Why CrossFit

I regret that I’ve been so slow in developing this page.

WHAT WE DO, AND WHY WE’RE THE BEST

We claim that our fitness programming, CrossFit, is the best method you can use to achieve your health, fitness, physique, weight loss, athletic, and performance related goals.

Of course the best demonstration of this claim is through the results – through the changes you will make in your life by joining our community and training with us. As athletes, we can demonstrate the superiority of our training in competition. (If you know a trainer, gym or program which you – or they – think is hot stuff, let’s test it. We’ll compete. We’ll win. Train with us, and you’ll win. We’re committed to keeping these results open and public, and invite you to test us on this.)

Now I’ll explain what we do and why it’s the best so you can understand how we get the results we do.

We have a lot of experience studying fitness methods and philosophies. In the course of study, truths are discovered and nonsense is discarded. All the while, we observe most of the world acting on poor ideas. We see people adopting fitness practices because, naturally enough, ‘everyone’ believes certain practices can achieve fitness, or fat loss, or increase lean muscle, or build strength, etc. The inescapable conclusion is this: judging which fitness methods are the best is an intellectual challenge. And the world is largely choosing poor fitness methods because they are failing at this judgment, this intellectual challenge. I’m sorry if this truth is not comfortable. It is what it is.

Fortunately, it is not extraordinarily complex. The subject matter is accessible and easy enough. The reason so many mistakes prevail in fitness is only because people uncritically accept myths that they’ve heard all their lives. Fitness industry gurus are constantly appointing themselves experts, but are usually passing on ‘accepted truths’ which they’ve never tested or questioned enough, and thus the myths survive.

* * * *
“fitness methodology” “strength and conditioning program” …both of these are true. Of all the definitions and descriptions of CrossFit that you’ll find out there, the following best captures what we do:

CrossFit prescribes a constantly varied array of whole-body, functional movements, performed at high intensity, with simple performance metrics.

You will see that all these aspects of CrossFit are based on a deeper understanding of exercise physiology, or of how the body responds (adapts) to the stimuli of exercise.

VARIATION

• Variation, at least, is widely recognized from bodybuilding, often expressed by the idea of “muscle confusion”. Variation means constantly changing the stressors or stimuli that the body is hit with keeps the body responding and adapting, instead of becoming desensitized, bored, or hitting ‘plateaus’ in one’s development.
• Much of the

, programmed so that performance metrics are simple which enables both competition and tracking of progress.

Here is one of Coach Glassman’s statements of What CrossFit Is:

CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.

The CrossFit Program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. Our athletes are trained to perform successfully at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical challenges. This fitness is demanded of military and police personnel, firefighters, and many sports requiring total or complete physical prowess. CrossFit has proven effective in these arenas.

Aside from the breadth or totality of fitness the CrossFit Program seeks, our program is distinctive, if not unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-training with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional movements, and the development of successful diet strategies.

Our athletes are trained to bike, run, swim, and row at short, middle, and long distances guaranteeing exposure and competency in each of the three main metabolic pathways.

We train our athletes in gymnastics from rudimentary to advanced movements garnering great capacity at controlling the body both dynamically and statically while maximizing strength to weight ratio and flexibility. We also place a heavy emphasis on Olympic Weightlifting having seen this sport’s unique ability to develop an athletes’ explosive power, control of external objects, and mastery of critical motor recruitment patterns. And finally we encourage and assist our athletes to explore a variety of sports as a vehicle to express and apply their fitness.

(BRB. In progress at this moment.)

Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C., “Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism,” Metabolism, 43 no. 7 (July 1994):814-18. This study compared high-intensity interval training (not clear how long the intervals were) to long slow endurance training. The key finding: “Despite its lower energy cost, the [interval] program induced a more pronounced reduction in subcutaneous adiposity [fat] compared with the [endurance] program. When corrected for the energy cost of training, the decrease in the sum of six subcutaneous skinfolds induced by the [interval] program was ninefold greater than by the [endurance] program.”

The sprinting (high intensity) regimen used less than half the energy per workout, but the work performed was nine times more efficient at burning fat.

Helgerud et al., “Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate Training,” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 39 no. 4 (2007): 665-71 — found that the best VO2max improvement occurred in a group that did four 4-minute hard intervals with 3 minutes of rest; similar improvement occurred in a group that did 47 (!) 15-second sprints with 15 seconds of rest; but NO improvement in VO2max occurred in two groups that, respectively, did 45-minute slow runs or 24-minute harder runs.

There is no longer any legitimacy to believing that “cardio aerobics” and other varieties of ‘aerobic’, ‘cardio,’ long-slow distance are the effective means to increasing aerobic capacity or burning fat. Or even longevity, hearth health, mobility. Not when so many problems are found in those methods, and so many more beneficial regimens are proven to achieve these nominal goals with greater efficiency and greater overall benefit.

I realized this about 8 months ago — July 2007 — and at the time it was a life-changing revolution for me. Then I floundered, knowing I needed to develop a new fitness regimen. I went to work doing it — intense intervals of bodyweight strength training. About four months later — November 30th — and after 2 months of immobility from an unrelated ankle injury, I found to my chagrin that this program has already been developed and is growing rapidly. Its popularity was irrelevant to my concerns; only the truth and applicability to my own life mattered to me.

http://www.crossfit.com

The thumbnail version doesn’t do CrossFit justice, but here it is:

World-Class Fitness in 100 Words:
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.

Brain Enhancement From Exercise Is Intensity Dependent:

Ferris LT, Williams JS, Shen CL., “The effect of acute exercise on serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels and cognitive function,” Med Sci Sports Exerc. 39 no. 4 (April 2007): 728-34.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of a family of neurotrophic factors that participates in neuronal transmission, modulation and plasticity. Previous studies using animals have demonstrated that acute and chronic exercise leads to increases in BDNF in various brain regions. PURPOSE: To determine the effects of acute exercise on serum BDNF levels in humans, and to determine the relationship between exercise intensity and BDNF responses. Additionally, the relationship between changes in BDNF and cognitive function was examined. METHODS: Fifteen subjects (25.4 +/- 1.01 yr; 11 male, 4 female) performed a graded exercise test (GXT) for the determination of VO2max and ventilatory threshold (VTh) on a cycle ergometer. On separate days, two subsequent 30-min endurance rides were performed at 20% below the VTh (VTh - 20) and at 10% above the VTh (VTh + 10). Serum BDNF and cognitive function were determined before and after the GXT and endurance rides with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and the Stroop tests, respectively. RESULTS: The mean VO2max was 2805.8 +/- 164.3 mL x min(-1) (104.2 +/- 7.0% pred). BDNF values (pg x mL(-1)) increased from baseline (P<0.05) after exercise at the VTh + 10 (13%) and the GXT (30%). There was no significant change in BDNF from baseline after the VTh - 20. Changes in BDNF did not correlate with VO2max during the GXT, but they did correlate with changes in lactate (r=0.57; P<0.05). Cognitive function scores improved after all exercise conditions, but they did not correlate with BDNF changes.

CONCLUSION: BDNF levels in humans are significantly elevated in response to exercise, and the magnitude of increase is exercise intensity dependent. Given that BDNF can transit the blood-brain barrier in both directions, the intensity-dependent findings may aid in designing exercise prescriptions for maintaining or improving neurological health.

Maybe in your next life you’ll find a universe where laziness and entropy get better results. In this life, TANSTAAFL. Extropy is the rule for complex, self-organizing systems.

High-Impact Anaerobic Running (sprinting) Increases Learning:

Winter B, Breitenstein C, Mooren FC, Voelker K, Fobker M, Lechtermann A, Krueger K, Fromme A, Korsukewitz C, Floel A, Knecht S., “High impact running improves learning,” Neurobiol Learn Mem. 87 vol. 4 (May 2007): 597-609.

Regular physical exercise improves cognitive functions and lowers the risk for age-related cognitive decline. Since little is known about the nature and the timing of the underlying mechanisms, we probed whether exercise also has immediate beneficial effects on cognition. Learning performance was assessed directly after high impact anaerobic sprints, low impact aerobic running, or a period of rest in 27 healthy subjects in a randomized cross-over design. Dependent variables comprised learning speed as well as immediate (1 week) and long-term (>8 months) overall success in acquiring a novel vocabulary. Peripheral levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) were assessed prior to and after the interventions as well as after learning. We found that vocabulary learning was 20 percent faster after intense physical exercise as compared to the other two conditions. This condition also elicited the strongest increases in BDNF and catecholamine levels. More sustained BDNF levels during learning after intense exercise were related to better short-term learning success, whereas absolute dopamine and epinephrine levels were related to better intermediate (dopamine) and long-term (epinephrine) retentions of the novel vocabulary. Thus, BDNF and two of the catecholamines seem to be mediators by which physical exercise improves learning.