[quote]Catalyst Fitness wrote:
A 1060 total, conforming to PL rules, but using a shoulder press instead of a bench? Unbelted? To depth?
Here’s why I care enough to post. When I read this site in 2001, it was new. It had its swagger on, but it would take new information, disseminate, use what it could and not use the rest. Tate was a new author; Poliquin was pretty much the same; guys like Robertson and Berardi weren’t even writing here yet.
I think I’m one of the very few people who can say they’ve read every article ever posted on this site; I was even lucky enough to have my own poor attempts posted here once!
Now, though, it seems the site is trying hard to entrench and defend. If Cressey tells you to do a combination of 3 exercises and calls it a ‘complex,’ it’s awesome. If Crossfit calls the same complex ‘Wynona,’ it’s gay. If Dan John tells you to do Tabata, it’s a revelation; if it comes from Greg Glassman, there’s no way it can work.
If the Beast tells you to master the OLY lifts, he gets 200 positive responses; if a Crossfit gym hires an elite OLY coach to come in and teach its athletes how to jerk, we’ll “fuck it up as soon as they leave.”
Dave Tate takes a rookie through a box squat session, and the rookie sells a book. Tate shows up to teach the same thing to a group of Crossfitters, and he must only be doing it for money. Please; if you met the man, you’d know he was no sellout.
A few months ago, I posted a bunch of pics of our new gym on a thread, and asked for suggestions for improvement. I had a bunch of great responses; we have monkey bars, Strongman implements, 3 OLY Platforms, cages, bumper plate, tires and kegs and hex bars and ropes and GHRs and reverse hypers and now, thanks to the suggestion of a T-Nation member, a reading library for our members in our mezzanine. We sell memberships and have a PL group. We also do Crossfit. Please, someone tell me in person that we suck. [/quote]
And to be clear, you don’t suck dude. You sound like an awesome guy/girl who is doing a lot right by the culture. My only problem is that every time I read something by someone who practices crossfit, it comes off as very defensive. I’ve also read every article on the site, and looked forward to every Friday when they would update 5 at a time. I think I still have $40 outstanding for the paper mag that was never reprinted! The point is that through all the reading and practicing, there is nothing magical about weight training.
Consistent, planned progression and hard work and taking the time to perform all the lifts you do right. It’s taken a lot of fucking up along the way to realize that. When I view crossfit from the outside, its just a bunch of random shit tossed together.
Look a little deeper and it seems o.k. especially because they use a lot of good lifts (not necessarily executed well) and encourage people to work hard and improve. Nothing magical in the least, and nothing to ever get defensive about.
Pat
