The idea of "metabolic conditioning" (referring to conditioning exercises intended to increase the storage and delivery of energy for any activity, most often through resistance training in Crossfit) and the use of interval training and competitive exercise has spawned a whole new nation of fitness freaks, myself being one of them. I LOVE Crossfit workouts, but I sometimes wonder why they're structured the way they are. Some of them are excellent and designed perfectly for a general population:
For instance:
Chelsea
| Each min on the min for 30 min |
This workout is good (hard as hell) for anyone with generally good health and form. Obviously not everyone should or can do this workout, but in general, for those who are into fitness and start with a high level of fitness, this is a good one.
Why?
1. High repititions with only body weight provides a safe way to thoroughly thrash your major muscle groups
2. Full body functional movements make this a high calorie, intense circuit.
3. Built in HR variations, good for metabolic conditioning.
However, not all Crossfit workouts have these benefits
Here's Sunday's WOD:
Five rounds for time of:
275 pound Deadlift, 5 reps
10 Burpees
Post time to comments.
Here are the issues:
1. Who is 275lbs good for??? Maybe me, and maybe a few other 200lb+ guys, but pretty much no one else. Why would Crossfit assume this is an appropriate weight selection for everyone? One might argue that they don't and the 275lb number is just a suggestion, but I would think this weight prescription would be improved by saying something like:
125% of body weight for well conditioned lifters,
100% of body weight for moderately conditioned lifters
50-75% of body weight for beginning lifters
125% of body weight for well conditioned lifters,
100% of body weight for moderately conditioned lifters
50-75% of body weight for beginning lifters
2. The format is wrong. The deadlift is a BIG functional lift that involves lifting heavy weight (275lbs right?) in a coordinated fashion engaging the entire body with an emphasis on keeping spinal erectors rigid and engaging glutes and hamstrings as prime movers. This is not extremely simple and takes some practice to do correctly, and regardless of how good at Crossfit you are, your form will slack if your heart rate gets high enough. YES IT WILL. It's science. Nueromuscular facilitation begins to fall off when your heart rate reaches about 75% of your HR max according to the NSCA Essentials of Strength and Conditioning textbook. So why do you care if your form sucks doing a 275lb deadlift? Ever had a herniated or bulging disc? Not fun.
3. This workout doesn't efficiently target any energy system. This workout took most "crossfitters" about 5minutes, not enough to truly tax the glycolitic (longer anaerobic) or oxidatitive (aerobic) energy systems, but has a HR intensive element that prevents the participating athlete from making the most out of the strength element
(How not to do a deadlift correctly, 105lbs)
A good coach makes all of the difference, but I would warn you against simply going through the Crossfit.com page WOD without thinking about how each routine benefits you. It seems to me that some of these workouts are designed more to be brutal than to be safe and effective.
Nate Lawrence
