My Heart Goes Out..

I have a beef with crossfit (CF) but less of a beef with where CF started. There certainly needs to be a discussion but the recent article does a good job of scratching the surface but misses some of the finer points if you ask me (and I know you didn't). I have recently given up a facilities membership at a CF gym because I just got frustrated watching some of the things that go on and didn't get very settling answers when I asked about safety.

The basic mantra that I always heard in a CF gym is 1. high intensity, 2. constantly varied, 3. functional movements, and 4. SHARKBATE HOO HAA HAA. I'm still on board, why not?  I think it is a basically sound idea but somewhere along the line it has turned from an idea about how to design workouts that get us to where we want to be into people wanting to play Navy Seal (those guys are hard, no question about it) without the background. What is it about now? Money. The man wasn't injured because CF is dangerous.  There isn't anything dangerous about working hard with excitement and imagination.  Here are my thoughts on the situation with the lifter:

1. Was the lifter competent? I don't know, have no way of knowing. He was a CF trainer but then again I'm not convinced that means a lot due to the financial conflict of interest that there is with that certification. Yes, the conflict. CF is no longer this fringe idea cooked up by some serious athletes to push themselves farther and faster but a huge corporate monster which has done a wonderful job of keeping the small, independent image. Ask a CF owner what it costs to use that single word. Don't know who to ask? Well, in many ways CF is GLOBOGYM! There are give or take 5400 affiliates in the US alone while 24 Hour fitness has something like 400. Even if the 24 Hours are ten times the size they are still a smaller entity! It is a good example because like CF 24 hour fitness has their own trainer program and that is how they make their money. It's all about money. 

2. Who is driving this bus and do you trust them? The brilliance and the downfall of CF is that every affiliate is different. Yep, some of them our there are top notch, very safe, and would be a great athletic home for everyone. However, that's not what I've typically seen. I've had this conversation with some friends and it went something like, "... but if there is a trainer in the front of the room why do we still see people lifting with awful technique, people pushing past a physiological limit that will NOT make them stronger, taking unnecessary risks and progressing to more challenging activities before they have anything that resembles a baseline that is necessary?" to which they respond something like "it's a group class, it's not a PERSONAL trainer, and people need to take responsibility for their own actions." I tend to respond with "but the classes are small and anecdotally the ones that I've taken part in or observed there is little continued coaching on form and more on 'is that really your 1RM?'" I digress, my point being that if we have put a person in front of the room, called them the "trainer" "leader" "grand-poo-ba" or anything like that there needs to be some policing. I've never heard "you know what, you're new to this, let's do a few MONTHS of rotator cuff strengthening before we let you work overhead so when a lift goes completely wrong there is less of a chance you will get hurt." Do you know who does say that? The football athletic trainers for MSU football players, and the athletes they are working with are not off the couch, ever. I'm not sure that the level I CF cert makes you ready to teach olympic lifting, design physiologically smart workouts and play Mr. Fix-it with peoples sports injuries but I do see that in the gym.

3. Was he willing to take the risk? Again, I don't know. I hope so because his injury will be with him for the rest of his life. I do some risky things (rock climb, ski, cross the street in Portland) and all of these COULD give me a T11 injury but I'm not going to stop doing them and I do things to minimize my risk. There isn't an easy answer and I'm not sure that THIS tragedy is the smoking gun of "CF is bad" that all of the "haters" are looking for, but CF is not what it started out as and we should all take a serious look at if it is really the best place for young and novice athletes. It takes something like an entire year for our bodies to remodel the connective tissues in our bodies. If I'm an off the couch athlete, why would I expect those tissues to be safe in doing wildly new activities in anything less than that and why are "on ramp" courses a few days to a month long? Why do CF gyms seem to push numbers over form. I find CF as "Rx'd" to be a poor choice for anyone but a high level athlete who is choosing to take the real risks associated with it and I don't see enough of the trainers telling people to back down to safe loads or building plans that make sense based on my background.

In closing, I think that this man's injury is nothing short of sad and to blame CF is an ignorant approach.  We need to have a conversation about CF but to let's just say that this man's injury isn't the forum.