Another take at Crossfit

Metabolic & conditioning training topics
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galapogos
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Another take at Crossfit

Post by galapogos »

http://baye.com/crossfit/

btw Jerry, before you start, I don't agree with quite a few of the things he said :)

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

I take the view that he 'could' be right

But until he posts the some results, its all just talk and a cheap way of generating traffic to his website.

If he could demonstrate his methods produced increased work capacity etc etc, then i have no doubt that crossfittters would be adopting his methods instead.

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Post by xarope »

If nothing else, I will have to admire his level of restraint and politeness in addressing some of the more "passionate" crossfitter comments, he managed to settle them down and have a meaningful conversation with some of them.

The crossfitters, on the other hand, did not come across well at all.

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

the debate between Darwinists and creationists is a bit similar

the creationists stand by their beliefs and opinions (which is exactly what the high rep O lifts are dangerous crowd are), but they have no real evidence and the Darwinists are getting a little tired of it all......

Baye artilce shows zero practical evidence that hes acutally implemented it as a program, nor posted the results

In fact not one of the crossfit detractors has ever posted the actual program people do and the results obtained. I find this kind of surprising as its the one piece of evidence that would shut us all up and have us swithc programs in a flash

:wink:

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Post by galapogos »

The problem here is that the "crossfit detractors" aren't united in 1 sort of program. We're all doing different programs, and we're fragmented in that way. There's no one "anti-crossfit workout program" where people are getting great results out of. Instead, we're all getting results from different programs, because guess what, we're all different! :shock:

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

Thats not really an issue

Mr Baye critiques crossfit, but offers no compelling or anecdotal data that 'his' program develops better fitness (as per crossfit's definition), faster and with less injuries that crossfit does.

If you can't provide any compelling examples that what you do works better than what we do for our objectives, then its just someone's opinion and is no better than Boyle, Cook etc.

We keep going down this road and so far no-one has produced any info that 'their' program produces faster gains with less injuries.

This is something that everyone seems to miss.....

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Post by galapogos »

Did you read his article and comments/replies in their entirety?

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

yes

steven turners comments looked interesting but he said "CrossFit training sounds very similar to the way we trained and shared the same training ethos."

Notice the phrase, "sounds very similar"

Now hes either been to the main website, and therefore would 'know' if it was the same or not, or hes has not. His comment suggest he has not.

I also went through the Royal Marine Commando Course about 20 odd years ago. The training we did for that will be very similar to the Australian Navy due to the common ethos etc.

I can vouch for the fact that a lot of those guys have real bad injury problems in later life. This has a lot to do with 10m runs with 40lb of kit, training through injury and generally trying to be a hard ass!

Now will crossfit produce legions of cripples in later life? Well only time will tell. The early indicators are that it does not based on guys who have been on the program for over 5 years.

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Post by galapogos »

jerry.mobbs wrote:yes
Then you would have read this?
Baye wrote:Thank you for your comments. My intent wasn’t to convert CFers to HIT, but rather to get HIT people - the primary readers of this site - to consider incorporating some CrossFit-like workouts in their training.
His program doesn't claim to achieve CF's goal better than CF. Its intended audience isn't the CF community, so he doesn't need to offer any compelling/anecdotal data that his program develops better fitness(as per CF's definition), faster and with less injuries that CF does.

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

Read the 4th paragraph

His intention is fairly clear...
"While CrossFit will no doubt produce results, the same or better results could be achieved more safely and with a fraction of the weekly time invested with a few modifications. Safer, more effective exercises could be substituted for the Olympic lifts, plyometrics and exercises performed in a fast or explosive manner."

He's contradicting himself and now backing away from his key point when asked to provide some evidence that can be used to support his claim.

It happens all too often. when asked to substantiate their claims, they either back off as Beye has done, or fall back on the Boyle cop out of "I stand by my opinion"....

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Post by galapogos »

How's that contradicting himself?

And frankly, he's hardly a "CF detractor". He just made a few modifications to CF that makes it more bodybuilding friendly. The same thing Catalyst Athletics has a more O lift focus, and that other guy who modified it for a more strength focus, or that CF for marathoners for a more endurance focus.

It seems that every time someone disagrees with CF even the slightest, CFers gather their pitchforks and starts a witch hunt, even if they might agree with many other things, as Baye clearly does. CF is hardly perfect for all goals, even yours. That's why you added Prasara Yoga, CST, clubbells and all that other stuff. Does that make you a "CF detractor" too since you aren't following the WODs as RX'ed? No, of course not. Does Coach Glasman demand evidence from you of how Prasara Yoga, CST, clubbells and all that other stuff improves CF's definitions of fitness? No, of course not, but you're still doing it aren't you? So why then do his opinions and ideas make him a "CF detractor"?

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

galapogos wrote:How's that contradicting himself?
"same or better results could be achieved more safely"

this clearly implies he has a better or safer way

if so, the comment stands, justify why your way is better by showing some data
galapogos wrote:And frankly, he's hardly a "CF detractor". He just made a few modifications to CF that makes it more bodybuilding friendly. The same thing Catalyst Athletics has a more O lift focus, and that other guy who modified it for a more strength focus, or that CF for marathoners for a more endurance focus.
you do not understand how crossfit endurance came about

email brian mackenzie and find out

he did not just sit down on a keyboard and come up with it

he has stacks of data that shows a combination of the main site wod and then the crossfit endurance wod 3 hours later has produced improvements in multisports atheletes times, and reduced overall training time

the point is that he has the data to justify his approach for crossfit endurance, thats why its an accepted part of the community
galapogos wrote:It seems that every time someone disagrees with CF even the slightest, CFers gather their pitchforks and starts a witch hunt, even if they might agree with many other things, as Baye clearly does. CF is hardly perfect for all goals, even yours. That's why you added Prasara Yoga, CST, clubbells and all that other stuff. Does that make you a "CF detractor" too since you aren't following the WODs as RX'ed? No, of course not. Does Coach Glasman demand evidence from you of how Prasara Yoga, CST, clubbells and all that other stuff improves CF's definitions of fitness? No, of course not, but you're still doing it aren't you? So why then do his opinions and ideas make him a "CF detractor"?
i use prasara as a substitute for basic gymnastics, because that what it is at the level i use it for

prior to adding prasara, i was not doing enough gymnastics so i was not strictly following the crossfit prescription

if mr beye could demonstrate with data that his way is better than crossfits, then we will be all ears

we know what we do works, mr beye claims "the same or better results could be achieved more safely and with a fraction of the weekly time invested with a few modifications. Safer, more effective exercises could be substituted for the Olympic lifts, plyometrics and exercises performed in a fast or explosive manner."

ok then mr beye, justify your claims

thats all we ask,

simple really

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Post by galapogos »

I'm not Mr Baye(not Beye), so don't ask me, ask him. He has been pretty responsive and civil so far.

Given the fact that he has a more bodybuilding focus, I'm not sure many of us here would necessarily be interested.

The fact that you have to use prasara as a sub for basic gymnastics shows a flaw of CF. Otherwise, it would be part of CF, and you wouldn't have to tap into another system. Clearly you found prasara & CST interesting enough to learn despite no evidence at all that helps in basic gymnastics. Clearly this isn't an "accepted part of the community", yet you're still doing it. Who's contradicting himself now? :)

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

Prasara is not a sub for basic gymnastics

It is basic gymnastics and on that definition alone can be used as part of crossfit programming. There's no contradiction there.

As it's mr beye who claims to have a better way, it's up to him to support his claims

I have no intention of asking him as I could not care less what he does.

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

Goi,

This discussion has nothing to do with what I do with Prasara etc. But it has everything to do with what Drew originally wrote.

He stated very clearly in his 4th paragraph

............"While CrossFit will no doubt produce results, the same or better results could be achieved more safely and with a fraction of the weekly time invested with a few modifications. Safer, more effective exercises could be substituted for the Olympic lifts, plyometrics and exercises performed in a fast or explosive manner."

He's saying very clearly that he has a 'faster' and 'safer' way than crossfit, and he's entitled to that opinion. All I ever ask of anyone is to provide the information on which their conclusion is based.

Now all these guys who claim to have found a safer and better way to produce increases in work capacity across broad time and modal domains have never, i'll repeat that, have never provided any reasonable data to support their case.

Now this it the bit your need to understand and focus on because its really important. If Drew, Cook, Boyle etc could show some kind of data that they could produce better results than crossfit, then the crosffiters would be all over it and adopting it in droves. This is the reason why we want to see the data.

Its not about pitchforks and burning witches as you seem to think. Its about justifying your claims so that individuals can make up their own mind.

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Post by galapogos »

The reason I brought up what you deal with Prasara, etc was to draw a parallel between what Drew is doing and what you're doing. He substituted exercises(strict chins vs kipping chins, etc) and reduced the volume, etc, the same way you substituted Prasara for whatever is prescribed in the CF website. If you can accept one, then you should accept the other, as long as they're functional movements, which they are. His claims are his, and I'm not going to defend him. Take it up with him if you want, but since you say you couldn't care less, then don't bother me with it. I couldn't care less either.

I know you always ask for data, data, data. I don't have the data, but looking at someone do some of these things that are deemed dangerous, and then applying some knowledge of what we know about functional anatomy, and we can conclude that it's probably(yes probably) not a good thing for everyone to do. Some people can get away with butterfly pullups. Some people can get away with smoking too. CF isn't as established a training method as other training methods(a decade, 2 at most?) so we haven't seen the long term effects yet, and some of these long term effects cannot be conclusively shown to be due to 1 single movement or 1 single event, since they're chronic overuse syndromes, which is why it's going to be hard to pinpoint the smoking gun as CF. If you always ask for data, data, data before making a decision, you'll never get anything done. It's like the military asking CF to prove that their soldiers will be better soldiers by taking on CF. The only way to do that would be to wage a war, not to take an obstacle course and say you cut it by 5min, or score higher points in the IPPT. Coz soldiers don't take obstacle courses in wars, nor do they take IPPT in wars. But we can extrapolate that soldiers that are faster on the obstacle courses or score better in the IPPT are probably(yes probably) more likely to perform through the hardships of war. Is there a shred of data to support this? I highly doubt it, but I believe in it, much like CFers also believe in that. That's why so many firemen, law enforcement officers and military personnel take CF up despite no evidence that it improves their job besides some improvements in obstacle course.

Bottom line, you guys think it's safe and great, others think it can be improved upon. Don't always ask for data, because sometimes you don't need it. End of story.

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Post by jerry.mobbs »

galapogos wrote:I know you always ask for data, data, data. I don't have the data, but looking at someone do some of these things that are deemed dangerous, and then applying some knowledge of what we know about functional anatomy, and we can conclude that it's probably(yes probably) not a good thing for everyone to do. Some people can get away with butterfly pullups. Some people can get away with smoking too. CF isn't as established a training method as other training methods(a decade, 2 at most?) so we haven't seen the long term effects yet, and some of these long term effects cannot be conclusively shown to be due to 1 single movement or 1 single event, since they're chronic overuse syndromes, which is why it's going to be hard to pinpoint the smoking gun as CF. If you always ask for data, data, data before making a decision, you'll never get anything done. It's like the military asking CF to prove that their soldiers will be better soldiers by taking on CF. The only way to do that would be to wage a war, not to take an obstacle course and say you cut it by 5min, or score higher points in the IPPT. Coz soldiers don't take obstacle courses in wars, nor do they take IPPT in wars. But we can extrapolate that soldiers that are faster on the obstacle courses or score better in the IPPT are probably(yes probably) more likely to perform through the hardships of war. Is there a shred of data to support this? I highly doubt it, but I believe in it, much like CFers also believe in that. That's why so many firemen, law enforcement officers and military personnel take CF up despite no evidence that it improves their job besides some improvements in obstacle course.

Bottom line, you guys think it's safe and great, others think it can be improved upon. Don't always ask for data, because sometimes you don't need it. End of story.
On the military side, we have the data. Both evidential and anecdotal.

Listen to Andy Stumpf talk about the changes they have made to phase 2 at buds where you have a significant decrease in the O course times from when they started doing crossfit to before. This does not proves crossfit is better than anything else out there, it just proves that its better than what they were doing before. Thats why you need the data and that is how progress is made.

Secondly, if you listen to the guys who return from deployment, they are very clear in stating that there is a difference in performance out in the field between those that do crossfit and those that don't. The same comments are repeated by the law enforcement guys.

You don't need to start a war as you suggest. But here you have two very clear data points so that you can make up your own mind. You may not come to the same conclusion, but at least you can see why the original conclusions are made.

Decision making without data is called guesswork. You do need it, no matter how sketchy or imperfect the data may be.

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