Why the hate?
As a Physical Therapist, I know all too well about how the bulk of my profession feels about CrossFit. I sat through several lectures in graduate school that painted this type of training in a negative light. Then there’s the huge amount of healthcare providers out there today that are advocating for their clients to cease any kind of activities similar to CrossFit.
My experience has been that safety is completely dependent on the quality of coaching and volume management, but this can be said for literally any other sport. The main argument I have heard is that repetitive lifting from the floor and squatting is unsafe and harmful for people, as well as the high volume of overhead activities.
To play devil’s advocate, CrossFit had a rough start. It was driven into popularity by people promoting absurdly difficult workouts and pushing participants to their absolute limits. For this reason, the competitive side of CrossFit became the face of the sport and everyone began to associate it with extremely difficult and potentially dangerous training habits. In addition, the requirements to become a “coach” at a CrossFit gym were pretty much non existent at first. The quality of coaching was not very high and people got into owning gyms before they even had a clue what was going on. This is something that unfortunately still happens today even. I myself have witnessed gyms that don’t have any kind of warm up or coaching, and simply just tell people to “go” when it’s time to train.
Why do CrossFit?
When executed the right way, CrossFit is a truly amazing fitness program that can be done by any age person with safety. It teaches people how to move, how to eat, offers community and accountability, and promotes a lifestyle of wellness.
This is fitness summed up in 100 words. These statements give us a blueprint to improve overall health, transform our lives, and eliminate chronic disease.
The vast majority of healthcare spending today is spent on issues related to chronic (and preventable) disease. Diabetes, obesity, COPD, CAD, HTN, Strokes. These are all issues that are preventable. A lifetime of poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle are what account for these things. CrossFit offers a simple, and powerfully effective cure for these things. Eat right, train smart, train hard, improve your life.
The gym I coach for places great emphasis on quality over quantity and is quick to have people modify workouts in order to keep them safe. In addition, we take a very planned approach with our programming and seek to make sure that we are not overloading certain muscle groups or overtraining.
I am obviously biased towards CrossFit and similar forms of activity because I have experienced the benefits for myself and seen it in my clients. The reality is that injury is an inevitable thing in any exercise or sport regiment. When we choose to exercise and challenge ourselves on a daily basis, we have to be willing to accept that aches and pains will come along.
What does the research show?
Klimek et al. published an article in 2018 in the Journal of Sports Rehabilitation (J Sport Rehabil. 2018 May 1;27(3):295-299. doi: 10.1123/jsr.2016-0040. Epub 2018 May 22.) The research design was a retrospective cohort study that reviewed any paper published in the past 10 years comparing injury rates among CrossFit participants and individuals participating in other fitness sports.
What the researchers found may be of no surprise: rates of injury among CrossFit participants were equal to or lower than those of participants in the other included sports (gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, military conditioning, track and field, rugby, and distance running).
Another article by Hak et al. (J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Nov 22.) found that 73.5% of the 132 survey respondents experienced an injury while engaging in CrossFit. The total injury rate of 3.1/1000 hours trained during CrossFit training was similar to injury rates reported in: Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, and rugby. Sports with higher injury rates, as per report, than CrossFit include high school football, ice hockey, and soccer.
There’s also the fact that CrossFit recently won some legal battles over some studies on injury rates where the data was falsified by those that were reporting it as significantly higher than what it actually was. Something to consider!
Summary
CrossFit is great. Is it right for everyone? Maybe not. Is it wrong for everyone? Certainly not. Choose a gym that has qualified trainers and a reputation for excellence. Use common sense. It can be done safely, as long as you approach it the right way. Healthcare providers, quit telling people to quit CrossFit.
Sources:
-Hak et al., The nature and prevalence of injury during CrossFit training. (J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Nov 22.)
-Klimek et al., Are Injuries More Common With CrossFit Training Than Other Forms of Exercise? (J Sport Rehabil. 2018 May 1;27(3):295-299. doi: 10.1123/jsr.2016-0040. Epub 2018 May 22.)