Shockingly bad

Total disclosure- I did crossfit for a month about two years ago and had good results and I continue to watch it on TV.

Crossfit refers to a fitness based sport in which participants do a number exercises in a race to finish the list (which they call a WOD) first. To train for this event competitors do crossfit workouts. The workouts are designed so that most people including the obese, the elderly and super elite athletes can join in. Times are posted so everyone can compare results.

The writer of this book constantly confuses a crossfit workout with a crossfit competition. In a full out competition everyone uses the same weight and they compete for big money on TV. At the gym you are just getting stronger. This simple confusion makes up more than half of his arguments. He makes a big deal about how different people need to lift different weights which in the gym they all do. There is a lot of talk about how beginner athletes should not compete with more advanced athletes which in the gym of course they don't. Everyone know who everyone is so I know not to compare myself to the obese or elderly folk or most of the women nor super advanced guys who look like toy action figures. I know that I can outrun the 350 pound strongman but I can't out lift him. Then there are the men who are about my size and build and fitness level and we can all compete and it's fun.

He has some really broken arguments about the choices of exercises, especially with a kipping pull up. If you do not know what a kipping pull up is you can google it but basically it is a pullup plus momentum that uses a lot more muscles of the body. The swinging lets you pull higher and do reps faster but they will exhaust you much faster. 1 kipping pull up ( to the nipples) is about as hard as 1 traditional pull up but ten kipping pullups is harder than 40 pull-ups. Mr. Clinger goes on and on about how this kind of pull up is wrong and that it is both performed wrong and that it gives all the wrong results. That it is a separate exercise seems totally lost on him. Yes, crossfitters know what a traditional pull up is- they CHOOSE to do kipping pull ups because the workouts prefer full body movements over isolation movements.

He spends time talking about crossfitter nutrition even though crossfit does not have an official diet. He keeps saying how bad a low carb diet is though I have never heard a crossfitter describe his diet as "low-carb" Glassman does Zone (which can be considered low carb though Glassman doesn't) and eats lots of vegetables but simply encourages people to eat naturally. The most common diet is Paleo though the current champion Rich Fronning just eats whatever he wants. Mr Clinger is just plain making stuff up.

Everything gets compared to bodybuilding. I don't have a problem with bodybuilding but kettle-bells, calisthenics, olympic rings and aerobics are all good too. To Mr Clinger everything that is not bodybuilding (bar or dumbbell 5-15 reps- isolation exercises) is simply wrong

There is more- much more that is wrong or illogical. The only point that I agree with is that Cross-fit has a far too relaxed attitude about Rhabdo which occurs in a small number of participants.

There are REAL complaints to be had about cross-fit. The competitions do not have weight classes so anyone with a small frame can never compete on the national level. The schools lack uniformity so you never know how advanced the athletes or the exercises will be from one gym to another. These issues are never talked about. From what I can tell the author saw a kipping pull up- did not understand it and then he wrote the book

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