Lately, I have been trying out some different conditioning work, doing small circuits, hitting the kettlebells again etc. Browse the internet and you can't avoid coming across Crossfit. Crossfit (and let me get the definition right here) is a core strength and conditioning program based on constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity.
When I visited the Crossfit sight, I can't help but thinking that this site has a truly bad navigation, and there are lots of cryptic description of exercises and WOD's.. WOD being the workout of the day.. Not to be mistaken with WAD.. Surfing blogs through Google was way more helpful.
What is good about Crossfit is that it uses exactly what it preaches to do, functional movements in a varied way. They apply these movements in a timed fashion, or for a certain amount of reps. Crossfit is not a be all, end all type of training. Most of the believers in Crossfit are involved in other sports as well, martial arts, running, or whatever.
Why I like Crossfit, is that it is a good way to enhance your condition, that is for sure. It can be a nice addition to your pure strength training, and can spice up your (maybe sometimes) dreading sets of 5 and reps of two's routines.
However, what Crossfit does is actually nothing more then setting up routines that were formerly known as a superset, an antagonistic vs agonistic set, or high rep sets with a total body movement.. That being said, crossfit has put a nice jacket on this type of training, and got some great training routines put up there. Workouts are referred to mysterious hotties like "Grace", "Diane", "Cindy"...
Today I took Grace a ride, or better yet, Grace gave me a ride.. Hard.. Grace is made up of 30 reps of clean and jerks, done for time, with 135lbs.. Now that's not a lot of weight, and doing sets of 5 is not that hard. But doing it in one straight set is a different story.. 7 minutes! It took me 7 minutes to finish this.. Boy, am I in a bad shape, conditioning wise..
The crossfit practioner will stop here, but I don't feel like it's enough. Did I not work it enough? No, I did, lungs were bursting. But I also like to lift heavy weights and won't settle for an Ironman condition alone, I like to lift and pull HEAVY..
I did a superset with bis and tris, and 2 rounds of 4oom, running.
Conclusion for me, and maybe for you as well, is to check it out, see what it is about and just for fun try out one of the girls, and see where you stand conditioning wise. For the not so creative persons amongst us, there are a lot of WAD's you can swallow on numerous blogs or on the site itself. If you are a bit creative, you can think up of some routines yourself and make it a finisher, a pumper, a breather, a long burner to round up your regular training..
ENjoy,
Theo
Good summary of Xfit there Theo. It is a good conditioning tool but it's far from a well rounded strength AND conditioning routine it makes its self out to be.
Nick
Posted by: Nick McKinless | March 22, 2008 at 02:59 AM