Exercise

May 16, 2014

Building a Better CrossFit

CrossFit is perhaps the biggest (relatively) new thing in fitness. With over 7,000 gyms worldwide and more than 10 million participants, it’s an understatement to say that CrossFit is big business.

When it comes to CrossFit training methods, everyone seems to have an opinion. Thing is, opinions are rarely neutral; people invariably either hail it as the ultimate fitness experience or trash it as cultist pseudo-science.

As with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Without question, CrossFit has positive attributes. If nothing else, it fosters a sense of camaraderie amongst participants. CrossFitters feel like they’re part of a fitness community. The focus on competition pushes them to be their best. Exercise becomes fun. Not surprisingly, adherence in CrossFit gyms tends to be much better than in traditional resistance training programs. Remember: The best workout routine is the one that you’re able to stick with.

And despite what some claim, there is nothing inherently wrong with the CrossFit training model. Is it going to maximize your muscular strength or hypertrophy? No. But it is a viable strategy for improving overall fitness. Depending on your current fitness level, you’ll generally get stronger and bigger from CrossFitting, and you’ll almost certainly improve your muscular endurance. Moreover, when combined with proper nutritional programming, it can help to expedite the loss of body fat. In other words, for a large segment of the population, the CrossFit model has applicability.

The real “issue” is not with the concept of CrossFit per se, but rather in the way that many facilities carry out its training practices. So let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Here are three ways to take the basic principles of CrossFit and enhance its effectiveness and safety.

• Vary Planes of Movement: The human body is designed to move in three-dimensional space. To facilitate such movement, the musculoskeletal system is able to call upon different muscles based on the directional requirements of a given task. The problem with most CrossFit gyms is that almost all exercises are carried out in the sagittal plane. This ultimately results in strength imbalances between agonist and antagonist muscles that not only has a negative impact on your appearance, but can also hasten the onset of injury. Case in point: I recently conducted a study that investigated muscle activation in the rear delt fly – a transverse plane exercise. Guess which subject was the weakest in this movement? Yep, a CrossFitter. When questioned about his training practices, the subject stated that he never performed any horizontal abduction exercises. The result: poor posterior deltoid development. Here’s the easy fix: adopt a multi-planar approach to training by including exercises for all three cardinal planes (sagittal, frontal and transverse) in your routines. This will help ensure you achieve balance and symmetry between muscle groups, and reduce the possibility of incurring any structural discrepancies.

• Periodize Volume and Intensity of Effort: CrossFit training is generally an all-out endeavor; you go balls-to-the-wall each and every session, pushing yourself until you can’t push any more. Bad idea. Sure, high workout volumes and failure training can help to enhance muscular adaptations. But perpetually testing your physical limits over and over again is destined to lead to an overtrained state. The body simply isn’t made to endure such extreme repetitive efforts. Preliminary work from my lab shows that CrossFitters display a much greater incidence of symptoms related to overtraining compared to those who use traditional lifting practices. They report higher levels of fatigue, reductions in performance, issues with sleeping, and incidences of illness. The upshot is a training plateau and even regression of results. The solution: employ periodization principles so that volume and effort are systematically varied over time. This can include gradually increasing volume throughout the course of a training cycle, incorporating a step-loading approach so that weights get progressively heavier on a week-to-week basis, and/or interspersing “deload” weeks where both the volume and intensity of training are reduced. These types of practices will allow for the necessary restoration and recuperation of the body’s resources, facilitating continued progress.

• Focus on Form : Perhaps the biggest issue with CrossFit training practices is the focus is on doing as much work as possible as quickly as possible any way possible. There’s certainly nothing wrong with trying to pack more exercise into less time; this is a viable strategy for enhancing metabolic adaptations. It’s the “any way possible” aspect that causes problems. Potentially big problems. The lifting technique employed at many CrossFit gyms is nothing short of atrocious. Just check out the above video for proof. It’s therefore no wonder that the incidence of injuries is reported to be high amongst CrossFitters. The solution here should be obvious; don’t sacrifice proper form at the expense of exercise quantity. Make sure you have the technique to each exercise down pat so that it is ingrained in your subconscious. If necessary, regress in your exercises before you progress. This is particularly true with complex movements such as the Olympic lifts, where the potential for injury is high. Remember that safety is paramount to any routine; an injury is bound to derail your efforts.