[Silock]

Originally Posted by Saccopoo

I'm curious, what are your goals? You are obviously a really big numbers guy as it relates to your workout, so what is it that you are attempting to attain?

Simply to be stronger in all lifts this year than I was last year, which is pretty easy to track. I need to at least maintain my mile speed, again easy to track. For instance, 2 years ago, my bench 1RM was a lowly 255. This year, I'm hoping to break 280. I'm at 275 now. My mile time over the past 2 years has been a consistent 5:30-5:40, so that's steady. I'll time that again in May and compare. So yeah, I know exactly where I'm going. However, something is inevitably going to not be as good. You can't serve two masters, let alone the three or four that I sometimes attempt. I try to make attempts to shore up those weaknesses, but at some point, goals are diametrically opposed (like strength in weight lifting vs cardio endurance). There's only so good I can be at one while simultaneously trying to be good at another. So I have to basically abandon some goals and say "Well, I'll just have to drop training for this because it's wasting my time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere."

For instance, I can tell you without question that I'm slower sprinting right now than I was a year ago. Part of that is age, but part of it is that I'm carrying more weight, both in fat and muscle. I can try all I want to get faster, but that will require sacrificing some muscle gains, simply because I'll have to work on that more than lifting. There's only so much the body can take, and I can't maintain the lifting intensity that I've had in the past 4 months of winter while simultaneously upping my sprint training. So, I'll work on getting my sprinting back up to par and hope I can hang on to a portion of the strength I've gained over the past 4 months. But it's going to require sacrifice and something is going to have to give.

Ironically, I have a lot of the same problems that Crossfitters do. The difference is that I recognize that I simply cannot be awesome at everything, and I have to drop certain goals so that I can concentrate on one or two. The Crossfit games purport to show people who have succeeded at Crossfit and are now awesome at a lot of activities. There's a couple of problems with this. 1) Most of the competitors you see on TV are on PEDs. 2) They don't even use the randomized method of Crossfit, which completely undermines the basic premise of the whole thing.

Crossfit seems to have certain goals as it relates to improvement of numbers/time on the repetitions and exercises. They even have established a end "game"/contest/competition where these goals are rewarded and judged against other competitors. That definitely doesn't seem like a vague end goal by any means.

The problem is that when you try to get better at everything, you eventually end up improving at nothing. I'll paraphrase Mark Rippetoe a bit:

When people start out with Crossfit, they see rapid improvement. Why? Because they haven't been doing anything. And it's big time exercise. Very intense. That kind of exercise makes the body adapt to exercise. But at a certain point, exercise can't elicit any more improvements. You need training. And training requires a plan. Which most Crossfit gyms don't have. Some do, and that's awesome.

So, when you hit this wall, random exercise isn't going to cut it for improvement. You need consistent, standardized training. Part of that is simply getting in the needed repetitions in a specific time frame. But another big part of it is that over time, you develop the much-needed supporting musculature for doing heavier lifts or more repetitions. And that's another part where the randomized nature of Crossfit doesn't help. Rippetoe says it better than I could: "Random exposure to varying levels of volume, intensity, rest, technical complexity, and power output *cannot* be sustainable, safe, specific, and productive."

I will say this: My friends' Crossfit gym tries to do it right. They do mobility and strength programming before doing any kind of WoD. So, they'll do a dynamic warmup with some mobility work, then the strength portion, and then a WoD. They do this so that their members can track progress and try to stave off injury. However, most of their gym is carrying at least one injury all the time, so it doesn't seem to be working.

I was wondering why all these people in the gym were doing these plyometric type of exercises, and it seems that Crossfit incorporates this concept into their routine along with Olympic style burst strength lifting and body weight burst/strength exercises.

Which leads me to yet another problem I have with Crossfit. Plyometrics are their own workout. They work best on their own, when you aren't already tired, and when you don't do 3,000 reps of them. I mean, Box Jumps are great, but they work best when you keep the reps low (around 6 or so) and you do it when you're fresh. Combining repetition and strength training with the fatiguing nature of plyometrics severely reduces their effectiveness. But Crossfit regularly combines the two things with total disregard to how the exercises actually elicit the most improvement. Why? Because muscle confusion. Which is stupid. The really messed up thing is that you can actually fit most of the stuff that Crossfit does into an exercise regimen, if you do it smartly and not haphazardly. But it requires planning, thought and complete non-randomness for it to be effective.