I will first start with a quote from the 'What is crossfit' section of the crossfit website, crossfit.com:
We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.
Why would I want to do the exact same thing that EVERYONE ELSE is doing, but perhaps with a different load and intensity. I mean, I'm glad they, at the very least, have the common sense to vary that for each person, but NONE OF US have the exact same needs and goals. And NONE OF US have the same muscular, tendon and joint balance of strength and "functionality".
Let's talk about what it means for an exercise to even be considered "funcional".
There's a new fitness craze out there called "Functional Fitness" which I think has a great fitness mentality. It's all about doing full body exercises that make daily activities fun and easy. Women are as much the culprit as men when it comes to doing exercises that accentuate certain body parts (I think it's safe to assume those are mainly the pecs and the glutes) and when it comes time to DO something, the muscles necessary to DO it, aren't the ones you've been working on... HMMM.
Another way to explain the principles of Functional Fitness is using the scientific terminology- Sport Specificity. Sport Specificity means that you are doing exercises that help you improve physiologically in the areas you need most. For example- as a rock climber, it is extremely important that I have a strong core and I have good power output (among other things). Climbing (especially for short people) often requires a lot of jumping from one rock feature (hold) to another (this technique is called a dyno). So do you think I should put an emphasis on building muscle in, say, my pecs or my ass? Should I focus on running? NO. While those are fun and great, I should probably emphasize doing exercises that strengthen my core and help me jump better (among other things like flexibility and grip strength). So while I will definitely incorporate the aforementioned muscle groups and programs, I will probably focus more on exercises like glute bridges, planks, leg lifts, etc. and power exercises such as the dead lift, jump squats, power cleans and snatches.
When designing an exercise program, there are so many INDIVIDUAL factors to consider: What do you do throughout the day? What energy system do you rely on most? How much rest time do you/can you take between activities? How many days a week do you perform easy-medium-heavy activities? Which muscles do you use the most to perform the activity? I could go on. If I don't learn these things about you when offering my counsel on your exercise regimen, then I am not taking into account muscle balance, tissue repair, nutrition, and about a million other things.
And another matter of extreme importance- not only must the exercises that you are performing be relevant to your goals, they must be FUNCTIONAL. That means, when performing these exercises, the mobility of the joint(s), joint angle, the muscular contraction, the force production, the bone, tendon, and muscle strain, etc MUST ALWAYS be considered. In other words, your body better be moving/working/performing in the way that it was made to move. You are much more likely to be injured if you do exercises that are not functionally stable.
Now that I've gotten that off of my chest. Let's look at some of the exercises that are unique to crossfit. I will not say that I disapprove of every exercise cross fitters do, because some of them are fantastic exercises- when done properly. And among those exercises, most of them are not unique to crossfit. Some of the exercises found on the crossfit website are as follow: kips, squats, clean and jerks, snatches, burpees, muscle ups, box jumps, double-unders, dips, presses, lunges, etc.
I LOVE some of these exercises- the ones I think are great for a lot of people include squats, box jumps, and lunges. Some depend on the parameters of the individual and a couple should be ERASED FROM THIS WORLD. Those, my friends, are the kips and burpees.
Why the HELL would you voluntarily do something as ridiculous as a kip or a burpee to your body on a regular basis? If you do not know what these two exercises are, please educate yourself. Youtube it. Something.
Before I explain my reasoning scientifically, I want to rant. Ok. Kips. You are using momentum to do a pull-up. Wuss. Man up and do a proper pull-up. You think you look so awesome doing a fancy little jump to help you do a fancy little pull-up. Give me a break. 10 years from now, you'll be needing back surgery and I will still be showing off how many REAL and proper pull-ups I can do. And I bet my guns will be better than your guns. I know my back will be better. Now for burpees- seriously- you look silly jumping up and down like a monkey! Can you please just do some box jumps, squats and push-ups instead? You'll be doing a huge favor for your back because about 90% of you burpee-lovers are doing a stupid exercise and doing it wrong (or should I say, worse?).
Here's my scientific reasoning: Those exercises are NOT biomechanically sound. You are putting a lot of compressive forces on your spine. There is no way to avoid it, you might be able to curve the damage slightly by keeping your hips up while doing a burpee... but the damage is still going to be there. You have absolutely no way to protect and stabilize your back while performing these exercises. So why do them? Sure, there might be a couple weird circumstances where you have to do a kip, perhaps like Jackie Chan and a whole lot of other actors have done during dramatic fight scenes in movies (or perhaps as a contestant in Ninja Warrior, as there are a couple of components to this physical challenge that incorporate kips) but I should think that those instances be few and far between. I'm pretty sure that doing more efficient and functional exercises that utilize the exact same muscle groups will help you a lot more when you do come across those crazy and rare circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment