Crossfit?! What's All This Crossfit Hoopla Anyway?
Crossfit has become very popular in the world of health and fitness. The students of this unique training system are borderline fanatical about crossfit, and the results speak for themselves as many of the athletes that train with crossfit are in great shape both functionally and aesthetically. Crossfit found it’s roots as a training system for military special forces, police academies, elite martial artists, and other professional athletes. It is designed to be scalable for people of all levels, meaning programs that the elite military personnel would perform would be the same as your grandmother would perform but the intensity would be much different obviously as would the strength implements. The programs consist of running, sprinting, body weight movements, Olympic lifts, strongman implements, gymnastics, kettle bell movements, throwing, rowing, climbing and more! Training is generally done in groups and in crossfit specific facilities, which have minimal equipment and lots of room for different kinds of functional training. The main focus of this kind of training is athletic performance. “We train to become stronger, faster, and more powerful without an increase in body weight. Superior strength and fitness allows our athletes to go out and succeed in whatever comes their way, no matter the circumstance or context.” – Dallas Crossfit.
So as a competitor should you be “Crossfitting”? I am a firm believer that there are no absolutes when it comes to training, so as usual “it depends.” It depends quite simply on what your physique looks like now and what you want it to look like on stage as to whether or not Crossfit is a good fit for your competitive goals. No matter your division if your goal is adding muscle, or working on weak points I don’t think crossfit is ideal for you. While it may have some carry over in terms of added power that could indirectly help you put on muscle by increasing your core lifts, it is a round about way of adding muscle to your frame. Also because crossfit does not use any isolation movements bringing up aesthetic weak points would be very difficult. I also don’t think it is ideal for precontest training in any division. Again this is not an absolute, while I think it can be done, I don’t think it’s ideal or the most efficient way of approaching precontest training. Contest prep is all about measurable variables, and manipulating them to maintain lean muscle mass while stripping away body fat. Because of the ultra high intensity and program var
iability of a crossfit workout I don’t think it’s ideal for a calorie deprived individual. Being very “dieted” down and following a training system designed for performance not only sounds like a recipe for injury but has potential to tap into lean muscle tissue for energy.
While I probably won’t be sending my clients to crossfit anytime soon, I do think that style of training has some great carryover into our sport. Metabolic Interval Training (MIT), which is very similar to crossfit, I believe is the best way for competitors to supplement there normal routines and still use crossfit style workouts. I spent some time talking to Metroflex Trainer, Steve Trentham MS, CSCS about MIT and it’s benefits. “MIT is an outstanding tool to shock your system forcing your metabolism to work in overdrive” say Steve. “Working at a higher intensity for shorter durations can be a great compliment to spending countless hours on the stepmill. One of the many benefits of MIT comes after your workout session is over due to the metabolic after burn. Your body burns more calories and fat for hours after you workout. Adding in interval training with kettle bells, battling ropes, sled pulls, tire flips, sledge hammer work, and hill sprints is a great way to burn a ton of calories and kick start your metabolism. MIT also improves circulation, increases the rate of repair and healing, and improves the immune system which lead to improved health and wellbeing.” I believe MIT has great application for competitors in several situations.
Implementing MIT after a long and hard contest prep can be a great way to repair a slowed metabolism. If you dieted on very low calories and did countless hours of low intensity cardio it is all but guaranteed your metabolism is injured and you have a very good chance of rebounding very hard off your prep. This can often lead to a vicious cycle where each contest prep has to be subsequently more brutal to achieve the same conditioning. Using MIT is a great way to reset and recharge your metabolism and allow for a healthier contest prep with less of a rebound or residual fat gains. It can also break you from the monotony of resistance training and stationary cardio. Using new programs keeps you interested, and motivated which can lead to better results. MIT is also good for competitors who just don’t want to add anymore muscle but still enjoy and need some kind of resistance training. MIT keeps muscles engaged but does not isolate or over stimulate to the point of significant muscle growth happening in a trained competitor.
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