HARD!!! Physical Training

bruno

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I spent yesterday watching the Crossfit NorthEast Regional competitions just outside of Boston (At the Raebok headquarters campus in Canton, MA). The CrossFit program isn't for the fainthearted- but you are sure in good shape if you take it up:eek:
For those of you who are looking to really get across- the- board hard, you might want to look up a Crossfit gym near you. This approach really stresses the whole body along with endurance. It is not an entry level fitness program though- so make sure that you are in reasonably good condition before you start.

Video from the Regional competition- I'm not sure whether to describe it as insane or grueling- but it's the hardest 22 minute workout I've ever seen and the competitors are doing 2/day of this type of workout.
http://games.crossfit.com/region
 
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Lots of guys (and gals) I know in the fighter community have taken up Cross-Fit as their exercise regime of choice. Equally builds up strength and cardio, which is a huge benefit for the High-G type of sorties we normally fly during training.

Me? I'm on the "No-fit" regime. Involves a lot of e-mails and PowerPoint... :biggrin:
 
I have heard some great thing about crossfit. I have also heard some scary things. Service friends of mine who do it recommend working with a local gym as Bruno recommended. They teach the correct form. Great article about it here.
 
The workouts are really grueling. Timed events, it's not like the rather leisurely 3 sets of 12 reps of various lifts followed by a run, kind of workouts that most folks follow. Although this is a little more extreme than the daily cross fit workout (for example workout #4 had a max time to completion of 22 minutes and the best time of that event was 16 minutes !) - it gives you a very good idea of the philosophy. Your daily work outs are really only about a half hour long - but it's not unusual to see a few folks from the group bent over heaving at the end of it. You truly work till exhaustion. As I said - it's not a program that I would just go into without some reasonable level of fitness already in place and although they post the workouts daily- I don't see how you could do this on your own. But it's definitly a program that gives you really usable strength and fitness and it's very popular in the Army and Marine Corps for that reason.
IndWorkouts_1400_WBG.jpg
 
Crossfit is great right up until you hurt yourself by overtraining with poor form. A certified crossfit trainer is really only someone who paid cross fit and sat through a seminar once. The time based workouts with so many reps and relatively light weight encourage poor form, especially if you are being trained by someone who sat through a slideshow once. If you look at the cross fit games, the people that win all have prior lifting experience through college athletics, conventional weight lifting, etc.

Bluf- cross fit will not give you big muscles or improve your two mile time, and has the potential to cause serious back, shoulder, and knee injuries
 
Crossfit is great right up until you hurt yourself by overtraining with poor form. A certified crossfit trainer is really only someone who paid cross fit and sat through a seminar once. The time based workouts with so many reps and relatively light weight encourage poor form, especially if you are being trained by someone who sat through a slideshow once. If you look at the cross fit games, the people that win all have prior lifting experience through college athletics, conventional weight lifting, etc.

Bluf- cross fit will not give you big muscles or improve your two mile time, and has the potential to cause serious back, shoulder, and knee injuries

Clearly you haven't had a great experience with the program and certainly the injuries are something to consider as it is a very intense program, but it's not designed to turn you into a ripped monster or a long distance but emaciated marathoner. I think that it's a pretty effective program for training you to develop explosive strength, flexibility, endurance and CV fitness. True it won't do much for the specific 2 mile run on the PFT but that's why you have to get your butt out on the pavement to do well on that event. Virtually all of the rest of the new events that the Army is adding to the PT test however are going to benefit from this type of program. It's usable strength and endurance and it directly translates into the kind of fitness that you will need to posess if you are an Infantryman humping a 75-125 pound load in rugged terrain, which is why you can find a very crowded Cross-fit gym around every Army post I can think of.
If you want a little philosphical background on the Cross-Fit definition and approach to fitness- this is kind of an interesting article:
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Trial_04_2012.pdf
 
Now I like to "think" that I am still in decent shape. After all I can still do at least one pull up for each year of my age.

But that cycle they show on there event page is crazy! You will not find me out there doing any hand stand push-ups. :eek:

Wow tpg! I'd say anything over 20 deadhang pullups is pretty good. :thumb:
 
Clearly you haven't had a great experience with the program and certainly the injuries are something to consider as it is a very intense program, but it's not designed to turn you into a ripped monster or a long distance but emaciated marathoner. I think that it's a pretty effective program for training you to develop explosive strength, flexibility, endurance and CV fitness. True it won't do much for the specific 2 mile run on the PFT but that's why you have to get your butt out on the pavement to do well on that event. Virtually all of the rest of the new events that the Army is adding to the PT test however are going to benefit from this type of program. It's usable strength and endurance and it directly translates into the kind of fitness that you will need to posess if you are an Infantryman humping a 75-125 pound load in rugged terrain, which is why you can find a very crowded Cross-fit gym around every Army post I can think of.
If you want a little philosphical background on the Cross-Fit definition and approach to fitness- this is kind of an interesting article:
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Trial_04_2012.pdf

Bruno,

This is one of the places where I am going to agree with the other poster. While the concepts discussed by Cross-fit are sound, PDB88 is not the only poster aware of less-than-well-trained people running the operation. Folks I've heard back from have indicated that unless you know good form for any exercise before you get there, they won't help you fix your form. Some may say, "so what". Problem here is that when you max yourself out with poor form, you tend to injure yourself because you are putting strain on joints in a direction/motion they weren't meant to do.

I marvel watching the World Championships every year (they were just on a couple weeks ago IIRC) both in the pure power and endurance these athletes demonstrate, but also in the poor form so many of them exhibit in basic lift techniques and find myself wondering how many of them are going to have serious issues down the road as I'm sure this isn't the first time they've done most of these lefts.

I've also watched a few years of the Worlds Strongest Man competitions and generally, the techniques used by and large are correct for the lifts they are doing - minimizing the risk of joint injury (although it does happen). You can tell these guys (many in their 40's) have been well taught and can continue their work at an incredibly high level for decades. I'll be curious to see if any of these Cross-fit folks can last more than 10 years without killing their joints.

Don't get me wrong - the high intensity, varied, and coordination challenging workouts Cross-fit pushes will make for the best of athletes. The frenzied work atmosphere at these places are a great motivator to excel and push hard. However, the serious lack of proper instruction in safe lifting I've heard would have me wondering if sending our troops there might not be in their long-term interest.

You do see these crazy types of workouts in military settings - special forces training comes to mind here - but it is purely episodic and more to test the will of the participants. There are a good number of injuries during this training. Being able to push through the pain is a necessary thing, but not on a continuing basis.
 
My experience with crossfit comes mostly from watching countless sandhurst teams and other individuals doing it in Arvin gym, and seeing those same people months later lifting the same amount of weight or worse going in to see the physical therapy people.

Crossfit does not produce raw strength gains (bench, squat, deadlift, power clean, etc.) beyond what you get from just starting to work out those muscle groups for the first time. There is a reason that NFL athletes don't crossfit, and I would argue that they are among the most explosive athletes In the world.

Again, if you look at the top performers in the crossfit games, they all have extensive backgrounds with traditional weight training and came into crossfit with much more strength than the average Joe

And one last thing...those mega kipping butterfly pull ups or whatever they are called are ridiculous, and not in a good way...
 
Crossfit is an excellent supplementary workout for my traditional weight lifting regimen. However, like any exercise fad that the masses flock to because of internet blogs and fast growing crossfit centers, the movement has its share of problems especially with form intensive olympic/power lifts (cleans/deadlifts). Bad form and injuries are rampant. But like I said I enjoy it from time to time to mix up my workout and it is very popular in the military.
 
Couldn't agree more. The number of crossfit gyms ("boxes") that spring up in a military town is amazing. Most of them amount to folks paying $100+ monthly for a "coach" who took a weekend-long class to "teach" complex Olympic lifts. As with anything, you have to vet the product.

We have a Crossfit gym in a hangar, and have spent lots of cash sending NCOs to Crossfit certification. The results remain to be seen long term.
 
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