I have met all my strength and weight goals and wanted to try something different from SS and TM. I was looking at crossfit on the FAQ but im struggling to understand what exactly it is.

I see guys doing obstacle courses, climbing ropes and throwing sandbags etc. then i read a few crossfit logs and seems like people are doing body weight exercises.

Is it just some customized plan for specific sport?

It is in fact the complete opposite of this. CF athletes aspire to be above-average in all "ten modal domains of fitness." Speed, agility, strength, blah blah blah. Anyway, it's random programming that theoretically prepares people for the random events of life. But in reality, that's probably not the best way to train someone for GPP-centric work.

CF has a long and checkered history. Most intelligent people would agree that CFHQ is run by ******s. Many good trainers and experts have bailed on them over the years due to differences with Glassman and the other executives.

There's a lot more, but I don't want to ramble on too long.

kyle/others,

any links to non-******ed versions of crossfit? As in, I'd like to start doing more conditioning exercises in a while and would like to educate myself. Goals: get stronger (from TM/SS etc), better VO2max, maintain BF %. I.e. prolly equal to a lot of guys.

Justin/others have posted example programs on startingstrength.com, but only the program, not the exercises afaik.

Just troll the CF boards. You can figure out which metcons are stupid on your own.

IMO the Tabata method works extremely well at rapidly improving VO2max and dropping BF%.

Soulman - http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=111530641

That is basically a Starting Strength/Crossfit hybrid template and offers lots of good ideas.

crossfit football (crossfitfootball.com)

incorporates heavy metcons and football specific excercises (like sprints) in with oly lifts.

I don't think the CFHQ is necessarily run by tards, its just that they throw random **** up there every day without much thought other than - 'lets make them work hard today' or 'lets do a lot of reps today'

There are crossfit boxes that incorporate oly lifts with heavy metcons and some cardio (row sprints, etc). Problem is, others suck or are geared toward people with different goals (endurance as opposed to strength, etc) and they're damn expensive so it can be costly to find the correct one.

You're right, it's not run by ******s, but it IS run by a delusional, megalomaniacal, perpetually-inebriated philanderer sloth who doesn't workout at all.

Thanks guys.

Lets not forget that Glassman is a misogynist as well (See challenge to T-nation editor TC).

actually I was hoping some of the more experienced guys could take a look at crossfit football and confirm (or refute) my thought that it is a solid workout regimen.

Its better. But why are we forced into doing a crossfit type methodology?

The metcons are entirely too long as well for novice/intermediate trainees. Terminating a lot of efforts at the 5m mark regardless of completion would be >>> than much of what is done.

where can we get a full history of glassman? like, where do you guys read all this stuff about him being a philanderer?

I like crossfit, but my experience has exclusively been with a decent affiliate and not with the mainsite. Also I guess I don't even do their metcons, just their oly + short metcons in about 1/2-2/3 of my training sessions. This type of setup isn't really offered most places, I guess, but I really think it's pretty close to ideal for me personally.

For anyone interested in (what I think, as an amateur, to be) decent metcons in the 3-8 min range, my log has several. There was one recently that was 11 mins, but that was unusually long/dumb.

Crossfit hate HQ is pretty much the irongarm couch thread.

my sister qualified for crossfit games. the crossfit here in lexington is pretty bad. They did just get a awesome powerlifter dude that works there part time. but the workouts are pretty terrible.

I think in smaller cities and esp poorer areas, most crossfits will be bad because charging 100+ bucks a month to workout you get older ppl joining. Soccer moms might want to do some met cons but dont want to lift no heavy ass weight.

So do you need a special gym to do this? i just figured you could do it at any gym. im gonna read up on this as im still confused as exactly what it is.

Some of the exercises CF typically puts in its workouts do require specific equipment, like gymnastics rings or kettlebells. It can be hard to do some of the workouts in regular gyms too because often there are a lot of different exercises in a workout that may be far apart in a regular gym.

Having bumper plates and platforms help a lot for the Olympic lifts incorporated into CF as well. You can certainly do CF or CF-style workouts in a regular gym but some of them may need to be changed to accomodate what you can do.

A good CF affiliate will have coaches who can help you with your form in the lifts also. Whether all that is worth the extra money to you is something to consider of course.

Found this interesting article when looking for what Thremp was referring to regarding misogyny.

The Truth About Crossfit

I mean... Challenging another man to a fitness challenge against a random woman is kinda ridiculous. There are probably some micropenis men who'd lose to androgen using women in the Olympia if we even made "sling a big dick" a comp.

This thread needed to be done. It's good to have conversation on something besides how SS is perfect for everything and how ******ed P90x is.

Don't be another jogsy/jdock-esque troll brah.

Yeah, I forgot to quote that part. Pretty funny:

From the article:

I've found that the backlash against SS is in general stupid and done by those who do it for no other reason than the popularity of the program. Criticizing something just because it is popular is just an easy way to avoid thinking. It's like high school all over again.

So true. But the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync still suck!!!!!!!

I wasn't even criticizing. Just saying it was nice to have a new topic.

This topic has been covered in this forum endlessly.