T-Nation, Shugart and the Truth About CrossFit

[Matthew Stafford]

Originally Posted by Pat McElhone

Why do we want it accepted in a rigorous academic setting? Is this the same setting not standing up to the American Heart Associating and the American Diabetes Association or the American Dietetic Association and telling them their dietary recommendations of 70% of daily calories from CHO are killing people? Is the same academic setting tell people all they need to be fit is 20min of exercise at 70% of their MHR 3x week to be fit?

These are the people we should seek approval from?

This is my whole problem with the Academic Exercise Community. While they are sitting around curriculum validating each other and disregarding CF because it is based "on scientific" principles or disregarding a low CHO diet, Americans are following their advice and still dying of preventable disease.

Again, what is with the anti-scientific sentiments expressed by people here? What is wrong with wanting scientific proof for something that as the support of anecdotal evidence? I can understand if this is not interesting to a person, but that doesn't make it not worth doing.

I am not a exercise physiologist so maybe I'm missing something but I am former physicist so this science thing isn't new to me. Science is necessary for progress. Research is worth doing for the sake of knowledge, always.

[Pat McElhone]

Originally Posted by Matthew Stafford

Again, what is with the anti-scientific sentiments expressed by people here? What is wrong with wanting scientific proof for something that as the support of anecdotal evidence? I can understand if this is not interesting to a person, but that doesn't make it not worth doing.

I am not a exercise physiologist so maybe I'm missing something but I am former physicist so this science thing isn't new to me. Science is necessary for progress. Research is worth doing for the sake of knowledge, always.

Here is my problem with "science". I live in the real world, I use science everyday, if I do not use it well...people die (I do anesthesia for a living). How really useful is the information the academic exercise community putting out? Here is the link to the Nov issue of Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research:

http://www.nsca-jscr.org/pt/re/jscr/...195628!8091!-1 (WFS)

How many of those articles either told you something you did not already know, like jumping makes you are better jumper, or gave you something you could actually use to make yourself or others a better athlete?

[John Filippini]

Originally Posted by Pat McElhone

Why do we want it accepted in a rigorous academic setting? Is this the same setting not standing up to the American Heart Associating and the American Diabetes Association or the American Dietetic Association and telling them their dietary recommendations of 70% of daily calories from CHO are killing people? Is the same academic setting tell people all they need to be fit is 20min of exercise at 70% of their MHR 3x week to be fit?

These are the people we should seek approval from?

This is my whole problem with the Academic Exercise Community. While they are sitting around curriculum validating each other and disregarding CF because it is based "on scientific" principles or disregarding a low CHO diet, Americans are following their advice and still dying of preventable disease.

The problem is not so much with science, but with the funding. The current diet recommendations came out of poorly conducted studies a generation or more ago that the food industry jumped all over and marketed everywhere they could, making it "common knowledge". Now that "knowledge" is so far entrenched in the public view that it'll take an order of magnitude more work to debunk -- the sort of work people like Michael Pollan are starting to make headway with.

The problem isn't with the scientific method and peer reviewed research. The current diet model is the result of a significant departure from the scientific method. Someone did a poor study and rather than question it or even try to reproduce it, we allowed the people with more money to wave it around like a banner. There are scientific studies that have shown the efficacy of paleo-type diets, but they never got noticed by the public because there wasn't either (1) enough money to promote them or (2) a sheer volume of work done in a peer reviewed setting to make it impossible to ignore.

[Pat McElhone]

Originally Posted by John Filippini

The problem is not so much with science, but with the funding. The current diet recommendations came out of poorly conducted studies a generation or more ago that the food industry jumped all over and marketed everywhere they could, making it "common knowledge". Now that "knowledge" is so far entrenched in the public view that it'll take an order of magnitude more work to debunk -- the sort of work people like Michael Pollan are starting to make headway with.

The problem isn't with the scientific method and peer reviewed research. The current diet model is the result of a significant departure from the scientific method. Someone did a poor study and rather than question it or even try to reproduce it, we allowed the people with more money to wave it around like a banner. There are scientific studies that have shown the efficacy of paleo-type diets, but they never got noticed by the public because there wasn't either (1) enough money to promote them or (2) a sheer volume of work done in a peer reviewed setting to make it impossible to ignore.

If the above groups know they are wrong, why don't they speak up? Why are current guidelines different? Why doesn't the American Dietetic Associate come out and say we should be eating paleo?

[Sean Dunston]

Originally Posted by Pat McElhone

If the above groups know they are wrong, why don't they speak up? Why are current guidelines different? Why doesn't the American Dietetic Associate come out and say we should be eating paleo?

I don't want this to be pulled for digressing into politics, but I would guess:

There's no money in promoting the Paleo diet, but there's a lot of money in promoting the "food pyramid" scheme.

[Christian Mason]

Originally Posted by Pat McElhone

If the above groups know they are wrong, why don't they speak up? Why are current guidelines different? Why doesn't the American Dietetic Associate come out and say we should be eating paleo?

It's coming, just much more slowly than we would like. Some of the mainstream media are starting to carry reports of successful trials of paleo or paleo like diets, and it IS getting attention. I believe the FDA revised their recommendations to include more fat recently (still grain based though)

I managed to find one study abstract from a Scadanavian MD. who did some research with pigs on a paleo vs ceral diet that showed promising results. It'll take more than this to change the deeply entrenched ideas that are there, not to mention the agendas many groups have due to their financial agendas. As a rule, people fear change, and resist it.

I think it's coming, just not as quickly as we would like.

I also agree, there is an entrenched dogma in the scientific community, if not science itself, the AHA makes some horrible recommendations, etc...

Lets change it. IF we really want to help stop people from dyeing from preventable causes, we can't just thumb our noses at the scientific community because "we know what works". We need to work on changing what is recommended to Joe Sixpack.

[Matthew Stafford]

It's well documented that various industries in the US have lobbyist involved in the design of the food pyramid, hence the focus on what America produces vast quantities of: grains.

I have a question though, why -shouldn't- we perform studies on CrossFit? It seems many of you are against even the idea of research on CrossFit and I really don't understand why.

[Pat McElhone]

Again, I think there already is enough research done, META-ANALYSIS, of pre-CF style PT programs vs post to show it works. There is probably a paper out there by just collecting the data of various groups that have done this (Colorado State Police, Marine Force Recon Units, Naval Special Warfare School, Canadian Infantry School). Just clean up the statistics, do a META-ANAYLSIS and there you go. If done right, it can be done quickly and will probably be a better scientifically designed study then 99.99% of the other exercise studies out there.

But, it is already proven and CF is already doing those things. It is already reaching people, already changing lives and making people more fitter and healthier. Why should it seek the approval of the academic/entrenched/established exercise community that has not done the job CF has. CF is growing from the bottom up. Those at the top are just feeling left out.

Continuing to says CF is unfounded based on science is wrong. First, it is based on ideals grounded in physics and physiology (both science). Next these ideals passed the common sense test and were shown to produce results over and over. People who can not attack the results from CF, so they say...."yeah it works, but is it based on science?"

[Chris Walls]

Originally Posted by Matthew Stafford

I have a question though, why -shouldn't- we perform studies on CrossFit? It seems many of you are against even the idea of research on CrossFit and I really don't understand why.

I don't remember seeing anyone say we shouldn't. I just see people say "why?" If you want to see a study done go for it. I'll try to help you if I can, collect some data points from my athletes or something. But don't expect us to do a study for you, to your specs, to quench your scientific thirst when we see no reason to do it for ourselves.

[Gavin Harrison]

Originally Posted by Matthew Stafford

Again, what is with the anti-scientific sentiments expressed by people here? What is wrong with wanting scientific proof for something that as the support of anecdotal evidence? I can understand if this is not interesting to a person, but that doesn't make it not worth doing.

I am not a exercise physiologist so maybe I'm missing something but I am former physicist so this science thing isn't new to me. Science is necessary for progress. Research is worth doing for the sake of knowledge, always.

I think the "we need science, we need science, we need science" are missing a HUGE piece of the puzzle. And this has already been said, but... THERE ALREADY IS SCIENCE TO BACK CROSSFIT. When Pons and Fleischmann "found" cold fusion, they published their (very vague) method.. and the rest of the scientific community set about repeating, observing and measuring their method to see if they could reproduce the results... they failed to do so, and cold fusion was ultimately dispelled as a falsehood.

In crossfit's case, the proof exists. The methods are perfectly open and available, there are plenty of people around who are more than willing to help you do whatever you want to do. You can repeat, measure, and observe the results on yourself or whomever you like, and many many many people around the world have ... and... they results all match the claims. Don't believe me? Why not repeat, measure, and observe the claims for yourself? That's sciency.

Besides that, most if not all of the methods inside of crossfit have been studied scientifically in peer reviewed journals or accepted exercise science. Nothing lives in a vacuum. And for the record, every other program, aside from maybe westside barbell club's methods, does not deal with controlled studies by an outside body. The only reason I say "except maybe" WSBB, is that most of their methodology is based almost directly on old soviet track and field, and weightlifting sport science, which probably isn't much more sciency than crossfit.