CrossFit - C/D?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAu-ftOM3C8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZdp59yyG0M&feature=relmfu

Anybody do this? Have any thoughts? It just seems like circuit training but ~tweaked~ to make working out more fun. The only things I can find out about it from the website is that it is awesome and improves your life and that you can also buy special shoes and stuff for CrossFit.

reebok getting involved is a new wrinkle and seems kinda wack but crossfit is great imo and works. i dunno that it makes "working out" more "fun" exactly, but it offers a real opportunity to explore what's possible for your body, and the community aspect def helps with motivation

I like the CrossFit concept of developing broader/deeper general fitness through randomized workouts. It's good to disrupt habits and get out the rut of doing the same workout all the time, which is a) boring and b) never going to get different results after a certain point.

On the other hand, if you are training to improve athletic performance, you have to think in terms of specificity. I guess there's nothing preventing someone from doing CrossFit + sport-specific training, but it makes me tired to think about that.

^ get out of

Awesome, thanks for the frggin' tips!

Okay so I’ve been doing this for about 6 months now and not to be corny or anything but it has changed my life. Now I’m coming from a background of never really working out at all and sitting at around 80lbs overweight. I was able to drop 60lbs about 4 years ago by starting to run regularly and have been able to keep it off. But over Christmas my girlfriend bought us some Living Social/Group deal for an Onramp(introductory) course to a local crossfit gym and to be honest I was not really looking forward to it. It turns out that after the first class kicked my ass I was pretty much addicted. The thing about it is that it’s fun as hell. The workouts can be killers to the point of sometimes feeling like you’re going to puke but you can’t wait to come back and push yourself again. it’s crazy to be 36 and in the best shape of my life . I don’t think I will every want to work out in any other way than this.

I know this is getting more popular all the time and I mostly see that as a positive. I mean I feel like most people with even a mild interest in fitness would enjoy this immensely and might not even know it. It is expensive though but I feel that a real investment in my health for the first time in my life is worth it.

also Annie Thorisdottir the winner of last years crossfit games is so awesome! <3 her

Yay. A close friend of mine is also addicted, he looks great.

I guess the next step for me would be to dive into the nutritional aspect of it which means a Paleo diet. It seems a little ott but I’m going to give it a try. based on the results I’ve seen by going to the work outs 5 times a week and not really changing my diet much, I can only imagine what I would notice after I apply the diet as well.

Oooh definitely talk to a nutritionist first. Paleo is scary. If you were in your 20s--as my friend is--I'd say go for it and prepare to gain a tonne of weight.

good call, I'm really just starting to do research on it and i would definitely be going for a modified version and not full on.

this stuff is fascinating but 5x a week (and the $$) is a little too much for me. some of the youtubes of these people are insane (a dude doing 100 pull ups, hands bleeding? uhh)

i'm curious, how much rippetoe/heavy lifting is involved so far?

During the Onramp course we are taught a lot of the Olympic style lifts and they are incorporated into the workout right off the bat. The primary focus is on the movements themselves and proper technique , loads are always scaled down as to maintain intensity throughout the workout and still achieve full movements.

the benchmark workouts give you an idea of what a normal workout would be.

of course i would scale down most of those for my fitness level.
like i'm not doing handstand push-ups yet but i'm getting there. And pull-ups are done with the assistance of a resistance band thing

sounds p sick
all i do is run a lot & like freeweights/other bs x45 min once a week

maybe will look into dis. the 'fun as hell' sounds hard 2 swallow but who knows i guess

isn't crossfit kind of like that though? i know a bunch of people who have done it and afaict it's like really quick conditioning drills mixed with sprinting. like run to this side of the gym - do 20 pushups - run back to the other side of the gym - do 50 jumping jacks - run back to the other side - do some lifts - etc etc etc

everyone i know has also puked at least once after a workout

i think im mainly skeptical abt taking a class or w/e cuz i dont really like 'other ppl' tbqh.
but theres also no way id go as hard as that benchmark link on my own, prob

lol yeah I get that! I’m telling you I would have never saw myself doing it . I would dread going to the gym before but know I can’t wait to see what the work out of the day is going to be. I get this crazy nervous energy every time but it’s a good nervous. It does have a lot to do with the people too and they have all been nothing but positive at the place i go to. xxp

yes i have come close to puking and it's not uncommon

The gyms are far too expensive with wack hours, IMO. For $100-150/month, I expect 24-hour access.
There's so little control over individual franchises, too, that you can get the worst, most dangerous gym or a great training staff. If you take the most basic certifications and pay the fee to have Crossfit on the outside of your building, they don't seem to give much of a damn what happens in there.
There's a lot of videos of Crossfit gyms doing stupid stupid shit, like squatting with a baby strapped to a dad's chest, tossing barbells back and forth, etc.

also kind of overcomplicates general physical fitness just like the muscle-man mags they make fun of, without the workouts necessarily leading to anything in particular (other than being sore/puking etc.) - lift some heavy stuff, sprint a bit, keep your overall conditioning good is a nice guideline.

When I was studying for the bar I was going to the gym almost every day and doing what I didn't realize was almost like an ersatz crossfit workout combined with basketball. I think I picked up some of the stuff from watching other people at the gym (who may actually have been crossfit people) -- some days I'd do more trad weight training, some days kettle bells and step/jump type stuff, body weight exercises, jumprope, the occasional class, running, rowing, basically mixing it up and trying to keep it intense. Plus I was doing a lot of bball drills -- dribble exercises, sprinting down court and taking layups, etc. It was awesome and I was in great shape, but it's really hard to keep up that kind of working out with a demanding job and a baby. The bottom line is, if you can get to the gym often, push yourself every time, find ways to make your workouts something you look forward to (for me, bball), and vary your workouts, you will see great results, whether or not they're part of a crossfit-type program.

I also really enjoyed doing medicine ball work on balance platforms (idk what they're called - they have little round ridges underneath them that rock so you have to really use your body to balance) -- I'd basically do different kinds of directional thrusts/holds with a heavy medicine ball while trying to stay balanced. Great for bball.

you guys ever fuck with Tabata? i started doing that a bit, definitely hard

Yeah we do tabata in crosscut it's pretty dope. I have more to say about this when I get a chance

The gyms are far too expensive with wack hours, IMO. For $100-150/month, I expect 24-hour access.
There's so little control over individual franchises, too, that you can get the worst, most dangerous gym or a great training staff. If you take the most basic certifications and pay the fee to have Crossfit on the outside of your building, they don't seem to give much of a damn what happens in there.
There's a lot of videos of Crossfit gyms doing stupid stupid shit, like squatting with a baby strapped to a dad's chest, tossing barbells back and forth, etc.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, June 1, 2012 5:46 PM (4 days ago)

It’s definitely in your best interest to really look into any affiliate you are thinking of joining. There are some fly by night gyms that are very much about cashing in. the gym I go to takes safety seriously and dumb shit is not tolerated, they emphasize form and the classes are kept small to maximize their time with everybody involved in the workout.

lift some heavy stuff, sprint a bit, keep your overall conditioning good is a nice guideline.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, June 1, 2012 5:48 PM (4 days ago)

This is all good stuff but my problem was I would never really do this on my own with any intensity. The competition and involvement between the group members is huge to me. Plenty of times I would have quite on a workout if it weren’t for the people cheering and encouraging me on. And I’ve never even been someone that does group stuff as I pretty much hate people but for that hour the folks in the gym are like a family suffering together and loving it.

This shit is not for everyone and I’m sure there is a big backlash or whatever because it’s pretty trendy but it has changed the way I look at my body and the the things I thought it was possible for me to do

how many times a week is it?

7 is a good start. you can work up from there.

lol
the first introductory month was 3 days a week. now i'm doing about 5 times a week.

what's a good price?

I want to see video of the gym where they toss dumbbells to each other.

I'm paying $135 right now. yeah that's not cheap but i've seen them for more. i quite my old gym where i was paying like $55 and never going to, so that helped. xp

$135 / month for how many classes?

you can go everyday if you want

there are like 6 classes a day

if you actually go ~20 times month its a v good deal

compared to the cost of like a personal trainer it's cheap

i was going to say, yoga classes are like $20/pop here so if you even go 2 times a week it's still reasonable

actually that's a little high, drop-ins are like $15 and a membership will set you back $75-$100

but i imagine the cross-fit dudes are more in your face more engaged than yr average yoga instructor

the thing is i do want to go all the time. it's not something i have to motivate myself to do. so i take advantage and get my 5 days in a week.

yoga instructors tend more towards silent seething

crossfit isnstructors will rip your heart shakra right out of your chest and make you do fingertip pushups on it

chakra

hmm it looks like the crossfit place three blocks from my house that has a free beginners class you can attend on saturday at noon ...

also it has all five star reviews on yelp except for one douche who posted a one-star review because he showed up for the free class and it had been canceled!

also they have this picture on their blog which makes me figure i can probably handle at least one class w/o dying

http://crossfitelysium.com/images/stories/IMG_0570.jpg

hey girl hey

yeah a lot of places have a teaser WOD on saturdays. you should survive it

this is taking place on the coming saturday
http://hope.crossfit.com/

we'll be doing it

stuff is tempting but the gym near me is too expensive

one thing I will give Crossfit: they're often the only place that you can use some interesting equipment (bumper plates, kettlebells, etc.) - I'm fine w/ my LA Fitness (when I have time to work out - I pretty much just deadlift and overhead press), but I hate deadlifting on their rubber-mat floors w/ steel plates.

kinda broken-hearted that I had to go back to apartment-living, I was hoping the next place would have a garage with a ceiling high enough for me to get my own barbell and bumpers

otm getting to dump weights is pretty fun

what is a WOD? was is 1RM? why is there so much jargon in workout programs these days?

lol "work out of the day"

One Rep Max

oh noess

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/nyregion/crossfit-a-military-regimen-with-geek-appeal.html

get out while u can, carne asada

lol good timing nyt

i too am 'uncomfortable' (pace chris hayes lol) by the militarism of this but i can kinda see it in a pagan celebration kinda way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BDDyxXyf6UU#!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDDyxXyf6UU

http://www.forgingelitesarcasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/softball-baby-squatter1.jpg

haha gtfo

wow all of those chicks in that video look like they're fucking up their backs pretty serious ... also obviously smdh at that baby

do you have to do all of this weightlifting stuff? i can't say that looks good for my bad back. i would rather do some sort of intense cardio thing than intense weightlifting. kettle bell stuff sounds okay, i guess ...

in that article, when it says run two miles and do two hundred pushups and three hundred situps or whatever, this is in alternating sets, right? i mean, there's no reason to actually do two hundred actual pushups in a row, is there?

fast hips get low come on u got this

lifting weights is better for lean mass and weight loss than cardio, takes less time, etc. - that even includes 'strength endurance' like kettlebell swings (which, alone, can help people lose a shit-ton of weight)
Crossfit does it kind of odd, and no, IMO there is no point to some of their standards. They just kind of make up goalposts, because it's exercise rather than sport. Which isn't all that different from traditional weightlifting, except there you're in a program to be able to lift more from week to week

that is one of the more ott workouts for sure but you break it up, take a rest , do blocks of 20. xp

the weight lifting stuff is my fav tbh

xp

really? i had no idea. how does doing one rep with the biggest dumbbells you can find manage that? is it like doing slow exercise? because i did this thing for a couple years with 10 lb weights where you do all of these one-armed movements but you do them really slow so that a lift out to your sides with your arm extended would take like 30 seconds. i got stronger really quick but i don't know if it helped me lose weight (i was also cycling around 150 mi/wk which seemed to be taking care of that)

I can't find the barbell toss video - it was two Crossfitters doing barbell thrusters tossing the barbell back and forth in between. Dumb shit.

the moves that Crossfit is kind of known for are very technical (Olympic lifts) - doing them for time or without proper form is bad juju, as seen in the above video.

usually when you go for a max you spend some time working up to it. start at 8 reps add weight go for 5 etc etc. but that's mostly on strength days and we don't do those all the time. xp

then you would have a work out incorporating the lift you were doing but you pick a weight that is comfortable enough for you to get through a workout with multiple reps

one rep with big dumbbells? that's not really a thing.

One any beginner weightlifting regimen, you're working out 2-5 days a week, deadlifting/squatting/pressing, moving weight up each time. You're expending energy during the exercise itself, and then much more after the fact as your body recovers from the lifting. You're building muscle all the time, lean mass is good for you all the way around (though, AFAIK, the old thing about muscle burning more calories than fat isn't necessarily true) and your metabolism ramps up.

ok glad to hear it's not a thing because that's all the videos show, but maybe that's just for impressing people / yourself with your "1RM"

that's kind of a test every now and then - to see what your maximum could be, or what you could do in a competition, built on all the other workouts you've done

I was confused by dumbbell - dumbbells are the little ones, barbells are the long bars with plates on each end

i guess I'M the only dumbbell here

Hey workout people what do you think about Rippetoe/Starting Strength?

i got stronger really quick but i don't know if it helped me lose weight (i was also cycling around 150 mi/wk which seemed to be taking care of that)

― the late great, Tuesday, June 5, 2012 3:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

remember that muscle is denser than fat

quincie: never read it, but i've been doing something that is really rippetoe-influenced, and it's been pretty great honestly.

there are a shitload of youtubes of the guy giving short lectures and coaching which have been very helpful.

otm

i have read it fwiw. it's kind of heavy going (ha) and v technical in print tbh. good to flick through but i got more out of the vids.

I would just break my neck with some of this shit. Are the olympic lifts required? I would do some kettle bells and barbells. And I have no interest in lifting weights for time.

the lifting for time thing is not really where it’s at. Not for me at least, yeah some of these workouts are timed but I’m not in a freaking competition. It’s basically a way of measuring yourself. I’m still going to try and have consistent form every lift but as you get stronger you may have less rest periods between lifts. Because right now I get winded quick and if it’s a workout with a lot of reps I’ll do a few , compose myself for a bit and start over chipping away at the workout little by little.

timing is more abt increasing the efficiency of the workout than competition no

Starting Strength book and videos are great for form, but I don't think you need to follow the plan he lays out, necessarily. Unless you're trying to follow a plan for a specific athletic reason, etc., you can pick and choose or cut back on what you do. As long as you're lifting regularly, as a beginner, you'll see progress.

I have a job where I've got to climb ladders/etc. on a regular basis - the crippling DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness) of heavy squatting with regularity isn't really an option for me.

What I like is Pavel Tsatsouline's Power To The People program - two full-body lifts, 20 reps total, ~5 days a week, and then kettlebell swings or whatever you want to do on the side.

timing is more abt increasing the efficiency of the workout than competition no

― lag∞n, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 11:19 AM (17 minutes ago)

yep

There are a couple of guys at the gym who do compete and a lot of the benchmark workouts are used in the comps, so those guys are trying to improve their time for that purpose

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/07/crossfit_homeless_facebook_pictures.php

Before writing it off as a bad apple gym, I think a lot of this shit is endemic to the Crossfit culture. Trying to use 'hardcore' signifiers for exercising, etc..

nice people

would like to try something like CrossFit (tired of planning my own workouts and being my own motivation) but am indeed wary of the culture.

There are probably decent gyms in your area that do CrossFit (or CrossFit type workouts) that aren't affiliated with the bozos in the link above.

I dunno, the right-wing bootstrapping pseudo-military (their Crossfit Games are taking place in part at Camp Pendleton) shit is pretty much what Crossfit is.

Well okay most decent gyms offer some form of high-intensity workout plus weight training which they might or might not call CrossFit which might or might not be taught and populated by bozos.

So, I belong to the Touchstone climbing gyms in California, and some of the gyms have CrossFit classes, and I just want to smack the living shit out of these people all the time. We get it, it's hard, stop fucking grunting and dropping weights while I'm actually working MY ENTIRE BODY trying to send this V6 boulder problem. Seriously, fuck this shit.

wow i hope someone bricks their windows (that LA place)

dropping weights seems p fun tho

xp with a brick of C4

there's not a whole lot of things that make me see red but abusing homeless people is one of them

in fairness, noise and dropping weights is sometimes just a part of lifting weights - but some people do it unnecessarily

personally, outside of climbing rocks (indoor and out, i am a fan of a different sort of hardcore, and that is the "ghetto" workouts of the Bar Brothers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52BkKTzLTpA

i also will say that there is some grunting and yelling that goes on in climbing— hell, i yelped out yesterday after sending a particularly troublesome boulder problem— but seriously, in this one gym, it's like a sustained chorus of dropping weights, grunting, and yelling for 2 hours every night. it's obnoxious, and doesn't need to be.

i still think that would be better than the dudes who have earphones in and don't get that the whole gym can hear them grunt-whispering OOOONE TWWWOOOO THREEEE FOOUUUURR

Damn fuck that shit for real. I pretty much had no idea what crossfit was, we just bought a groupon for a workout class and showed up. Lucky for me the people at my gym don’t really display any of this crossfit culture bullcrap other than some goofy looking gear they might wear. It’s really just a diverse group of people who get together and encourage each other through some tough workouts. glad I didn’t know about this sort of shit or I would never have went in the first place

Sending V6? Nice. I can only usually do 4s and sometimes a 5.

i don't want excuse CF specifically -- i've never done it! -- but i have to think that an aggro dickhead attitude can be found in just about every physical activity there is.

there is a certain "we're the only real shit out" ideology to CF tho, that's all right out front. big crossover with paleo diet ish too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BDDyxXyf6UU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDDyxXyf6UU

npr had a disturbing story about the cross fit weirdos bringing 3 year old kids to work out.

someone is going to kill themselves doing this crap some day.

kind of lol but mostly sad

god i saw a dude at the gym yesterday getting his two sons (ages like 4 and 6 it looked like) to do handstand wall pushups.

I was wincing too much to lol.
Maybe try teaching people to deadlift and press before trying Olympic lifts before trying strongman bullshit.

holy fuck that vid

when I see crossfit vids like that I'm so stunned because even when I see people at the gym who dont know proper form they never fuck up that badly

I've started gymming again I like gymming sometimes I always make friends its nice

how heavy are those bumper plates in that vid, anyway?

I spot everything

Either 5 or 10 pounds. One guy has a pair of 25s, I think.

If you're struggling with 50-75 pounds like that, you should be doing way more basic shit.

No kidding. That's criminal.

Hitting axle clean and jerks. Supervised by Strongman Certified Coaches. Axle weight is about 10-15lbs. This lift is not a standard Clean and Jerk.

Wow that video! I feel like I'd have to actually intervene if I saw someone doing that at my gym.

god i cant even watch that

god i saw a dude at the gym yesterday getting his two sons (ages like 4 and 6 it looked like) to do handstand wall pushups.

what is wrong with that?

nothing a priori but he seemed like a grouchy dick about it and his kids seemed like they wanted to run around and be kids.

so this is p much about people wanting to pretend they are much stronger than they actually are without putting in something like effort, right?

Crossfit? Or that crazy ass video?

I am watching the crossfit games

these people r v fit

all eyes r on the home dept center in carson california

there are a shit ton of people there watching it live

u want to go quickly but u must reach the range of motion standards

I have to admit I kinda enjoy watching this.

Feel like they must edit out a lot of barfing

they shd show the barfing imho, makes good tv

I like how all the commercials are abt crossfit too

This shit cray

There is even a CrossFit in my tiny, lil hometown....so I am convinced it is everywhere. The crazy ambitious, A Types, wear black only, uber ripped male/female CrossFit in Austin was annoying. I'd never join that group. They were working out in what was a converted car garage, in the middle of summer heat with just one large fan. They kept running and running around the neighborhood too, saw a guy throw up. I wanted to join the one in my hometown.

http://www.miscupload.com/upload/720423547720214144812642.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k0NTB2DTGs

literally everyone i know irl who does crossfit is about as annoying as a yelper or a landmark forumer.

"Weightliftin' Dojo," smdh

http://www.inc.com/magazine/201307/burt-helm/crossfit-empire.html

wasn't familiar with this dude before. i'm not a fitness guy -- sometimes i get into a running habit -- but encouraging people to strain themselves to the point of vomiting and laughing off injuries and even rhabdomyolysis seems really shitty, like this regime is not about health at all but something else... endurance for its own sake.

Endurance is very addictive. Which is why I would never try Crossfit. I'm already addicted to endurance running, I don't need another thing in my life to take up time and potentially give me more injuries than I already have.

i get that. the consequences of pushing yourself beyond your abilities with weight lifting seems more dangerous than doing the same thing with running though, at least in the short term (pulled muscles, broken bones, etc.)

Oh, for sure. I don't want any of those things. I'll stick with my plantar faciitis/tendonitis/exhaustion/various other aches and pains.

i hate physical exertion and don't know anything about "working out," with weights or otherwise. however, i don't think this is sustainable and want to acquire a love fitness (ugh). the crossfit place near me (pr1ncet0n) is really expensive, but from what i am reading it is not that extreme and they require all of their new members to go through a "fundamentals" course where you learn about proper techniques etc. so i guess if i did this for like two months it would be less expensive than a personal trainer and i would come away with some knowledge of exercise beyond running that i could implement into my own fitness routines.... maybe.

does this seem like a good idea?

i am also thinking that maybe yoga would be more my speed but could i get abs from that?

no just hang out with us on thread of getting sw0le

train for strength not aesthetics imo

You get abs from low body fat, you don't even need to exercise.

Most Crossfits require a fundamentals on-ramp blah blah blah, doesn't mean they're going to be teaching you good form necessarily. You can open a Crossfit gym after a weekend seminar, if you want to.

yeah, i know the national institution of crossfit is supsicious but this specific crossfit is good, from what i've heard. although i don't know if yelp! reviews are trustworthy enough to justify me parting with my scant, precious $$$.

maybe i should try to do yoga. and then also run. that would probably be sufficient fitness for me, as i am not really interested in becoming sw0le or even losing weight but would like to improve my general level of fitness, especially my core, because my posture is pretty bad.

although i've also heard that strength training is super important so i don't know.

Depends on your goals. Some level of strength is valuable over time - particularly as expressed with some bodyweight exercises (pull-ups, push-ups, planks), but mobility is equally important to counteract the effects of aging and our desk-oriented lifestyles.

Treeship if u want yoga, strength training, and abs, seek out a traditional ashtanga class and give it a couple of months.

yoga requires at least as much technique/instruction (which may equal $$$) so it's not really something you can jump into either. it can be a slow process before you have the stability and flexibility to do the hardcore stuff. frankly the three exercises that milo lists are not a bad way to start out.

that's all true. with yoga, the idea of becoming really coordinated and flexible in addition to strong are appealing to me... i guess i just in general want to feel more in control of my body, and less like it is this somewhat obtrusive thing that lugs my mind around. also it's my understanding that nobody yells at you in yoga which might not be true of crossfit. thanks for the advice guys, i will think more about what direction i want to go in. before the year is out i want to have some fitness thing besides taking my dog for long walks.

I love yoga. I think given what you've said you'll love it too. be patient tho!

i don't like yoga. i'm not actually sw0le but my posture is amazing.

cross fit has a great twitter acct

https://twitter.com/crossfit/status/390600611365810177

wtf

thanks for bringing the shitty politics of crossfit back to my attention max. i had forgotten about that actually. i guess i can't give them money in good conscience.

Libertarian AnimeDog ‏@IronyGuy6669 16 Oct

@cool_bugs @CrossFit I for one am surprised that the shit heads from fitness culture who are obsessed with merit are conservative shitheads
Details

CrossFit ‏@CrossFit 16 Oct

@IronyGuy6669 @cool_bugs A man with libertarian in his handle should understand the difference: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/hayek-why-i-am-not-conservative.pdf …

treesh honestly if u couldn't tell these people were vermin without them nailing cato pdfs to the cathedral

i knew the national organization was weird but i forgot they were right wingers. i think the princeton location is probably not like that though but who knows

couldn't you tell this organization was likely to be run and to a large degree patronized by cunts even absent pronouncements to that effect?

I realise that Things Which Are Not Cool include 1. forwarding scare stories about things you don't know anything about on the internet and 2. medium.com, but this article about CrossFit and rhabdomyolysis kind of put me off the CrossFit thing:
https://medium.com/health-fitness-1/97bcce70356d

(who am I kidding, I'm a couch potato and never even considered "the CrossFit thing")

A CrossFit coach suffered a severed spine injury during a CrossFit competition and may never be able to walk again, ABC News reported.

Kevin Ogar, once a top-level CrossFit athlete, was performing a routine "snatch" at a competition in Costa Mesa, Calif., last weekend when he abruptly let go of the weight bar.

The massive weights fell onto the floor, bounced against another set of weights, and hit Ogar in the back, severing his spine (see video). Ogar, 28, immediately fell to the floor and is now paralyzed from the waist down.

"When impact was made, he jumped almost like someone shot him," said Matt Hathcock, Ogar's friend, boss, and training partner.

Hathcock, who owns the CrossFit gym in Denver where Ogar worked as a coach, insisted Ogar's injury was not CrossFit's fault.

"Kevin has been doing CrossFit for a very long time at a very high level," said Hathcock. "Are injuries going to occur? Sure, but Kevin's not going to blame the sport. This was not the fault of CrossFit."

Sadly, there was no doctor or medical personnel on site at the competition. Ogar was rushed to the hospital, where he was told he may never be able to walk again.

Ogar had no medical insurance, so the CrossFit community has organized a fundraising campaign to raise money for his medical bills. So far, they have raised over $200,000 for Ogar (whose medical bills will definitely top that).

The once-athletic 6-foot-1, 210-pound Kevin has undergone two surgeries, and had screws and rods implanted in his back. He will now begin his long road to recovery through extensive rehabilitation.

At the time he was injured, Ogar had been training to compete at the 2014 CrossFit Games, which reigning champ Rich Froning has won for the past three years.

While Ogar's injury was caused by a freak accident, this isn't the first time CrossFit has come under scrutiny for its high injury rate. In November 2013, chiropractors and physical therapists told me the skyrocketing rates of CrossFit injuries have been a cash cow for them.

Earlier this year, CrossFit came under fire for its link to the potentially deadly kidney condition rhabdomyolysis. Fitness experts warn that rhabdomyolysis, which is usually caused by excessive exercise, can lead to kidney failure.

"Rhabdomyolysis is an uncool, serious and potentially fatal condition resulting from the catastrophic breakdown of muscle cells," said physical-therapy professor Eric Robertson. "Under extreme conditions your muscles cells explode. They die."

In 2008, a Virginia jury awarded $300,000 to former U.S. Navy technician Makimba Mimms for injuries he sustained during a CrossFit workout in 2005. Mimms was allegedly hospitalized for a week, urinated blood, suffered rhabdomyolysi and swollen legs after being poorly supervised during his workout by a gym employee who was not certified.

Mimms, now 35, says he's permanently disabled as a result. CrossFit responded to the lawsuit by sarcastically renaming the WOD (Workout of the Day) that injured Mimms the "Makimba" and recategorizing it as a children's workout.

Meanwhile, CrossFit founder Greg Glassman has boasted that WODs "are designed to exceed the capacities of the world’s fittest athletes." He has admitted the brutal workouts can cause serious injury or even death.

"If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks," said Glassman, 56. "[CrossFit] can kill you. I've always been completely honest about that."

"Rhabdomyolysis is an uncool, serious and potentially fatal condition resulting from the catastrophic breakdown of muscle cells," said physical-therapy professor Eric Robertson.

jesus so many amazing quotes in that. so culty.

he massive weights fell onto the floor, bounced against another set of weights, and hit Ogar in the back, severing his spine (see video).

http://www.lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/26577-How-About-No.jpg

Ogar had no medical insurance, so the CrossFit community has organized a fundraising campaign to raise money for his medical bills. So far, they have raised over $200,000 for Ogar (whose medical bills will definitely top that).

Standing outside bar, heard a Fort Greene bro telling his friend about his super-minimalist gym that has nothing but heavy bags and tires, you know, simple stuff. And how hard boxing is.

tbf boxing is awesome

Welp, my friend just wound up in the hospital with Rhabdomyolysis from his FIRST crossfit class.

Cool fitness program guys!

BTW the more I read about crossfit I realize that what I said upthread that my workout was an "ersatz crossfit workout" is clearly not the case

"If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks," said Glassman, 56. "[CrossFit] can kill you. I've always been completely honest about that."

fucking hell

Kind of reminds me of those people who try to climb everest with inadequate gear every year -- trying to prove badassery, wind up proving moronery

Welp, my friend just wound up in the hospital with Rhabdomyolysis from his FIRST crossfit class.

Cool fitness program guys!

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:21 AM

well there really is no reason for this to happen anybody be it someone doing crossfit or the numerous collegiate and high school athletes that have suffered from this. It's really less to do with crossfit in general and more to do with uneducated and inexperienced trainers.

^ this

Why does CrossFit hire so many uneducated and inexperienced trainers then?

xp to which I would add, if you're a trainer and you let a first-time participant put himself in the hospital, you need a different job

CrossFit seems like a lot of fitness fads; they appear quickly, attract a lot of attention from underprepared people, and then fade out

That is a serious problem regarding crossfit. They don't hire these people. In order to open a crossfit gym all you have to do is pay like $1000 or something for a weekend certification course and you're free to open a gym with the crossfit name.

This is why i would urge anyone getting into any conditioning program to do their homework especially if you are putting yourself in the hands of a trainer. ask questions, check their references and their education background.

the concept of CrossFit is interesting and valuable in the way it challenges traditional ideas about intense, diverse training

CrossFit as a commercial enterprise seems to be low-to-negative on quality control

combine the two and you are asking for trouble

carne asada totally OTM

if a trainer does not put your wellness and safety first, he doesn't know what the hell he is doing, find someone else who does

so.. Crossfit is set up/run in a manner that allows the proliferation of uneducated and inexperienced trainers, yet the problem isn't Crossfit?

you could say the same thing about pop warner,high school football or a number of other organizes sport coaches.

i could open a gym and call it Carne Asada's High intensity Kick ass Class. Have people sign a waver ,pay me hundreds of dollars and have them do whatever the hell i want.

The ceo of crossfit seems to relish the xxxtreme danger of his program though. It seems worse than mere lack of quality control

I don't think anyone is arguing that this could ONLY happen in Crossfit

My sister-in-law is a Crossfit devotee and has had remarkable success doing it, so I know that it can be a great program; I also know that practically anyone can call themselves a Crossfit gym and that quality control is practically non-existent given the way the organization works. The latter is the reason why I'm loathe to go near it.

(If I lived in her city, I'd consider checking out her gym)

Whenever I see videos of people doing crossfit workouts, I'm kind of aghast at the horrible form and injury-risk-increasing movements. I'm actually surprised injuries aren't even more common.

Plus there's all the bullshit around numbers, as though doing 50 fake jerky pullups is somehow better than doing 10 real ones.

yeah that's what i'm saying. There really is no real standards for any trainers be it crossfit or your local average gym . That's why it's up to the consumer to be informed about who is programing their training.

and yeah crossfit ceo sounds like a complete fucktard xxxp

Plus there's all the bullshit around numbers, as though doing 50 fake jerky pullups is somehow better than doing 10 real ones.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 10:30 AM

the numbers thing is basically to establish baselines and track progress. kipping-pullups arent fake but rather a different type of pulled intended for a different purpose. there are plenty of situations where regular stick pull up or even weighted pullups are programed.

*stricked

i'm not too familiar with the whole crossfit culture thing as a whole. My only exposure to it was a for like 6 months. but the head trainer had years of experience training high level athletes and certifications in a broad scope of fitness areas so my experience was awesome. I went away with a ton of knowledge that i now apply to my own fitness programing.

you could say the same thing about pop warner,high school football or a number of other organizes sport coaches.

while rhabdo does happen to football players - a central difference is that college football players (like the Iowa football team) are elite athletes. At the level of D1 ball, you take greater chances with your health for your sport. Your average Crossfitter - and certainly the average rhabdo Crossfit case - is a pencil pusher with an EXTREME workout program, so we view them rather differently.

not on average no but i know my high school football coach was fresh out of college and was the fucking english teacher that coached football in the afternoon, had use running till we pucked and didnt know shit. I think this is not an isolated case. Not to mention some kids dad that was coaching my pop warner team when i was 12.

The idea that someone could take a weekend course and be qualified to train safely is ridiculous. like i said this is a major problem with crossfit.

mena couldn't someone conceivably get rhabdo from doing t90x or whatever at home ?

Conceivably sure but it seems orders of magnitude less likely when you don't have someone barking at you to keep going past the point of failure

You could conceivably get rhabdo doing any physical activity - but we don't see a history of it in Pop Warner or P90X.

p90x hassnt been around very long

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/man-says-one-day-p90x-sent-him-emergency-170839781.html

basically there are shitty crossfit gyms and good ones. just do some research before starting any program and listen to your body especially when starting out.

Your average Crossfitter - and certainly the average rhabdo Crossfit case - is a pencil pusher with an EXTREME workout program, so we view them rather differently.

i think a lot of times it's also people with an athletic background that are getting back into fitness and try to go hard right off the bat becasue of their fitness history,

P90X has been around for as long as the Crossfit explosion.

you know more about this shit then i do for sure. i just see the sentiment out there that if you do crossfit you will get rhabdo and die as blown out of proportion . There are people of all ages and fitness levels getting positive results through crossfit and being exposed to fitness in a way they never have been before.

i just see the sentiment out there that if you do crossfit you will get rhabdo and die as blown out of proportion

i guess this is true as far as it goes. the sentiment that "if you do crossfit and get rhabdo, crossfit honchos will laugh at you" is not blown out of proportion

yeah that's pretty icky

yeah that type of response to someone getting injured is beyond stupid. fuck that that kind of shit

that said, i think crossfit seems to be a net-positive inasmuch as (anecdotally) it seems to have spurred lots of non-athlete types to get meaningfully fit and invested in their health. speaking personally, i'm considering joining one of the local gyms (if i can afford it) since my free-time for healthy activity has been seriously curtailed in the last six months, and i'm at the point where someone yelling at me could be just what i need

one thing it really taught me was how to make use of the hour you have at the gym. i came in totally skeptical about the whole thing. To the point where my wife had to promise me we would leave after 30 mins if i hated it like i thought i would.

Even for those who don't get "injured" I'm a little skeptical about the benefits of exercise that's so strenuous for someone not conditioning for a particular sport or activity. I would think you'd be putting a lot of wear and tear on bones/muscle/joints

I think there's a tendency for people to try to jump into super-tough workouts before they've got the conditioning needed to do them safely. Then they get into a cycle of injury, layoff, more injuries, etc.

from my experience a good crossfit gym will utilize basic strength building programs like Starting Strength,wendler 5 3 1 or something like that, combined with some gymnastic elements as well as short HIT workout. it's nothing revolutionary as far as i can see it just helped someone like me with direction and exposure to all that stuff.

I asked a guy at work what he does for exercise because of his recent back surgery and he said 'a modified version of crossfit'.. Turns out he does a modified version of crossfit because the regular version is what caused the fucking back surgery in the first place..

loooool

ha

Yea i need a crash course in fitness. Terrified of what my sedentary lifestyle will do to me as i age

I guess I just don't care about being in "top shape" to go to the office. My philosophy has always been to work out until you feel like you've really worked out, not to the point of failure and beyond.

another great thing i took from crossfit is mobilization techniques and working on flexibility. That shit helps you in everyday life.

lol damn

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/27/is-american-christianity-becoming-a-workout-cult.html

Some Christians are directly applying CrossFit’s workouts and strategies to their faith. There are Christian-oriented CrossFit gyms, such as CrossFit 27:17, named after a verse from Proverbs (“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”), and CrossFit For My Savior (“Because My Savior Was Fit for the Cross”).

On Easter, some CrossFitters participated in a special Easter Workout of the Day, an especially grueling session that, wrote one gym leader in Texas, “is brutal, but not nearly as brutal as what Jesus endured for each of us.”

At One Church in Columbus, Ohio, you can even do a CrossFit workout as part of a Sunday morning service. As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.” The service leader eggs on his congregation by telling them things like, “This is giving glory and honor to God and our bodies.” Afterward, congregants stretch, eat bananas, and hear a sermon. Between 50 and 70 people attend on an average Sunday, says Ford, and a second campus is in the works.

As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”
As One Church pastor Greg Ford told me, the church realized that “instead of doing music, we could do the workout as the worship.”

I hope these people burn in Hell

Religion, crossfit, cults, all makes sense to me. A match made in heaven.

Next they'll be allowing acoustic guitars during the service!

reminds me of this book (which i have but have never read): http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Gym-Divine-Bodies-Bible/dp/0415917573/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q31CCDVdas&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rGvJBuVH_k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80FRLoq4jt0

oh no

:O

"super bowl shuffle"-level rhymes

Watched the Crossfit doc about the 2015 Crossfit games and while the fitness on display (and some of the challenges) were pretty impressive, good lord are the organizers and announcers (and many of the competitors) idiots.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8QeUid89vKw/maxresdefault.jpg

CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman resigned Tuesday, days after saying, "We’re not mourning for George Floyd" during an unhinged Zoom rant https://t.co/mTbO9eMV3m

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) June 10, 2020

From exercise companies to guitar effects pedals, so many unforced errors from raging assholes.