming from crossfit.com is really, really bad.

Did you know that ALL the athletes that competed at the Crossfit games do not use crossfit.com WODs as the base of their programming? It's true. Go and check it out. What does this tell you? That crossfit, the programming, is all bullshit. The elite athletes use strength training as the basis of their programming and complement that with met cons as they get closer to the games.

There is also a culture that promotes things like rips (ripping your hands, say during a deadlift), or rope burns or other types of stupid things as badges of honor. You can't go a few days on /r/crossfit without seeing someone mention their ripped hands with pride. This is dumb and promotes the wrong things.

And beyond that, frankly, high-rep olympic lifts, high-rep box jumps (DON'T JUMP DOWN! Seriously, trust me on this), and general bad form is ok in the name of better times. These are begging for injuries.

TL;DR - Crossfit is dumb.

nazgulnarsil3• 13 years ago

on box jumps: athletic coaches know not to have their athletes do drop jumps until they can squat at least 1.5x body weight, to make sure the tendons and ligaments of the leg (especially knee) can take it. Even then it is used in moderation. Jumping down from a box and immediately jumping again is REALLY REALLY stressful on your joints.

Whitespace6• 13 years ago

Ok, let's verify:

Go to: http://games.crossfit.com/leaderboard Click on #1 person: http://games.crossfit.com/athlete/11435

HOW I TRAIN I workout mostly at a CrossFit Affiliate I workout mostly at home, work, or a traditional gym I incorporate CrossFit.com workouts I write my own programming

Stop looking as counter-example was found.

nazgulnarsil3• 13 years ago

This is disingenuous. You think the #1 xfit guy doesn't make money by associating himself with official xfit workouts? Incorporates is cop out language so he can avoid outright lying.

fingerprinter11• 13 years ago

Thanks for proving my point.

This athlete writes their own programming and incorporates crossfit.com workouts as an augmentation, not the base of their programming.

And since you picked Froning. It is very, very well known that he does whatever the hell he feels like everyday. He uses some crossfit.com WODs as the games approach to up his conditioning, but they are not the base of his programming and he has stated he doesn't use them year round.

enraged_camel10• 13 years ago

Whoever came up with the idea of high-rep olympic lifts needs to be shot.

Seriously, it's incredibly dangerous. Olympic lifts are very complex mechanical movements and it takes real Olympic athletes months if not years to master the form. There's a reason for that: if the form is not correct, you open yourself to significant risk of potentially-permanent injury.

The problem with doing them with high repetition (and usually as quickly as possible) is that your form starts to break down after a few reps, but the competitive culture pressures you into continuing.

mightybyte14• 13 years ago

I don't think there's much evidence to demonstrate that high-rep olympic lifts done by a trained person are any more dangerous then low-rep lifts at high weight. Yes, if you don't have good technique you're asking for trouble, but that's not what we're talking about here.

I don't think form breaks down after a few reps nearly as much as you say. There's probably a point at which it will, but there's a lot of room for breakdown that doesn't meaningfully increase your risk of injury.

but the competitive culture pressures you into continuing

Hogwash. Each person is responsible for their own actions. Yes, competition might help people push themselves, but that shouldn't turn you into a mindless machine that will self destruct just to get the win. If it does, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

JPKab2• 13 years ago

This.

Mark Rippetoe (he's a popular personality in the powerlifting world) was affiliated with Crossfit in the beginning, mainly doing workshops on demonstrating basic barbell lifts. He liked how Crossfit was, at the time, a welcome antidote to the "Globo-Gym" death grip on fitness.

But he has distanced himself from Cross-fit for years now, and has a huge amount of criticism due to the emphasis on high-rep Olympic lifts. The high reps result in poor execution and injury at worst, and in uselessly light loads at best.

The first time I ever saw rhabdo was when I was sent to Outward Bound for a month as a teenager. A guy in my group wasn't very fit, and he got it from several days in a row of intense distance while backpacking. We were told how insanely rare it was when he got back, and the doctor at the time told him it was only seen in guys in boot camp.

Suddenly, a few years back, my rock climbing gym had a crossfit area. Then I start hearing about rhabdo all the time. I noticed that extremely fit rock climbers would do some of the team workouts, and then refuse to go back for the rest of the class they paid for. Their conclusion was the same as mine: any fitness regimen that makes it difficult to function in your day to day activities for days on end due to extreme soreness is not something that should ever be viewed as fitness. Fitness is something that can be integrated into a normal life.

I think CrossFit fell victim to its monetizations scheme. The original folks made their money by awarding certifications to trainers, who would then go start their own classes/gyms.

Like everything else: it started as a movement, turned into a business, and then devolved into a racket.

busterarm• 13 years ago

I thought the whole magic behind olympic lifts was 1RM.

What is this stupidity?

sandGorgon• 13 years ago

Rippetoe wrote a fairly scathing article about the inappropriate use of high rep Olympic lifts in T-Mag recently.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/fall...

smegel• 13 years ago

This is actually the reason I stopped CrossFit.

I was never injured or anything, but I wanted to treat oly lifting with more respect than a WOD provides.

Every lift should be your best lift with a maximum focus on technique.

I would probably do CrossFit again if I found a box that did not include oly in WODs.

lmg643• 13 years ago

another dark secret: form is not the #1 priority. youtube is full of videos of people doing crossfit with horrific form and the instructors seem more focused on getting folks to "do" the exercise rather than "do it right".

it seems like crossfit doesn't quite appreciate how easy it is to destroy a knee, or your back, from improper deadlift or squat form. done properly, they are fantastic exercises. improperly, they are dangerous.

http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-3rd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp...

jaredmcateer2• 13 years ago

> another dark secret: form is not the #1 priority.

Depends on your gym, at my gym if you have bad form during a workout, you will be stopped, corrected and if necessary scaled down until you can get it right. Of course my gym doesn't routinely post videos to youtube.

smsm4210• 13 years ago

So, you're saying people all over the world aren't bound to a single programming but individual coaches and athletes are actually allowed to exercise judgement - and this is a BAD thing? I see.

>> There is also a culture that promotes things like rips

I've been doing CF for 2 years and reading forums, etc. and I have never encountered an example of this. Sure, if someone rips a hand there might be some amount of bravado, esp. from the males, in the vein of "oh, it's nothing, just a flesh wound" (insert Monty Python clip here) - but nobody ever that I met in his sane mind would actually strive for that.

>> /r/crossfit

I'd say /r/almost anything is probably not the best example of maturity, but one over-macho in a several day is not that big a deal, from what I know about Reddit. Unless specifically /r/crossfit is an island of maturity in /r/* world, it's only to be expected.

>> and general bad form is ok in the name of better times.

Which is exactly the opposite of what I see in real CF. Up to the point that the coach would stop me mid-timed workout and correct my form and insist I do it right. Sometimes I hate it in the heat of the moment, but once I've cooled off I am grateful because it's exactly what they are supposed to do. Where I do CF, a lot of time is spent on practicing form, and I've been told numerous times something like "tame our ego, don't go for higher weights until you get the form right". Form importance and doing exercises safely and properly is constantly emphasized.

Of course, I am not in competitive CF (and probably won't ever be) and when it gets to big sports things might be different, as they always are, but I am telling what I am seeing in day-to-day life in my CF box, and it's nothing like you're describing.

fingerprinter11• 13 years ago

So, you're saying people all over the world aren't bound to a single programming but individual coaches and athletes are actually allowed to exercise judgement - and this is a BAD thing? I see.

No, I'm saying that crossfit the program is bullshit. Crossfit started out as a workout, everyday, on crossfit.com. It's no secret that crossfit.com WODs are atrocious and most serious people give them little to now thought. Now, if you aren't doing crossfit.com workouts, are you doing crossfit? What is crossfit?

If you are "doing crossfit" that your coach, or you, or someone else programmed, are you doing crossfit?

I do my own programming. I'm a competitive athlete. I do olympic lifts, have a base strength program, combine cardio, HIIT and bodyweight exercises. Am I crossfitting?

Crossfit can't lay claim to cross training. The concept has existed for literally ever.

All that being said, you'll never find me fucking kipping my pullups. I like my shoulders way to much for that.

Which is exactly the opposite of what I see in real CF

No true scotsman. And beyond that, what is "real CF"?

mightybyte14• 13 years ago

Just saying that the programming is bad doesn't make it so. You probably just don't have the same goals that crossfit.com is designing its workouts for.

Also, the fact that elite CrossFit athletes don't do exclusively crossfit.com workouts doesn't support your point either. Those guys are genetic freaks. The crossfit.com workouts are designed for broad applicability, and that will never work as well at the margins.

CrossFit has actually stated a very precise definition for what they are trying to optimize. And the mainsite workouts are actually quite good at doing that.

fingerprinter11• 13 years ago

CrossFit has actually stated a very precise definition for what they are trying to optimize. And the mainsite workouts are actually quite good at doing that.

Their stated goal is mostly around general fitness (GPP), in broad strokes. The issue most, including myself, take with this is they promote workouts that, yes, if a person is untrained, will get them fitter, but they do it in a suboptimal manner, and what's worse, a manner that is far more dangerous than other approaches.

For instance, most general crossfitters would be much better served with a simple barbell strength program, simple bodyweight movements (pullups as an example), combined with some steady state cardio and some HIT sessions (that don't involve complex technical lifts). This approach is far safer and would get a person a broader general fitness level than mainsite WODs. There is no thought to mainsite WODs, no progression and no built in injury prevention.

Crossfit.com is, at best, bad programming and at worst, a recipe for some major injury.

kylered6• 13 years ago

I've been CrossFitting for over 6 years, owned an affiliate for 4 years, and founded the largest independent CrossFit-style competition series in the country (as far as I know).

This author hasn't been to a well-managed gym or worked with more experienced coaches. The same is likely true of those who get rhabdo. They have exposed themselves to more than their body can handle physically, as a result of poor coaching, and/or poor decision making.

I've seen high rep pullups and high rep weighted squats cause Rhabdo in people (not at my gym). I've also seen thousands of people do those same movements (in a safe way) and not get injured. Any good coach shouldn't be exposing clients to those things that expose clients to injury or death.

A responsibility of any gym owner/trainer is to protect clients from injury. If you go to a gym (CrossFit or not) that programs things that expose you to to any kind of injury, then you should absolutely leave. Coaches should be aware of the risks.

If you attempt to lift too much weight, do too many reps, do things with bad form, of course you exposure yourself to injury. I hope rational people would consider that CrossFit is a very effective fitness program, and, despite its criticism, is something that produces amazing results in people if done properly.

Interestingly, my biggest injury was from a heavy single clean and jerk. I've never had Rhabdo and done tons of high rep stuff, but stay away from high rep box jumps, deads, pullups and other silly things. I do enjoy high rep oly lifting in CrossFit and I total 180kg as a 69kg oly lifter. They are completely different movements; to think otherwise is just dumb.

TL;DR - people who are irrational are dumb.

x0x0• 13 years ago

crossfit is a scam. People go to crossfit to become more fit. Since they are presumably novices, how exactly are they supposed to evaluate the instruction they receive? Crossfit, as implicitly admitted in your post, is perfectly willing to allow poor and dangerous instruction to be sold with their name, as long as the cash keeps on coming.

and this:

   If you go to a gym (CrossFit or not) that programs things that expose you to 
   to any kind of injury, then you should absolutely leave.

when you later call those people dumb is really amazing. Yes, they are dumb for trusting people like you who sell dangerous coaching with the crossfit brand. You're willing to associate with crossfit and turn a blind eye to how other crossfit coaches hurt people who trust them.

mchughj3• 13 years ago

First, TL;DRs go at the top. That is the whole point. :)

Second, most crossfit gyms at not well-managed. They may mean well but the quality of the instruction can be awful.

Finally, you should post the name of your gym and the competition here. I travel a lot and like to visit quality crossfit locations!

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

I've been CrossFitting for over 6 years, owned an affiliate for 4 years, and founded the largest independent CrossFit-style competition series in the country (as far as I know).

Ah, the No True Crossfit Gym argument.

Everyone always seems to come from the one good Crossfit gym where correct form is emphasised. Where the coaches are wonderful. And so on.

The point is: trainees very rarely have the knowledge, qualification or experience to know if they are being taught properly.

It's like martial arts schools, everyone's Sensei or Sifu is an international badass.

The central problem is that CFHQ don't do quality control. Ostensibly because of a libertarian outlook, but I can't help but notice that it allows them to 1. milk the fad while it's booming and 2. better insulate themselves from lawsuits.

barrkel• 13 years ago

TL;DR - people who are irrational are dumb.

You say that like being "dumb" is a moral failure.

PanTardovski2• 13 years ago

If Crossfit is a franchise then the brand identity is based on the quality of those franchises. If there are significant injuries happening under the supervision of Crossfit certified coaches then that says the training and testing HQ uses is insufficient. Since the Crossfit brand ultimately is composed of (a) potentially dangerous (if unsupervised/coached) WODs and (b) trainer certification then if people are being injured at licensed Crossfit affiliates, under the supervision of Crossfit trained and certified coaches, then it means that the Crossfit brand has poor enough standards to produce substandard coaches and training.

So maybe you personally have improved on Crossfit in your box and are offering quality training but that's different than the baseline Crossfit-approved product that a walk-in can expect.

xaprb• 13 years ago

I've been crossfitting for years at kylered's gym. I've also judged at the competition series he mentioned, and traveled and worked out at crossfit gyms all around the country.

I've seen some bad coaches, but I've seen a lot more people who are uncoachable and are going to injure themselves in any gym with any workout and any coach. I've never seen anyone vomit, injure themselves, get Rhabdo, pass out, or any of the other things people think are so common in Crossfit. Predictably, Crossfit haters sensationalize, and people who push themselves too hard and regret it tend to angrily blame Crossfit in public instead of themselves.

CrossFit changed my body, my self-image, and a lot of my attitude, but any other gym that's based on fun, positive encouragement from other members doing the same workout at the same time, variety, intensity, and a community of friends would do the same thing.

For the record I rarely "Rx" a workout and I almost always come away from workouts thinking I sandbagged it a little. And yet I'm very happy with my results. Why would I want to push harder and risk injury? I wouldn't. I insist on doing every movement perfectly, pausing or lowering weights or reps if I'm getting tired or winded to the point that my form might be at risk, taking it easy if I've had too little sleep or I'm dehydrated or whatever. I know a lot of people who have a similar philosophy and I admire their sense, not their hard-core-ness.

I don't buy the OP's claim that he got sick from a not-overly-strenuous workout. A Crossfit workout is no different than any other, except that if you overdo it in another style of fitness and get critically ill you don't get attention on Hacker News.

TL;DR - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You can show a guy good form and coach him to be safe but you can't make him be safe if he wants to get hurt.

ryanmarsh• 13 years ago

I was injured on my first workout (after I finished the indoctrination phase). I recovered then injured myself again shortly thereafter. I'm ex-US Army Airborne Infantry, meaning I didn't get up off the sofa after a lifetime of little activity and start "ripping". I'm no stranger to physical activities that can seriously hurt you.

I eventually found a strength training program and learned just how poor my form was for many exercises. Thankfully I'm doing great now and growing stronger.

EDIT: Words

dobbsbob• 13 years ago

Timely article, I just walked past a Crossfit place that opened today and saw it was full of people doing ridiculous interval exhaustion excersizes.

If you want the ultra lean, chiseled pro fighter look it's all about what you eat not overtraining yourself to death. Building muscle and strength training means you should be doing slow, careful and correct weight lifting not jerking motions especially to exhaustion where you make mistakes.

Plenty of videos out there on how professional athletes train to minimize injuries. Go on youtube and look up NHL training or even MLB training you will never see them jumping off things or doing high reps, or anything that isn't completely controlled at all times considering if they get injured the team is out millions.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

And here I thought the secret was that the amateur followers are just a bunch of jackasses who like to brag on Facebook.

jusben13693• 13 years ago

This reminds me a little of the "Ban PitBulls" argument. If we got rid of all PitBulls then wanna be gangsta's would go to Rottweilers then Dobermans then German Shepards etc.

CrossFit is tapping into and flourishing with a certain mindset of folks for whom this extreme form of punishment is desirable. Probably better to understand that and help folks dial it back a little vs thinking getting rid of CrossFit would solve the problem.

PKop• 13 years ago

Problem for whom? If people enjoy it, and don't agree with your assessment of the program as punishment, then what's the issue?

Raphmedia• 13 years ago

I have a lot of coworkers that injured themselves doing CrossFit. I don't understand why CrossFit is such a trend in the tech industry.

It seems like an easy way to hurt yourself.

Simply go to the gym and do your own workout...

revelation• 13 years ago

The popularity in tech could certainly explain the large number of people embarrassing themselves here with their boneheaded defense of what is just another for profit company.

smsm4210• 13 years ago

Implying for profit things are all bad?

cgag• 13 years ago

I don't get it either, it's impossible to not lookup real workouts and find stuff like starting strength and good basic lifting routines. Maybe it's less intimidating or something since there are classes for it.

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

Crossfit excels at providing an inviting on-ramp for people who were never into sports. Crossfit gyms tend to have a supportive social environment. There is, or was, a sense of being in on a Big Secret -- secrets are like catnip to brains.

It has also, and this deserves credit, been much better at achieving a healthy gender ratio than most other sports.

badclient2• 13 years ago

I had rhabdomyolysis in high school after an intense afternoon of running around in the cold. Let me describe the pain:

* everytime I breathe in or down I felt like screaming

* moving almost any part of my body even an inch made me scream

* my urine was dark red

All my life I've had above normal pain tolerance from another chronic illness but it took rhabdomyolysis to really break me--quite literally. Ultimately it resulted in being put in a stretcher as I screamed my ass off.

It took a lot of morphine to find any relief and dialysis to fully recover.

Whitespace6• 13 years ago

My experience with rhabdo involved no pain (outside of really sore muscles).

I am not a doctor, but I think what you experienced was what rhabdo leads to if untreated: myoglobinuria (kidneys poisoned due to excess myoglobin) which then leads to acute renal failure (kidneys fail).

The normal treatment for rhabdo is intravenous saline (I had 5 days of saline), whereas myoglobinuria or acute renal failure require dialysis, since your kidneys have shut down.

In any case, that sounds absolutely frightening in the worst way imaginable. Any long-lasting side effects?

badclient2• 13 years ago

That sounds about right. Mine had gotten much worse by the time we took action, mostly because we confused it for my other illness during the early stages.

And thank you for crediting saline. I became a saline "addict" myself. We were told to get home health to give IV at any sign of red urine.

This was almost exactly 10 years ago. I've been well since.

adamzerner• 13 years ago

Most people don't come nearly close enough to working so hard they damage themselves. Since the overwhelming majority of people don't work hard enough, the fact that CrossFit pushes people is a good thing.

cdjk2• 13 years ago

I am thankful for crossfit because it introduced me to powerlifting. But I quickly realized I liked the strength portions a lot more than the AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) and other timed workouts.

The official line is "you're only competing with yourself," but in practice that's not the case. Especially when there's a whiteboard and everyone knows what the various times/number of reps are. Trying to force anything with a strong technique component (like olympic lifts) into a time based or number of reps based competition just seems like a bad idea.

Also, with the wide variety of WODs, it's hard to track progress. Yeah, the workouts repeat, but if you only do something a couple times a year it's hard to keep track of progress.

I ended up doing Starting Strength instead. I got my squat from about 80lbs to 245, and then 295 with some intermediate programming. I almost never got sore - only a little sore after the first couple workouts, or if I missed a week or two. I'm currently trying to figure out how to integrate cardio and lifting, which is one thing that crossfit has going for it, but I liked powerlifting workouts a lot more than crossfit.

robbiep• 13 years ago

Not a crossfitter but if they actively warn about the risk of rhabdo and have a cartoon (however poor taste some people may find it) then how is that a 'dirty little secret'?

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

It isn't, but it makes for great link-bait.

westoque• 13 years ago

I don't get why this is on the top of hacker news. I'm getting this impression that most hackers are ripped crossfit dudes/gals.

karl11• 13 years ago

Lots of smart people here and no one is looking for real data, including the author of this article.

My bet is that rhabo:crossfit is similar to crashes:airplanes - you don't hear about all the people that do crossfit and simply get into shape without serious injury (most everyone who does crossfit).

Do more people get rhabdo doing crossfit than concussions playing football or torn ACLs playing basketball? Doubt it.

rayiner• 13 years ago

Reading about CrossFit makes me a little queasy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrossFit#Body_weight_exercises. A lot of these things don't seem very good for you. I feel like this stuff is going to come back to bite you in the ass in 20-30 years...

I personally would stick to basic weightlifting. You can get an intense 30-45 minute workout, don't put tons of pressure on your knees, and most importantly the long-term effects are very well-studied.

kayoone• 13 years ago

The biggest problem with Crossfit is that it promotes excessive amount of exercises under time pressure, which really is a dangerous combination. People die in competetive sports all the time. Its very rare but still, there are people dieing doing marathons, thriathlons, crossfit, biking and even less taxing endurance sports like football(soccer). Its rarer than rhabdo but excessive stress on your cardiovascular system can kill you (cardiac arrest, heart attack etc) especially if your heart isnt 100% healthy (and most young people have never made a check on their heart).

No reason to panic though, its very very rare, but it happens and thus it should be noted that excessive excersise (in whatever shape or form) just isnt risk free.

jacques_chester7• 13 years ago

As an Olympic-style Weightlifter and coach, I hold the usual reservations about Crossfit. The insensible use of the competition lifts for high repetitions, the bonkers programming, the creepy culture, the pack of drongoes at HQ, the deliberate absence of quality control.

However, it has two positive features, in my eyes:

1. It gets lots of people up off their backsides and working hard. A lot of folk don't realise how much they can really do if they want to do it. The flipside of Crossfit's sometimes overblown culture is that it forms a strong social environment for most trainees to motivate them to keep it up.

2. It has introduced millions of people to Weightlifting and a lot of those people defect to the sport proper.

In the English-speaking world Crossfit has been a massive shot in the arm for Weightlifting and Powerlifting. They've gone from being struggling niche sports 10 years ago to seeing an unparalleled period of growth.

The current generation of Crossfitters won't make much of an impact on the elite levels of Weightlifting. But their children might.

In the long run, and despite the butchering of the lifts that goes on in many gyms, Crossfit might be the best thing that ever happened to my sport.

wdewind2• 13 years ago

Ignoring the fact that there is no true definition of what crossfit is (which is a problem in and of itself), this isn't even the biggest issue with crossfit.

The biggest issue is that the training philosophy is not ground in any kind of science whatsoever (ie: that mixing conditioning and strength training in one workout somehow combines for an increased effect on both).

CrossfitHQ also promotes a concept of "all around fitness" which is, quite frankly, bullshit. A marathon runner and a powerlifter are both very fit, but for different things. Having a training program that does not start with explicit goals and work towards those goals is idiotic. And for most people, who want to be somewhat cardiovascularly conditioned and aesthetically toned, crossfit is far from the quickest or safest way to get to those goals. Even the "good gyms" that emphasize form still seem to have completely nonsensical programming.

Finally, you can be sure that crossfitHQ in particular is bullshit because they have a motto of "forging elite athletes" and yet not a single elite athlete from a single sport follows crossfitHQ's WODs. The only acceptable reason to do it is because it can be fun, and if that's what you're into more power to you. But it's not an effective or safe form of training no matter how you cut it.

pbreit• 13 years ago

I don't see that as a big problem. Just getting folks to actually workout is 99% of the battle. CrossFit seems very good at that.

wdewind2• 13 years ago

You're getting downvoted but I think that's a fair point. I think I addressed it though: that fits into the fun aspect.

Unfortunately if you get folks to workout and then they injure themselves, as frequently happens in crossfit, you have other problems too.

fingerprinter11• 13 years ago

Finally, you can be sure that crossfitHQ in particular is bullshit because they have a motto of "forging elite athletes" and yet not a single elite athlete from a single sport follows crossfitHQ's WODs.

I've said this repeatedly, find me an athlete at the Crossfit games that has used Crossfit WODs as the core of their training program. You can't do it. There is literally no athlete at the games that does this. I find this amazing.

So, in the end, the Crossfit athletes at the Crossfit games do not follow Crossfit[1].

[1] - Remember, folks, crossfit.com is the official crossfit workouts. Anything else is somebody else's training program be it Outlaw, Competitors WOD, CF Football or whatever just as Starting Strength is Rippetoe's and Westside is Louie's

programminggeek• 13 years ago

This apparently happens in p90x as well. The culture of mostly unathletic people trying to do extremely athletic things without any training beforehand is foolish and stupid.

The one thing p90x gets more right than apparently Crossfit does is the videos tell you to take breaks and go at your own pace. If you cant do 50 pushups in 90 seconds, do what you can. "do your best, forget the rest." is the refrain Tony uses, which is a lot smarter than telling people to push beyond their limits no matter what their body tells them.

jasonlingx• 13 years ago

From the article: "It’s so rare that one study reported the overall annual incidence of rhabdomyolysis to be 0.06%"

Crossfit reports only 5 cases up till May 2005: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/38_05_cf_rhabdo.pdf

I wonder how the numbers stack up after taking into account only the population that does some form of exercise.

physcab• 13 years ago

Good lord, what is with all the Crossfit hate? I've been an avid crossfiter for over 3 years and I've never once had an injury. As with all workouts, you need to listen to your body. It doesn't matter who prescribes them - whether it be Crossfit, Men's Health or GQ Magazine, your general practitioner, Tony Robbins, or your best friend BodyBuilder Bob. Listen to your body. If something hurts, stop. If you're too sore to move, rest. If you're hungry, eat.

All this talk about Crossfit being the problem is b.s. You have a choice.

akurilin• 13 years ago

When in doubt, just do regular time-tested strength training and you'll be fine. Works 100% of the time, 0 bull.

moocowduckquack• 13 years ago

I wonder if I could get office workers to shift rubble for me in the evenings and get them to pay for the privilege as a fitness craze. I have never really understood paying to lift things, you might as well do an evening shift doing order picking at a warehouse.

nivals• 13 years ago

Veterans to CrossFit are not immune, nor are good movers/fit athletes in general.

I've been doing CrossFit for six years, this past December during a 'holiday' WOD I got nailed by acute rhabdo in my right arm.

It took many months of rehab and different body work techniques to get things back to normal. Very, very, painful process.

Honestly, the workout wasn't out of whack with a tougher than normal day. It was for me, however something that put me out of commission for five months.

Lesson learned.

awould• 13 years ago

Same thing here. Got it in 2007 on my 2nd day w/ a physical trainer after being a lazy slob for several years. Physical trainer said his method was "push to failure" and it was the proper way to learn my limits and establish a routine. My CK was over 110,000 and I spent a week in the hospital. It was painful and no fun at all. Doctors were surprised I left the hospital with both kidneys. Long term effect, for me, was nothing. Got a rough education though and now approach my physical fitness with a lot of caution.

rachaelwriter• 13 years ago

hi there i'm a journalist in the Uk and looking for someone who'd be willing to be interviewed about this? If anyone is up for it please email me rachael.woolston@gmail.com

CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

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