Big Deal About CrossFit?

Training
279

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]siouxperman wrote:
I was impressed as hell watching the games today to see a lot of guys power cleaning 300+ lbs after a full day of competition. It’s not for everyone, but they produce some impressive athletes.[/quote]

This is the misconception. The athletes in the crossfit games were not produced by crossfit. They come from other sports/ athletic fields. They’re gymnasts, competitive sprinters, triathletes, etc who have adopted crossfit post-athletic career. Look up ANY of the top crossfit athletes and this becomes apparent.[/quote]

Kind of like a powerlifter turned bodybuilder. Heavy lifting built the physique, bodybuilding shit altered the proportions to become then “aesthetic.” Most of the impressive Crossfit athletes that I see always turn out to be from some other sport. Rob Orlando is like that.

280

Speaking of powerlifters turning to Crossfit, here’s AJ Roberts (former 308’s All Time Record holder) doing his first Crossfit workout. He’s transitioning to CF, link to his training log in the video.

281

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]Cymru wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]siouxperman wrote:
I was impressed as hell watching the games today to see a lot of guys power cleaning 300+ lbs after a full day of competition. It’s not for everyone, but they produce some impressive athletes.[/quote]

This is the misconception. The athletes in the crossfit games were not produced by crossfit. They come from other sports/ athletic fields. They’re gymnasts, competitive sprinters, triathletes, etc who have adopted crossfit post-athletic career. Look up ANY of the top crossfit athletes and this becomes apparent.[/quote]

Ok but this can be turned around a little to. The reason that many current crossfit athletes come from other sports is that crossfit is relatively new. To be a top level competitor in any sport takes a considerable amount of effort and time. According to some researchers 10,000 hours. With its relatively recent popularity burst crossfit has not had the opportunity to produce (utilising only its own guidelines) athletes that have clocked in enough hours to match semi-elite athletes from other sports who transfer their skills.

If a sport was invented that involved ridding a bike for 10miles and then bench pressing a maximum weight I am pretty sure that the people who would succeed at the top end would initially be either cyclists or powerlifters. It would take a considerable time before individuals developed solely in this sport would begin to win anything.

Crossfit is currently in this boat. Until now it has not had the popularity or financial reward to attract individuals with the best genetic potentials - they have gone elsewhere. Like it or not with its gaining popularity and financial reward it will attract them at a very young age from this point on. In 10-years time you may or may not see athletes developed entirely by crossfit protocols at the top of their sport. Then and only then can you judge the effectiveness of crossfit. I am neither against or for crossfit - but merely pointing out that time alone will provide answers.

I have no doubt that there are two separate branches of crossfit. The GPP plan for the general public - hard work, functional movements (some good, some bad), no planing and a pretty decent outlook on nutrition. Not perfect - but for 90% of people better than they would be doing without the main site WODs. There is the second branch - elite crossfiters training for a sport, who plan their training and realise that strength and power are extremely important and elite fitness is not simply met-con after met-con.

As a side point I am pretty sure that Rich Fronning’s college baseball training did not prepare to perform 14-events in 5-days at the intensity he produced.
[/quote]

Crossfit is 12 years old. Is it new compared to say, baseball? yes. But a 16 year old who started at the beginning of crossfit would be 28 now, an athlete’s prime. So it has had PLENTY of time to develop top notch athletes. Even the crossfit games, with the monetary incentive you’re talking about, have been around for 5 years.

Here’s the more important thing when we’re talking about whether crossfit can or will develop elite athletes on its own: the infrastructure and oversight absolutely sucks. There is zero regularity from box to box. And that makes for a huge problem when determining what crossfit can and can’t do for an athlete. It’d be like saying a dozen athletes who trained at a particular 24-hour fitness made it to the NFL, so 24 hour fitness trainers in general are a good route to pro football. I know there are great crossfit boxes out there, no doubt. There are some athletes at crossfit gyms doing some serious training. But their training is less about the brand of crossfit, and more about applying the things they’ve already learned from strength and endurance training, and pushing their focus towards exercises rather than traditional skill-based sports.

I think for these reasons, we have some common ground, but I don’t think the crossfit brand deserves the credit for the production of any real athletes.[/quote]

So 12 years ago you knew about CrossFit, and 5 years ago you knew about the CrossFit games?

I am happy to be apart of an organization that introduces more people to powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman than powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman. It is crap that people try and use the same arguments that people were athletic and strong before they competed in CrossFit. No shit. Take a look at strongman, how often do you see a strongman competitor that started with strongman, and not football or powerlifting, or bodybuilding?
“Well CrossFitters don’t even use CrossFit in their training” Really? How often do Strongmen train events? How often are they just doing normal gym lifts(not strongman)? The arguments against CrossFit are getting weaker and weaker. CrossFit is a now very succesful sport and it will only get bigger. It does not matter how the games competititors train, just like it does not matter how the best bodybuilders train. What matters is what happens at the competition. The training I do at my gym is differnt from other CrossFit gyms. I emphasize strength in my programing. I can do that because I am an affiliate of CrossFit, meaning that I just pay an annual fee to use the CrossFit name so I can do what I want in my gym. I get no support or instruction from Crossfit HQ, and I don’t want any. I charge the prices that fit my market as others gyms do.

If you look at CrossFit as a sport and not a training program your perspective should change. There are lots of ways to train for the same sport. I have always looked at it as a sport, which is why I have always liked it.

282

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]Cymru wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]siouxperman wrote:
I was impressed as hell watching the games today to see a lot of guys power cleaning 300+ lbs after a full day of competition. It’s not for everyone, but they produce some impressive athletes.[/quote]

This is the misconception. The athletes in the crossfit games were not produced by crossfit. They come from other sports/ athletic fields. They’re gymnasts, competitive sprinters, triathletes, etc who have adopted crossfit post-athletic career. Look up ANY of the top crossfit athletes and this becomes apparent.[/quote]

Ok but this can be turned around a little to. The reason that many current crossfit athletes come from other sports is that crossfit is relatively new. To be a top level competitor in any sport takes a considerable amount of effort and time. According to some researchers 10,000 hours. With its relatively recent popularity burst crossfit has not had the opportunity to produce (utilising only its own guidelines) athletes that have clocked in enough hours to match semi-elite athletes from other sports who transfer their skills.

If a sport was invented that involved ridding a bike for 10miles and then bench pressing a maximum weight I am pretty sure that the people who would succeed at the top end would initially be either cyclists or powerlifters. It would take a considerable time before individuals developed solely in this sport would begin to win anything.

Crossfit is currently in this boat. Until now it has not had the popularity or financial reward to attract individuals with the best genetic potentials - they have gone elsewhere. Like it or not with its gaining popularity and financial reward it will attract them at a very young age from this point on. In 10-years time you may or may not see athletes developed entirely by crossfit protocols at the top of their sport. Then and only then can you judge the effectiveness of crossfit. I am neither against or for crossfit - but merely pointing out that time alone will provide answers.

I have no doubt that there are two separate branches of crossfit. The GPP plan for the general public - hard work, functional movements (some good, some bad), no planing and a pretty decent outlook on nutrition. Not perfect - but for 90% of people better than they would be doing without the main site WODs. There is the second branch - elite crossfiters training for a sport, who plan their training and realise that strength and power are extremely important and elite fitness is not simply met-con after met-con.

As a side point I am pretty sure that Rich Fronning’s college baseball training did not prepare to perform 14-events in 5-days at the intensity he produced.
[/quote]

Crossfit is 12 years old. Is it new compared to say, baseball? yes. But a 16 year old who started at the beginning of crossfit would be 28 now, an athlete’s prime. So it has had PLENTY of time to develop top notch athletes. Even the crossfit games, with the monetary incentive you’re talking about, have been around for 5 years.

Here’s the more important thing when we’re talking about whether crossfit can or will develop elite athletes on its own: the infrastructure and oversight absolutely sucks. There is zero regularity from box to box. And that makes for a huge problem when determining what crossfit can and can’t do for an athlete. It’d be like saying a dozen athletes who trained at a particular 24-hour fitness made it to the NFL, so 24 hour fitness trainers in general are a good route to pro football. I know there are great crossfit boxes out there, no doubt. There are some athletes at crossfit gyms doing some serious training. But their training is less about the brand of crossfit, and more about applying the things they’ve already learned from strength and endurance training, and pushing their focus towards exercises rather than traditional skill-based sports.

I think for these reasons, we have some common ground, but I don’t think the crossfit brand deserves the credit for the production of any real athletes.[/quote]

So 12 years ago you knew about CrossFit, and 5 years ago you knew about the CrossFit games?

I am happy to be apart of an organization that introduces more people to powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman than powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman. It is crap that people try and use the same arguments that people were athletic and strong before they competed in CrossFit. No shit. Take a look at strongman, how often do you see a strongman competitor that started with strongman, and not football or powerlifting, or bodybuilding?
“Well CrossFitters don’t even use CrossFit in their training” Really? How often do Strongmen train events? How often are they just doing normal gym lifts(not strongman)? The arguments against CrossFit are getting weaker and weaker. CrossFit is a now very succesful sport and it will only get bigger. It does not matter how the games competititors train, just like it does not matter how the best bodybuilders train. What matters is what happens at the competition. The training I do at my gym is differnt from other CrossFit gyms. I emphasize strength in my programing. I can do that because I am an affiliate of CrossFit, meaning that I just pay an annual fee to use the CrossFit name so I can do what I want in my gym. I get no support or instruction from Crossfit HQ, and I don’t want any. I charge the prices that fit my market as others gyms do.

If you look at CrossFit as a sport and not a training program your perspective should change. There are lots of ways to train for the same sport. I have always looked at it as a sport, which is why I have always liked it. [/quote]

I heard about crossfit my first year in college, so no, I didn’t know about it 12 years ago. That was 2002, 10 years ago. And yes, I heard about the crossfit games in their first year. But honestly, I realize I could be an anomaly in those regards, so it’s not an important point.

Most of your second paragraph refers to ‘crossfit’ as if it were more organized than I believe it is. This is why I used the 24 hour fitness analogy. Certain crossfit boxes are putting out significantly more world-class athletes than others. Some boxes don’t even put out above-average athletes. I’ve been to a crossfit gym where there wasn’t a single person who could perform a full clean. Therein lies the problem with the notion that ‘you just pay an annual fee and you can use the name’, and then say the credit for building these athletes goes to crossfit itself.

Also, for you to say it doesn’t matter how people train, just how they perform at games, essentially means you only actually do crossfit if you compete in the games. Yet every person who goes to crossfit gyms at least once a week wants to say they ‘do crossfit’. The definition of ‘doing crossfit’ is so loose that anyone who does a kipping pullup and a kettlebell swing considers themselves a crossfit athlete.

283

Crossfit seems like the new “HIT,” rabidly loyal followers, yet none of them can define what it is anymore.

284


^ crossfit

HIT = bitch about about getting screwed at the Olympia (even tho you deserved to lose), sell books to people who dont want to train, suck dick for coke, die

285

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]Cymru wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]siouxperman wrote:
I was impressed as hell watching the games today to see a lot of guys power cleaning 300+ lbs after a full day of competition. It’s not for everyone, but they produce some impressive athletes.[/quote]

This is the misconception. The athletes in the crossfit games were not produced by crossfit. They come from other sports/ athletic fields. They’re gymnasts, competitive sprinters, triathletes, etc who have adopted crossfit post-athletic career. Look up ANY of the top crossfit athletes and this becomes apparent.[/quote]

Ok but this can be turned around a little to. The reason that many current crossfit athletes come from other sports is that crossfit is relatively new. To be a top level competitor in any sport takes a considerable amount of effort and time. According to some researchers 10,000 hours. With its relatively recent popularity burst crossfit has not had the opportunity to produce (utilising only its own guidelines) athletes that have clocked in enough hours to match semi-elite athletes from other sports who transfer their skills.

If a sport was invented that involved ridding a bike for 10miles and then bench pressing a maximum weight I am pretty sure that the people who would succeed at the top end would initially be either cyclists or powerlifters. It would take a considerable time before individuals developed solely in this sport would begin to win anything.

Crossfit is currently in this boat. Until now it has not had the popularity or financial reward to attract individuals with the best genetic potentials - they have gone elsewhere. Like it or not with its gaining popularity and financial reward it will attract them at a very young age from this point on. In 10-years time you may or may not see athletes developed entirely by crossfit protocols at the top of their sport. Then and only then can you judge the effectiveness of crossfit. I am neither against or for crossfit - but merely pointing out that time alone will provide answers.

I have no doubt that there are two separate branches of crossfit. The GPP plan for the general public - hard work, functional movements (some good, some bad), no planing and a pretty decent outlook on nutrition. Not perfect - but for 90% of people better than they would be doing without the main site WODs. There is the second branch - elite crossfiters training for a sport, who plan their training and realise that strength and power are extremely important and elite fitness is not simply met-con after met-con.

As a side point I am pretty sure that Rich Fronning’s college baseball training did not prepare to perform 14-events in 5-days at the intensity he produced.
[/quote]

Crossfit is 12 years old. Is it new compared to say, baseball? yes. But a 16 year old who started at the beginning of crossfit would be 28 now, an athlete’s prime. So it has had PLENTY of time to develop top notch athletes. Even the crossfit games, with the monetary incentive you’re talking about, have been around for 5 years.

Here’s the more important thing when we’re talking about whether crossfit can or will develop elite athletes on its own: the infrastructure and oversight absolutely sucks. There is zero regularity from box to box. And that makes for a huge problem when determining what crossfit can and can’t do for an athlete. It’d be like saying a dozen athletes who trained at a particular 24-hour fitness made it to the NFL, so 24 hour fitness trainers in general are a good route to pro football. I know there are great crossfit boxes out there, no doubt. There are some athletes at crossfit gyms doing some serious training. But their training is less about the brand of crossfit, and more about applying the things they’ve already learned from strength and endurance training, and pushing their focus towards exercises rather than traditional skill-based sports.

I think for these reasons, we have some common ground, but I don’t think the crossfit brand deserves the credit for the production of any real athletes.[/quote]

So 12 years ago you knew about CrossFit, and 5 years ago you knew about the CrossFit games?

I am happy to be apart of an organization that introduces more people to powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman than powerlifting, olympic lifting and strongman. It is crap that people try and use the same arguments that people were athletic and strong before they competed in CrossFit. No shit. Take a look at strongman, how often do you see a strongman competitor that started with strongman, and not football or powerlifting, or bodybuilding?
“Well CrossFitters don’t even use CrossFit in their training” Really? How often do Strongmen train events? How often are they just doing normal gym lifts(not strongman)? The arguments against CrossFit are getting weaker and weaker. CrossFit is a now very succesful sport and it will only get bigger. It does not matter how the games competititors train, just like it does not matter how the best bodybuilders train. What matters is what happens at the competition. The training I do at my gym is differnt from other CrossFit gyms. I emphasize strength in my programing. I can do that because I am an affiliate of CrossFit, meaning that I just pay an annual fee to use the CrossFit name so I can do what I want in my gym. I get no support or instruction from Crossfit HQ, and I don’t want any. I charge the prices that fit my market as others gyms do.

If you look at CrossFit as a sport and not a training program your perspective should change. There are lots of ways to train for the same sport. I have always looked at it as a sport, which is why I have always liked it. [/quote]

I heard about crossfit my first year in college, so no, I didn’t know about it 12 years ago. That was 2002, 10 years ago. And yes, I heard about the crossfit games in their first year. But honestly, I realize I could be an anomaly in those regards, so it’s not an important point.

Most of your second paragraph refers to ‘crossfit’ as if it were more organized than I believe it is. This is why I used the 24 hour fitness analogy. Certain crossfit boxes are putting out significantly more world-class athletes than others. Some boxes don’t even put out above-average athletes. I’ve been to a crossfit gym where there wasn’t a single person who could perform a full clean. Therein lies the problem with the notion that ‘you just pay an annual fee and you can use the name’, and then say the credit for building these athletes goes to crossfit itself.

Also, for you to say it doesn’t matter how people train, just how they perform at games, essentially means you only actually do crossfit if you compete in the games. Yet every person who goes to crossfit gyms at least once a week wants to say they ‘do crossfit’. The definition of ‘doing crossfit’ is so loose that anyone who does a kipping pullup and a kettlebell swing considers themselves a crossfit athlete.[/quote]

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.

286

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.
[/quote]
This makes no sense.
You can call yourself a powerlifter if you compete at powerlifting. It doesn’t matter how you train and it doesn’t matter how strong you are. But, powerlifting is a sport.
Crossfit is a training program (source http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html - note there is not a single mention of a competition). You don’t have to compete at anything to say you are doing Crossfit. All you have to do is train according to its principals.
A more apt analogy to doing Crossfit is training using Westside which is also a training program and not a sport. You don’t have to compete to be doing westside, you just have to be training using its programming.

287

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.
[/quote]
This makes no sense.
You can call yourself a powerlifter if you compete at powerlifting. It doesn’t matter how you train and it doesn’t matter how strong you are. But, powerlifting is a sport.
Crossfit is a training program (source http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html - note there is not a single mention of a competition). You don’t have to compete at anything to say you are doing Crossfit. All you have to do is train according to its principals.
A more apt analogy to doing Crossfit is training using Westside which is also a training program and not a sport. You don’t have to compete to be doing westside, you just have to be training using its programming.[/quote]

CrossFit is a sport, so everything you said about powerlifting applies to CrossFit. The CrossFit games are more popular than the biggest power meets, or strongman, or highland, or weightlifting meets, they sold out the Home Depot center this past weekend over 10,000 people in the stands. You could not do that with all the best powerlifters in America. That does not mean that CrossFit is better or worse than powerlifting, just more popular at this point.

Westside is a gym that has training principals for the sport of powerlifting. They do not have the Westside games. Westside has the SPF aka the high squatter fed to show their stuff.

Do you have to compete in powerlifting to be powerlifting?

288

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.
[/quote]
This makes no sense.
You can call yourself a powerlifter if you compete at powerlifting. It doesn’t matter how you train and it doesn’t matter how strong you are. But, powerlifting is a sport.
Crossfit is a training program (source http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html - note there is not a single mention of a competition). You don’t have to compete at anything to say you are doing Crossfit. All you have to do is train according to its principals.
A more apt analogy to doing Crossfit is training using Westside which is also a training program and not a sport. You don’t have to compete to be doing westside, you just have to be training using its programming.[/quote]

CrossFit is a sport, so everything you said about powerlifting applies to CrossFit. The CrossFit games are more popular than the biggest power meets, or strongman, or highland, or weightlifting meets, they sold out the Home Depot center this past weekend over 10,000 people in the stands. You could not do that with all the best powerlifters in America. That does not mean that CrossFit is better or worse than powerlifting, just more popular at this point.

Westside is a gym that has training principals for the sport of powerlifting. They do not have the Westside games. Westside has the SPF aka the high squatter fed to show their stuff.

Do you have to compete in powerlifting to be powerlifting?[/quote]
Once again: YES you have to compete in powerlifing to be powerlifting. Otherwise you are just lifting heavy. In between contests, you could say someone is TRAINING for powerlifting but they are not actually powerlifting.
However, you do not have to compete at anything to be doing Crossfit because it is a training program, not a sport.
Popularity has nothing to do with it.

289

Foundations

By Greg Glassman

In Basics, Classic, CrossFit

April 01, 2002
PDF Article

CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning PROGRAM*. We have designed our PROGRAM* to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.

*emphasis added

290

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.
[/quote]
This makes no sense.
You can call yourself a powerlifter if you compete at powerlifting. It doesn’t matter how you train and it doesn’t matter how strong you are. But, powerlifting is a sport.
Crossfit is a training program (source http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html - note there is not a single mention of a competition). You don’t have to compete at anything to say you are doing Crossfit. All you have to do is train according to its principals.
A more apt analogy to doing Crossfit is training using Westside which is also a training program and not a sport. You don’t have to compete to be doing westside, you just have to be training using its programming.[/quote]

CrossFit is a sport, so everything you said about powerlifting applies to CrossFit. The CrossFit games are more popular than the biggest power meets, or strongman, or highland, or weightlifting meets, they sold out the Home Depot center this past weekend over 10,000 people in the stands. You could not do that with all the best powerlifters in America. That does not mean that CrossFit is better or worse than powerlifting, just more popular at this point.

Westside is a gym that has training principals for the sport of powerlifting. They do not have the Westside games. Westside has the SPF aka the high squatter fed to show their stuff.

Do you have to compete in powerlifting to be powerlifting?[/quote]
Once again: YES you have to compete in powerlifing to be powerlifting. Otherwise you are just lifting heavy. In between contests, you could say someone is TRAINING for powerlifting but they are not actually powerlifting.
However, you do not have to compete at anything to be doing Crossfit because it is a training program, not a sport.
Popularity has nothing to do with it.[/quote]

so someone can spend ten years lifting to get the desired muscle mass and not compete so they are not a bodybuilder?

crossfit is a training program and they have world games, something like 68,000 people entered the open wods. In the last two years alone Annie Thorisdottir and Rich Froning have walked away with half a million dollars each. It certainly sounds like a sport they train and compete. Is it not a sport? who decides what is a sport? Thousands of people all round the world go in regular crossfit comps and it is a sport to them, no different to training for a soccer, footy match, golf or tennis.

And as for crossfit having no program and being just random is false,
e.g.
day 1 strength
day 2 strenght and metcon
day 3 strenght, metcon and gymnastic exercises
day 4 rest
day 5 metcon
day 6 metcon and gymnastic
day 7 metcon, gymnastic and strenght exercises

its just a different way of looking at it, if you say it does not work look at Annie Thorisdottir in 2009 to how she is now. Way fitter and stronger, sure she did gymnastics before but it did not get her to how she is today.

my 2cents worth.

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[quote]Anus Bleach wrote:
^ crossfit

HIT = bitch about about getting screwed at the Olympia (even tho you deserved to lose), sell books to people who dont want to train, suck dick for coke, die[/quote]

I don’t know how many crossfitters are outrunning and outlifting an Olympic sprinter or decathlete. I can probably outlift most distance runners and outrun most lifters and I’m not an Olympic athlete. The points being, and these are my main issues with CF, that you don’t need to do CF to get better “all around” and CF does not create super athletes.

292

This is not at all specific to CF, but this whole idea that you must participate in some sort of sanctioned game, meet or contest to be “doing” a sport doesn’t really make sense to me.

If I get up at 0 dark 30 every morning and go running at a 5:30/mi pace by myself I am not a runner but if I go to my local fun run one Saturday and slog out a few 9 minute miles in a crowd of thousands I am? Same with cycling.

What about outdoor sports like skiing, snowboard, surfing, climbing etc. If I do a 3 day multi-pitch big wall climb with a buddy` I am not climbing but if I do a comp at a climbing gym I am? Similarly, I guess pretty much nobody is actually “doing” mountaineering because there’s basically jack shit in the way of organized competition. Same with tow-in surfing.

Also, do you only “do” your sport during the window of time that you are actually competing? Is a PL’r only a PL’r for the few minutes that he’s actively competing at a meet? If you have competed in one meet can you call yourself a PL’r forever after?

It just seems like an overly narrow definition of “sport” to me.

293

I don’t think anyone is saying that CF can’t be a sport, as anything can be considered a sport. Rock throwing, watermelon seed spitting, thumb wrestling, you could even make a sport based on blinking (like who can blink the most in one minute). What the people who object to CF being called a sport really have an issue with is the idea that CF “athletes” should be considered on the same level as athletes from established sports because CF, as a sport, should be considered a sport on the same level as those sports.

Also, the idea that somehow only CF shows some all around athleticism and before that all athletes were specialists is a lie. Decathletes have demonstrated all those attributes CF is supposed to show, except decathletes demonstrate them better.

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No one is saying that crossfit training is the only way to get very fit all round, there are many ways but I think crossfit dose deserve credit for making very fit individuals.

Just look at the recent games, no one can deny they are very fit all round. They got this way from many having a base interest in sports but to get to the crossfit games you have to train for crossfit. How the athletes achieve this is a very individual program to suit the individual just like any other sport.

Crossfit is a brand name that works and is successful. And by the way just because I think golf is the shittest game of all doesn?t mean it?s not a sport.

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[quote]spook1 wrote:

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

[quote]OBoile wrote:

[quote]fattymcfatso wrote:

Here is the same issue that always arises. What if I had a 200 pound back squat a 150 bench and a 300 deadlift? Am I a powerlifter? I subcsribe to Powerlifting USA. I have an Inzer t-shirt,I am a T-Nation member. But I am not strong. Could I call myself a powerlifter? What if I spend every waking moment worrying about my abs and my bicep peaks, and I tan myself and shave my legs but never step on stage? Am I a bodybuilder, or do I just bodybuild? What if I play basketball with my fiends on the weekends? Am I a basketball player?

Would it matter if I won a power meet by training mainly on a smith machine? It would be gay of course, but If I won the meet could I call myself a powerlifter? The definition of doing CrossFit is just as loose as people “running a marathon” in 6 hours, or getting a black belt in karate from the YMCA.

As far as affiliation is concerned, when was the last time you went to a Powerhouse gym? How many “Powerhouses” do you see on the recumbent bikes and stairmasters in those places. Yet their name and logo represents big and strong. Does that mean they are liars? There are strong people who train at Planet Fitness (I think there are about 7 of them) but they clearly should not be there. Just because a gym or organization advertises something that does not mean their clientel will always follow suit.
[/quote]
This makes no sense.
You can call yourself a powerlifter if you compete at powerlifting. It doesn’t matter how you train and it doesn’t matter how strong you are. But, powerlifting is a sport.
Crossfit is a training program (source http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html - note there is not a single mention of a competition). You don’t have to compete at anything to say you are doing Crossfit. All you have to do is train according to its principals.
A more apt analogy to doing Crossfit is training using Westside which is also a training program and not a sport. You don’t have to compete to be doing westside, you just have to be training using its programming.[/quote]

CrossFit is a sport, so everything you said about powerlifting applies to CrossFit. The CrossFit games are more popular than the biggest power meets, or strongman, or highland, or weightlifting meets, they sold out the Home Depot center this past weekend over 10,000 people in the stands. You could not do that with all the best powerlifters in America. That does not mean that CrossFit is better or worse than powerlifting, just more popular at this point.

Westside is a gym that has training principals for the sport of powerlifting. They do not have the Westside games. Westside has the SPF aka the high squatter fed to show their stuff.

Do you have to compete in powerlifting to be powerlifting?[/quote]
Once again: YES you have to compete in powerlifing to be powerlifting. Otherwise you are just lifting heavy. In between contests, you could say someone is TRAINING for powerlifting but they are not actually powerlifting.
However, you do not have to compete at anything to be doing Crossfit because it is a training program, not a sport.
Popularity has nothing to do with it.[/quote]

so someone can spend ten years lifting to get the desired muscle mass and not compete so they are not a bodybuilder?

[/quote]
Yes. They are just someone who lifts weights.

A training program is not a sport. Crossfit, and Crossfit competitions are not the same thing (despite the fact that they share similar names for marketing purposes).

296

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
I don’t think anyone is saying that CF can’t be a sport, as anything can be considered a sport. Rock throwing, watermelon seed spitting, thumb wrestling, you could even make a sport based on blinking (like who can blink the most in one minute). What the people who object to CF being called a sport really have an issue with is the idea that CF “athletes” should be considered on the same level as athletes from established sports because CF, as a sport, should be considered a sport on the same level as those sports.

Also, the idea that somehow only CF shows some all around athleticism and before that all athletes were specialists is a lie. Decathletes have demonstrated all those attributes CF is supposed to show, except decathletes demonstrate them better. [/quote]

Actually, I have lots of respect for competitors in the crossfit games. While they may not be at the level say pro basketball players, they are still really, really good.
My point is simply that crossfit itself is a training program. It existed as a training program before competitions that borrowed its name popped up. The majority of people doing crossfit don’t compete. The training program and the competitions are NOT the same thing. You can do one without doing the other. Crossfit (by its own website and the words of its founder) is the training program.

297

Agree with you OBoile on there is crossfit training program and crossfit comps, yes you can do one without the other but to train in crossfit principles will make you a better crossfitter at the games. I didn’t see any pro basketball players at the crossfit games yet it would be interesting for there a many athletes who are just naturally talented at whatever they do.

If I play golf but don’t go in a golf tournament can I call myself a golfer or am I just a cunt who hits a white ball around a paddock? Or the massive fucker at the gym cannot call himself a bodybuilder for he has not competed yet the 62kg skinny dude who got up on stage in all his ripped puny form and placed last at some low level comp can say yes I am a bodybuilder but you are not. People can be bodybuilders even if they don’t compete; there would be many people on this forum in this category. I call myself a spearo because I like to spear fish but I don’t compete in spearfishing comps, people can actively be involved in a sport even if it?s not at competition level. So will have to disagree with you on that one.

298

[quote]spook1 wrote:
People can be bodybuilders even if they don’t compete; there would be many people on this forum in this category.
[/quote]

If I play a game of basketball on the weekend with some friends I wouldn’t go around calling myself a basketball player. When someone claims to be something like that the response is, “what team do you play for?” If someone claims to be a bodybuilder then the response might be, “what comps have you entered and/or won?” In other words, the claim implies that one is a competitive participant at the highest levels. If you have to end up qualifying the claim with, “oh, I’m not a pro basketball player I just play with some buddies in my driveway,” or, “I’m not a competitive bodybuilder, I just try to look like one without having to do the extreme cutting or having to pose in front of a crowd,” then you probably should have qualified it from the start. You can call yourself whatever you want but let’s be honest: if someone says they are a bodybuilder we assume they actually compete.