CROSSFIT - Pros and Cons (You Decide!)

Tired of getting hurt with Crossfit? Want faster results?

you’ve heard about it you might even be doing it and I’ve been asked questions about it myself today I’m going to cover them all for you with the pros and cons of [Music] CrossFit what’s up guys Jeff Cavalier athleanx. com today as I mentioned in the open we’re going to talk about CrossFit now is no doubt an extremely popular way to train and I’ve been asked countless questions over the last two years of where I stand on CrossFit so my mother always told me before you say something not so nice about somebody you should start with a compliment so what we’re going to do is we’re going to start with the pros of CrossFit and that starts right now with number one I feel the challenge-based training of CrossFit what I mean by that is the incentivized training right we we are familiar with the challenges the workouts of the day that CrossFit puts up and it basically is there with time or reps or or some sort of metric for measuring I like it okay anybody that’s done our athletex program is very familiar with our athl challenges why those are good as a guy who works with athletes I know that the way to get the most out of them is to give them a Target to give them a specific goal and to give them some Metric to compare themselves against others peers or other guys on their team or even their competitors to drive them to to reach those goals and know where they stand with good objective feedback so right there right off the bat love the challenge Based training of CrossFit and of course other things too so we’re going to get to those now up next on the list of Pros the metabolic conditioning versus steady state cardio anybody that has followed athl X for any length of time or tried our programs can certainly attest to the effectiveness of our burst training conditioning right we do not need steady state cardio or have to r on steady state cardio as our only form of generating a raised heart rate and elevated heart rate for the purposes of improving our conditioning and fat loss efforts here we can certainly do that by using Anor robic type uh straight training activities and put them into a structure where you’re getting a metabolic conditioning effect simply by the fact of how you’re layering and structuring these exercises one after the next we understand guys that this is not only a more exciting way to train but it also can be more effective than steadystate cardio that will burn possibly a higher percentage of calories from fat but in an overall effect much fewer calories so the effect is minimized right we want to make sure that we’re burning more total calories from fat than we are percentage because at the end of the day it’s the total that matters and I think again here CrossFit gets that right number three there is no denying the benefit of teamwork and that’s one thing that you can cannot argue when it comes to CrossFit they have buil built and developed a community in a camaraderie amongst their followers that second to none that is something that I can tell you firsthand having worked with pro athletes when you have a tight-knit team accomplishing things you didn’t think were possible become that much easier that’s something again that we strive to do here at athle X again there’s a lot of things guys that we’ve been doing for a long period of time that will be similar to some of the things and benefits I think of Crossfit because I do think there’s some things that are being done right building a tight-knit team of people is something that we work here on even on YouTube as you guys who are my followers and subscribers can attest to being part of Team athleen means something and it’s where I’m able to deliver and bring to you guys the best that I’ve got because I know I’ve got your support and I know it’s it’s there’s good reason for me to work as hard as I do every day the same thing happens back in return when you follow my programs you give your best effort you get the best results I think a lot of that has happening here because of the teamwork and Community built right into the framework of CrossFit okay so now I know that a lot of guys that watch these types of videos the Pro versus cons they always like to see the con okay and my goal here in creating this video was not to sit here and Bash CrossFit I think it’s my responsibility as a professional and strength coach to give you guys what I feel are the real down theid middle uh reasons for why I don’t particularly care for this type of training and sticking with that again as a professional the number one con for me is the low barrier of entry for coaches to become CrossFit professionals and to open up their own boxes and to Institute Training uh protocols for people that follow them see what what even the most ENT CrossFit followers will tell you is that what they know today and what they see today being performed in CrossFit facilities is far different than what was originally intentioned back in 2006 or so when CrossFit first hit the scene and the fact of the matter is that the commercialization and the monetization of CrossFit meaning that anybody can go and open up a box after a weekend certification paying a small sum of money when it looks when you consider what it is that these people are making after they open up their boxes is uh just breeding back coaches now is that does that mean that there are no good coaches absolutely 100% not there are some fantastic coaches out there that are running CrossFit boxes and for those people that are attending those facilities I would say that they’re in good hands the problem is that is a very small minority okay again as a professional this is what I do for a living I’ve gone through all of my college education preparing me as a physical therapist and as a strength coach to hopefully provide you guys with that next level content that you can depend on and rely on that’s far different than what you might get on your regular YouTube channel or even in your regular fitness facility or gym and I take I take that as a responsibility and I again this is sort of a sore spot for me because I I recognize that when you have coaches that are provided an opportunity with a very low barrier to just enter into this as a profession that can then give out and do out information that just completely poorly designed and really irresponsible we get a lot of injuries happening I think a lot of the the blame that CrossFit gets for creating injuries is based upon the fact that the programming being done straying from maybe some of the original intent of the CrossFit programming creates a lot of potential problems so first and foremost that is my number one complaint number two technical exercises should remain technical what I mean by this guys is there are some exercises that I like to say are technically demanding in the gym and those are primarily your Olympic lifts right these are the exercises like overhead snatch clean and jerk things that require lots of work and practice on the technique in order for you to get better at them to perform them properly and safely now my issue with Crossfit is and again this is something that is not picking on them it’s just a fact of their programming that they like to include a lot of these Olympic style lifts and do them for High Reps now it doesn’t matter that the load is significantly reduced from what you might associate with an Olympic lift right High uh High rep max you know 90% rep max things like that getting towards a higher and heavier weights but that doesn’t make it any more proper to program them in that way because as I’ve always said guys a great exercise can become a bad exercise when the sequencing is bad and there is a particular workout uh from Crossfit that is actually dedicated to one of their fallen soldiers which is something again another con I would say I do like that they pay tribute to uh in ce