To Crossfit or not to Crossfit?

Breakingmuscle.com

So when I hear about paddlers doing Crossfit as part of their training programme, I go " Wow! Crossfit, that must be tough! No wonder you're in such great shape". That said, no questions asked Crossfit is everything a workout needs to be; adrenalin pumping, testosterone boosting, and muscle bursting.( if that ever happens you should already be in hospital)

That said, as a main workout for paddling, sad to say, you're crossf**ked. 

As far as workout fads go, Crossfit is absolutely top of line, mindblowing and outstanding. As a successor after bodypump and MMA, this has got to be the latest craze "fitness fanatics" got their hands on. In terms of its actual effectiveness, it has a great variety of real exercises that produces power while maintaining intensities at extremely high levels. 

It must be said though: that in the paddling world, there are a few things wrong with Crossfit. 

1. It is not specific enough.  Many of you avid crossfitters/paddlers will say, how is it not specific when you have so many exercises lumped together in one workout? Well, that is exactly the point. As a paddler, wouldn't you want to be specific about the type of exercises you do to ensure that you measure your progress? Unfortunately, Mr Crossfit coach won't help you do that. He only knows one thing. Let's do everything; Olympic lifts, ring pulls, squats, sprint, some bodyweight stuff and voila! You got your workout! You go home all ragged and sore but you start  guessing why you did so many ring pulls when you're a long distance runner. Go figure.

2. It costs a bomb.  Let's imagine this. I have to fit a regular gym with machines, free weights and all the bits and pieces that make it a complete one. I charge $100 a month to you to use more than a half a million dollars worth of equipment in my gym. A Crossfit gym is like a regular gym with no machines, alot of kettle bells, ropes and what-nots. I charge you $200 a month for you to use $100,000 worth of equipment. What would you feel? And most crossfit gyms in Singapore still require a additional fee to take all the classes you want for a year. If you're someone with a bulging wallet with nothing better else to do with your money, then go ahead. I'd rather buy a TRX system that can do almost all the movements that I will learn at a Crossfit gym. Hell I could buy a squat rack if i wanted to! 

3. Kipping pull ups are NOT PULL UPs! God dammit. What did I do 30 sets of 10 free hang pull ups during my dragon boat training that is comparable to an idiot who thinks kipping pull ups are PULL UPs? A pull up goes up and down. That was how I was taught in secondary school, Polytechnic, University and most importantly the army! Crossfit likes to teach these people kipping pull ups and claim the god damn right that they can do 20-30 pull ups. Please tell me that your grandmother taught you that. It just seems that the numbers mean so much to Crossfitters and form and specificity do not complete their picture which brings me to: 

4. High level of injuries. The nature of the movements and the pure aggression in a group setting provides constant peer pressure to outperform yourself even through bad form. I've seen for myself the pure stupidity of people pushing through bad form for the sake of a number or a timing and all they get is an injured wrist that will take them out from training for a month or two. You will get injured, no doubt about that. That's because many of the powerlifting exercises are meant to be controlled power movements; not movements you can rush through for the sake of getting a muscle pump. You might as well break a fall from the 3rd storey building. That will save all the trouble of you doing it to yourself.  

5. You're just doing High Intensity Interval Training Dumbos! Crossfit is basically a combination of exercises put together to create a a simple high intensity interval training that is very useful for many sports. But doing that every other day? I have done 3 minute intervals of basically the same things for 8 exercises during a specific period in a season. I don't call it Crossfit. I just call it interval training. Keep it simple stupid. 

6.Periodisation. What's periodisation?If you have done competitive sports as a varsity or club athlete , you would understand that the athlete would need to progress through periods or phases to train at differing intensities and volumes to maximise performance in his strength training. Periodisation allows full control and more emphasis on the athletes performance and reduces the rate of injury as the athlete progresses. Crossfit unless done during the correct phase of training will only hamper the athletes performance. 

Its just tough to decide how effective Crossfit training is to paddling sports because of there are benefits in the way it is designed. But I am not keen for the fact they they fail to adhere to the principle of specificity of the exercise to increase the performance of the paddler. Eventually, to better your performance you should be looking to put more hours in the water not in the Crossfit gym screaming and yelling. 

Please don't call those kipping shit pull ups.. Just doesn't work for me..

Other than that Crossfit is Oklah.