Is Crossfit Dangerous?

By dpope2020

June 6, 2012

Crossfit, dangerous, Technique Matters

Uh Oh!  Careful dog you might tear your rotary cup!

This is a huge topic floating around in the strength and conditioning world.  As crossfit grows in popularity it seems that every strength and conditioning coach is jumping on the hate crossfit bandwagon.  You know what they say, opinions are like assholes right?

Katt Williams – They Gonna Hate (Explicit)

My biggest problem is that I don’t think a lot of these top coaches are actually experiencing crossfit for themselves before they go off and spout criticism.  Most of their background in crossfit is limited to youtube videos, rumors and stories from clients who may have left a crossfit gym because they got hurt.

I try not to make many comments about the world of politics for the same reason I wish people would reserve their comments about crossfit.  If I make a comment that is based on my own limited knowledge on a topic, chances are I’m grossly misinformed.  Instead of saying something intelligent my statements mostly diagnose me as a misinformed moron.  Politics, like most topics are extremely complex and I really feel you need an open mind and in depth understanding of these topics to make educated criticisms.

We all know that a little bit of knowledge is very dangerous.  People get married to things: diets, exercise programs and political parties.  We naturally gravitate toward one way of thinking and are naturally pressed to seek out information from like minded individuals.  For example, I had success with low carbohydrate diets for physique improvement and pretty much ran with that over the past 10 years.   I went from expert to expert who was a fan of low carb.  My view points still reflect that.  Does that mean that low carb diets are the be all, end all of physique enhancement diets.

No, it just reflects a bit of closed mindedness on my part, choosing not to actively check out the other diets that people were having success with.

Alright, let’s try to weigh the pros and cons of crossfit.

Pros:

  • A great sense of community and excitement about fitness.  Gym members come to a class and then hang out afterward.  They greatly enjoy and look forward to the people and the atmosphere.  The group and social atmosphere is far and away one of the best aspects of crossfit.
  • A strong press toward good nutrition.  Zone, Paleo whatever it is, the community is at least actively trying to embrace nutrition as a vital part of the equation.
  • Competition:  Talk about the risk of injury all you want, having something to train for competitively is an enormous motivation.  Last time I checked, people get injured running competitively all the time.  I don’t see anywhere near the amount of backlash from the strength and conditioning community about running.  If you’re concerned about hurting your shoulder then don’t compete.
  • Effective and challenging exercises.  I can’t really think of anything more effective for getting in great shape, brutally strong, lean and mean then high intensity training using functional movement like squats, deadlifts and pullups.
  • The opportunity to train however you see fit.  Crossfit borrows from every genre of fitness.  There’s no cookie cutter approach.  Your programming can be made however you see fit for your individual needs.  You don’t have to adopt the crossfit.com programming and I don’t personally know of any crossfit facilities that do this.  There’s no rule that says everyone needs to do kipping pullups or else they won’t really be crossfit.
  • Exercise variety

Now the negatives.

  • Advanced technical lifts.  Many of the lifts, particularly the olympic lifts are difficult to learn and when done incorrectly can cause injury.
  • Lack of adequate rest periods.  When your body fatigues, movement quality goes down.  When that occurs so do compensation patterns and then you guessed it, injury.
  • Randomized programming.  I wanted to throw this one in here because its a common reason for crossfit hatred.  (Most gyms including Tribe put a great deal of thought into their programming for progress and injury prevention)
  • An emphasis on “beating the clock”.  This tends to make people sacrifice technique for a few extra seconds and a chance to say they’ve beaten their buddy during a “WOD”.
  • Lots of overhead lifts
  • Group training atmosphere limits individual attention needed for proper technique.  Group training is inherently risky when compared to personal training.
  • A dogmatic adherence to crossfit principles.  Like anything else, sometimes crossfit leads to closed mindedness to other fitness areas.

Now how we actively bridge this gap at our crossfit gym.

  • Screening clients
  • Good solid programming
  • Smart, educated and dedicated trainers
  • Beginners classes
  • Mandatory foundations programs people must go through to learn proper exercise technique before starting group classes.
  • Personal training for those who need/can afford it
  • A strong emphasis on technique over speed of completion, quality over quantity
  • A strong emphasis on not pushing through pain, modifying whenever needed.
  • Modifying all lifts that clients can’t perform properly
  • Corrective exercises, foam rolling and stretches to improve technique.  Clients are told what stretches and strengthening exercises they need to personally correct their own problems.
  • Smaller class sizes
  • Inherent knowledge that exercise may lead to injury.
  • Olympic Lifting Classes
  • An network of therapists and chiropractors to work with if injuries do occur

Keep in mind that crossfit tends to attract type A individuals who love to work hard.  These same people tend to push through pain and end up having poor exercise technique against advice from coaches.  I’d say that about 75% of the injuries that occur in our gym are because someone went heavier then they should have or decided to push through pain when they knew better.  Most people who get injured don’t walk away saying, man I have no idea how that happened?

I’ve worked, trained and volunteered at well over 10 different gyms and sports performance facilities.  Not a single place has ever devoted as much time and effort toward, stretching, warming up, exercise technique and injury prevention as the crossfit I’m currently working at, Crossfit Tribe.  The last facility I worked at as a bootcamp instructor we spent 15 minutes devoted to foam rolling and warm-up.  This was unheard of, but its standard procedure at most crossfit gyms.

Keep in mind I’ve also spent an entire month traveling around the US specifically going from crossfit gym to gym leading up to the crossfit regionals in 2010.  This was pretty much standard across the board.

Crossfit calls in experts from all areas of fitness to make their sport safer and more effective.  Louie Simmons and Mike Bergener have gained enormous popularity since the crossfit boom has happened.

With all of this in mind, I’d say that most crossfit gyms are offering a much better experience then most traditional gyms.  I’d also be willing to wager that you’re less likely to hurt yourself in a crossfit gym then if you went out and tried to train at another gym with a group exercise program.  How about that for a bold statement?

How about crossfit as a sport?  Is there a risk of injury?  Of course.  You don’t find people up in arms about football.  I went into polevaulting in highscool and college fully aware that teenagers and elite athletes have died in the sport and we’re worried about a few kipping pull-ups?

I will ask for those so called experts out there to please keep your comments to yourself until you’ve truly experienced someone doing a good job with crossfit.  Then by all means go ahead and make some constructive comments that will help the fitness world in general.  Until then, you’re ruining it for the rest of us.

If not for anything else, lets all try to be a bit more open minded about life in general.  Its easy and natural to get caught up in your viewpoints and be defensive.  I’m not saying not to take things with a grain of salt either, I’m just saying that I think democrats are stupid and capitalism has ruined the world *cough* sarcasm *cough*.