I have a lot of respect for Crossfit athletes. They work harder in many ways than anyone I know. However I have meat with Crossfit as a general air conditioning program. Crossfit should not be seen as a way to stay in shape, but as a competitive sport.
When you are a baseball pitcher, you practice your long throw to improve your throw. At Crossfit they practice their movements with representatives and sets, to reduce their training time. Crossfit is a sport, not a way of life, and not a way to strengthen and cure your body for the long term. No athlete will increase explosive strength, core strength, and stability through this training, which cannot be achieved elsewhere with greater results. I've heard people say it's a great exercise. And what taste? That all. Just good training. It does not focus on explosive power. It does not focus on increasing the release of growth hormone in your body - it does. It does not focus on safety and it does not focus on core strength and stability.
I might upset a lot of people with this article, so I'll provide as much scientific data as possible. The first myth of Crossfit that I will conclude is that you can optimize all three energy systems optimally at the same time. Each energy system is activated by the progressive closure of the previous energy system. Athletes wishing to develop explosive strength should be trained primarily in the phosphorus-creatine system. While in the phospho-creatine system, the type 2 A & B muscle fibers of the body can contract to the maximum. As the countdown increases the body moves from the phosphorus-cream system to the glycolithic system and the athlete's ability to produce energy decreases. I recently did a Crossfit workout where I was told to jump in the box 40 times in a row. Unless I'm a Dutch Double professional or a Crossfitter professional, there is no reason for this exercise. By 40threp, I never exploded despite the phosphor-creatine system and the glycolitic system, I put in my oxidative system. While using the oxidative system, my body changed my contaminated components from Type 2 to Type 1. Type 1 muscle fibers are used primarily for endurance activities. In taking exercise that should be seen as an explosive and work on my Type 1 muscle fibers, I lowered my body's ability to create power and speed of movement. If you do explosive movements in a system other than your phospho-creatine system IS YOUR BATTLE TRAINING TO MAKE WEAK! I'll do it again! If you train your Type 1 muscle fibers to perform Type 2 muscle movements, you will become weak. Your body remembers the last rep of each set, so please make it explosive.
Let's go back to the box jump or snatch, or any explosive movement. The most explosive movements involve a lot of muscles and create a lot of tension in the bones and joints. Bones are very similar to muscles as they strengthen through a more progressive load - the more weight you use for a long time, the stronger and denser they become. Everyone knows runners who have bad knees, bad hips, or bad ankles. Continued compression of the runner's bones and joins without progressive excess weight] will cause the skeletal skeleton to decline. At the other end of the spectrum, properly trained Olympic lifters have very strong bones as they have to adapt to heavier weights over time. For some reason, Crossfitters has a long-standing Olympic release habit. The fact that the little muscles you use in your full body movement are depleted in the first few reps is just one concern I have with this practice. If the Crossfitters continue to do Olympic lifting and explosive training, their bones and joints will be weakened. Poor joints and bones cause pain and instability. The pain is not healthy. If you need to see a chiropractor to adjust your body, there may be a defect in your fitness prescription.
If you've ever fought, you know the feeling of temples pounding, neck moaning, skin rubbing, heart beating out of your chest, body temperature rising. It is your body's stress response that tells you that you are in danger. Something's wrong. Your body is now turning off certain functions to upgrade its ability to perform or fight. This is a surefire way for your body to release glucocordicoids and other stress hormones that hinder protein synthesis and your body's ability to produce growth hormones such as IGF-1 and HGH. For those of you who think that too much science mumbo jumbo .... it means your body cannot grow and will be catabolic if you continue this exercise. If you go to the top of the paragraph and read the description of how your body feels in the fight, you will know how your body feels after Crossfit training. Do yourself a favor and give yourself time to relax and complete each set with maximum energy expenditure. Otherwise, you will again underestimate your fitness levels by lowering your endocrine system.
Another beef I have with Crossfit training is that they do not focus enough on core and stability. The first time I argued this, I was attacked by the argument that doing 30 feet to the bar in a row was a very difficult abdominal exercise. I disagree, but it's done wrong by 99% of the world. We will soon see many Crossfitters in physical therapy for hypertrophied illiopsoas muscles. 99% of the athletes I've worked with don't know how to use the transverse abdominus and correctly separate the contraction of each muscle in the abdominal muscle. I have never been to a Crossfit exercise where the instructor talks about the importance of activating a horizontal abdominus or wearing a diaphragm. If you can't separate each of your abdominal muscles properly and effectively, I guarantee you won't be able to integrate them properly. Abdominal muscles have more nerve innervations than other body muscles. The nerves are essentially the extension of the brain and are responsible for giving direction to the muscles. You may now see how much of your core activity is responsible.
The last point I will make is that everyone is different. You have different bodies with different reactions to different stimuli than those around you. The body we run everyday is like a canvas. We paint that canvas every day of our lives through our actions and the way we live. If you sit in the car every day for two hours, your pelvis will be positioned at a different angle than the yoga instructor, who keeps turning back. You will have different tight muscles, different weak muscles and different trigger points than the mechanics located behind the car all day.
The point is that no two untrained people should use the same method. Especially in the explosion / resistance mode that Crossfit is so famous for. If you are part of the program and you follow the same exercises and protocols as everyone else in the group without any attention or exercise for muscle and bone differences and imbalances, you may be asking your teacher to hurt you.
Exposing the Crossfit Myth
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