T-Nation, Shugart and the Truth About CrossFit

[Matthew Stafford]

The Truth about CrossFit (maybe wfs, it's T-nation)

Just saw this pop up on my feed reader, and it is actually a pretty excellent article about the pros and cons of CrossFit. He definitely does his research, too.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

I've always like T-nation and this article reinforces my opinion. THe telling part was the last paragraph.
" Yes ... but only if the benefits it offers are the ones you seek. As long as its goals match your goals, I recommend it."

If someone wants to compete at a high level, they are going have to specialize. But CF will still be a portion of their training for gpp. We've acknowledge it oursleves with Gant Hybrid, Rips Barbell work, Cf endruance and PMenu. This doesn't mean CF is lacking, it means people have aspirations to specialize more than strict CF allows. SOme people want to be pretty good at everything. Some people want to be really good at few things and decent at the rest.

As far as the comments about Glassman, the skill set to start, develop, and create something are usually much different than the skill set need to grow and nuture a mature product. Look at Apple (Gates and Balmer are notable excpetions), most start ups (especailly in technology). The guy who creates the company is not the one that runs it.

I think if a CFer had been bitten by the bodybuilding bug, T-nation would be an excellent place to go to learn more.

[Kevin Wood]

Charles Poliquin: "If you try to do everything in your workout, you get nothing. CrossFit is different, and maybe even fun for some people, but it's not very effective. No athlete has ever gotten good training like that."

I don't know about that...

[James Withington]

A very good, very fair article.

[Jared Ashley]

Originally Posted by Kevin Wood

Charles Poliquin: "If you try to do everything in your workout, you get nothing. CrossFit is different, and maybe even fun for some people, but it's not very effective. No athlete has ever gotten good training like that."

I don't know about that...

yeah... it's a recurring over-simplification of a claim with it's root in truth.

The true statement: No athlete has ever reached elite status in their sport training exclusively GPP.

The exaggeration: CF/GPP might be fun, but it's useless to the athlete.

the flip side of this argument comes from the WOD nazi's:

The true statement: GPP is an integral part of nearly all athletic endeavours, and CF is an excellent resource to supplement a training program.

The exaggeration: CF makes you awesome at everything. If you want to win, just shut up and do the WOD.

[Jimi Miller]

Originally Posted by Matthew Stafford

The Truth about CrossFit (maybe wfs, it's T-nation)

Just saw this pop up on my feed reader, and it is actually a pretty excellent article about the pros and cons of CrossFit. He definitely does his research, too.

Good article. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Jacob Cloud]

I'd say it's pretty good, but I think they could have hit on some of the positive experiences quite a bit more.

Take for example, this community vs. the T-nation forums. Nuff said.

[James Compora]

i like how he actually stated the truth about kipping pullups, everytime i watch a video on youtube of crossfit workouts everyone comments........"OMG WHAT KIND OF CHEATER PULL-UP IS THAT" kinda annoying lol

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

I got the same kind of comments about my push presses yesterday. I'm not doing an over head press, I'm doing a push press, different excersize. It's only cheating if aren;t doing what you set out to do. It's like saying the forward pass in football is cheating because it isn't allowed in rugby. Too different sports with different rules.

[Robert Callahan]

Very well written article. It is nice to see intelligent well thought out descriptions like that. It makes me happy

-Robert