[Duke Castile]

Powerlifting isn't bodybuilding. But it is part of crossfit.

Crossfitters are ATHLETES. We aren't sitting around eating brown rice and chicken breasts giving each other compliments on each other's striations or dieting to be "cut".

It's about functional movement and being fit. Not looking like a musclebound waddling doofus.

The exceptional body is a byproduct. You may want to look at a larger group of the athletes before you start drawing premature conclusions.

To address your bodybuilders are "more cut" claim, no they aren't. They're "more cut" for a very short period of time, usually about a fraction of the year compared to a veteran crossfitter who barring an injury will walk around at anytime with less than 10% bodyfat

[TheCaptainPower]

@ lol "rice and chicken" Bodybuilding can definately be a little bit gay...I had a roommate shave my back for 2 summers because I couldn't reach...

[Duke Castile]

In the photo I'm casually walking and you're flexing. There's your answer.

[lavidaloca]

I think long term health should also be considered. Bodybuilding is just about lifting heavy. Cross fit has a lot more heart work to it. Of course bodybuilders could make up for this by running but most don't as they are too scared to lose muscle.

[WanderingSoul]

(12-09-2012 09:21 PM)TheCaptainPower Wrote:  

I competed in about 20 powerlifting competitions in my life so I know about lifting heavy....

Like I said, if you want to do it for fun I have not problem with that. But if you want to get cut, then body building is your answer....

Don't crossfit to get cut, body build to get cut. I'm not doubting that the workouts are hard. I have a couple friends that are Marines, and they told me about some of their workouts that sounded insane. But they still aren't as cut as bodybuilders....

Your diet is going to be the deciding factor in getting cut, regardless of which routine you choose. CrossFit, body building, powerlifting, whatever. I am the perfect specimen to prove this....I'm fat as shit right now.

I would stay away from any kind of "bis and tris" workout. Regardless of if you are going to go a more powerlifting route, or lift for more GPP/muscular endurance like crossfit, your routine should revolve around squats, deadlifts presses, pull/chin ups, dips, rows, etc. Compound movements are the way to go.

[SnakeEyes]

I think the majority can agree crossfit is the workout of fanatics with no interest in form or safety. The Internet is riddled with laughable videos. There's the girl gettin ran over by a car, the girls attempting powerlifting moves in their juicy sweatpants, and tons of more ridiculously dangerous activities.

[reaper23]

(12-10-2012 02:54 PM)SnakeEyes Wrote:  

I think the majority can agree crossfit is the workout of fanatics with no interest in form or safety. The Internet is riddled with laughable videos. There's the girl gettin ran over by a car, the girls attempting powerlifting moves in their juicy sweatpants, and tons of more ridiculously dangerous activities.

crossfit is a brand which doesnt mean much. the philosophy certainly doesnt preach to forget about form.

i belong to a crossfit gym that is ridiculously focused on form. frustratingly so at times.

before you can even join the gym you must:

attend 6 "elements" workshops where they teach you all the basic forms and saftey

observe 3 classes to see how things work in action

take and pass a WRITTEN EXAM

yes, you have to take and pass a written exam, mostly safety, before they let you join the gym.

few people at my gym are ever injured and when they are it is likely to have occurred on their own time.

each day we spend 15-20 minutes on mobility and stretching

every rep is watched and coached

every work out is scaled and measured to your current condition

and there is no way in hell you are ever going to move up weights unless your form is perfect

yes those videos are hilariously stupid. i enjoy the one of the woman front squatting while wearing her newborn baby in one of those baby holders attached to her chest..yes the bar is right above her newborn baby as she front squats. its retarded

[SnakeEyes]

(12-10-2012 02:59 PM)reaper23 Wrote:  

(12-10-2012 02:54 PM)SnakeEyes Wrote:  

I think the majority can agree crossfit is the workout of fanatics with no interest in form or safety. The Internet is riddled with laughable videos. There's the girl gettin ran over by a car, the girls attempting powerlifting moves in their juicy sweatpants, and tons of more ridiculously dangerous activities.

crossfit is a brand which doesnt mean much. the philosophy certainly doesnt preach to forget about form.

i belong to a crossfit gym that is ridiculously focused on form. frustratingly so at times.

before you can even join the gym you must:

attend 6 "elements" workshops where they teach you all the basic forms and saftey

observe 3 classes to see how things work in action

take and pass a WRITTEN EXAM

yes, you have to take and pass a written exam, mostly safety, before they let you join the gym.

few people at my gym are ever injured and when they are it is likely to have occurred on their own time.

each day we spend 15-20 minutes on mobility and stretching

every rep is watched and coached

every work out is scaled and measured to your current condition

and there is no way in hell you are ever going to move up weights unless your form is perfect

yes those videos are hilariously stupid. i enjoy the one of the woman front squatting while wearing her newborn baby in one of those baby holders attached to her chest..yes the bar is right above her newborn baby as she front squats. its retarded

Yeah, my problem is that those people are coaching new and novice people that doing shit as fast and hard as humanly possible is safe. Checkout the crossfit forum, the injuries section has over 50% as many threads as the exercise section!

[Duke Castile]

When you train hard you are going to get injured at some point. Crossfit itself isn't what's injuring people, in many cases it's the person pushing himself too hard, or the person with improper form.

[WanderingSoul]

The coolest thing about CrossFit, IMO, is that it is one of the few places someone can go to learn Olympic lifts, squats and deadlifts with proper form. There just are not many coaches out there who are qualified to teach them. CrossFit has definitely made an impact on that for the positive.

[Aliblahba]

Do you have any recommendations for a pre crossfit workout? I need to strengthen the knees and hit some interval training before committing to a crossfit gym. Will be starting back in about a week.

@fisto- Is your build strictly from crossfit?

[maccc]

(12-10-2012 05:31 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

Do you have any recommendations for a pre crossfit workout? I need to strengthen the knees and hit some interval training before committing to a crossfit gym. Will be starting back in about a week.

Ali a good crossfit instructor will bring you along at the right pace and get you up to speed. At the first crossfit gym I ever signed up at (where fisto was the biggest guy in the class) I was totally inflexible and unable to do a full squat for the first 2 or 3 months. But everyday at the end of class, while all the other students were gawking at fisto and the other athletic freaks doing crazy shit, the instructor brought me aside and worked with me on my squats, and other exercises to become more limber. I'm guessing my knee issues were similar to yours.

[Aliblahba]

^^^ I'll jump right in if I can find a place that has slower classes. Here's one near to where I live. How would you guys rate based on the website?

http://www.noexcusescrossfit.com/

[Duke Castile]

Ali,

You'll most likely go through an "elements" class where you'll get acclimated to the workouts. This is the time where you get up to speed. After you start hitting the scheduled classes you'll also be "scaling" the workouts so you can get through them. Just be conservative starting out.

And yeah, cf is about the only Strength and Conditioning I do.

[Aliblahba]

"Foundations 101 Workshop
This is a 3-week-long series of 12 classes that will teach you the basic techniques of the 9 essential movements of CrossFit as well as teach you the higher skilled movements of gymnastics and olympic weightlifting and ramp you up to the full intensity of our CrossFit Classes. The cost is $200.00 for the workshop. No Excuses Foundations 101 Workshops start every 3rd Monday."

[reaper23]

(12-10-2012 06:17 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

^^^ I'll jump right in if I can find a place that has slower classes. Here's one near to where I live. How would you guys rate based on the website?

http://www.noexcusescrossfit.com/

hard to say. thats a strange place. no trainers with level 2, which would show some real commitment. a couple of folks with BS in exercise science, thats a plus.

really no way to no until you try. you could always just call them and ask them about scaling.

[Kid Strangelove]

So this thread hasn't been active in almost a year. But fuck it, let's bring it back!

I am currently in my 2nd month of crossfit and couldn't be happier. Before that, I was doing "bodybuilding style" workouts that bored the shit out of me, but I did them because of necessity (I am a natural fatass).

After some "trying", I finally settled on a great gym and have been going strong since.
Every workout is motivating and invigorating. You compete against others, you compete against yourself, and you compete against the "crossfit standard", so there is no lack of motivation.

The community that builds around it is great too. It's impossible to not make friends, after all, you are all experiencing the same thing together, so talking to a girl at the gym gives you an automatic opening, where as in a regular gym, girls shield themselves from contact with cardio machines and earbuds.

Anyway, I am still a relative beginner to crossfit - and there are many movements that I can't come close to doing, but the high you get from breaking a personal best, finishing a workout "as prescribed", or learning a new movement are incredible.

Anyway, just wanted to give this method some props, maybe this could be what some of you guys need, maybe not, but it has my full endorsement.

[TheBMan]

I've really enjoyed Crossfit as well. Great workout, structured, you are always moving, no waiting for machines and stupid shit like that. If you get bored in a gym by yourself but like working out I'd highly recommend it.

[MikeCF]

I didn't even need ot read the thread to see that it had it all!

Every CrossFit thread is gonna have:
1. CrossFit haters who jump in to talk shit.
These people join the thread even though Ali didn't want to hear the "cons" of XFit. He wanted to share tips.

But there will always be a fucking hater who can't just let guys have a conversation without sticking his big nose into it and adding irrelevant shit that no one wants to hear.

2. CrossFit jock riders who shit talk everyone else.
Every bodybuilder lacks functional strength! CrossFit is supreme!

There's a reason XFit gets so much hate, and that there is the reason. XFit people can't just say, "Well, tehre are many ways to be fit and have a nice body. We do XFit. Others bodybuild and powerlift. Cool, at least people are doing something!"

Nope, it's always this smug shit as if XFit is Christianity and all who fail to abide by it are going to fitness Hell.

3. CrossFit people, in response to the claim that people get injured doing XFit at extremely high rates respond with, "Everyone gets injured!"
Well, everyone dies, too. That doesn't mean you can't make a risk assessment and ask whether something is more likely than other things to cause death.

Hilarious.

Incidentally, how many old guys do you see doing XFit? Not many. It's not sustainable. It may be fun during the 20s and 30s but over the long term it fucks your body up.

Sorta how you don't see many old guys doing MMA. The human body isn't meant to take head and body blows into the 40s and 50s. That doesn't make MMA "bad" or "good." It just means that it's cult thinking to claim that MMA training is the best thing ever, for everyone, and that anyone who doesn't train MMA is missing out.

[Duke Castile]

I quit my gym. I'm sick of the cult attitude and the way people insist on using the stupid lingo. I'm still friends with people and will always workout that way but it's really annoying.

It costs way too much.

The girls that do it are great until they get "hardcore".

I might go back to the gym after a while but I need a break from hearing about everyone's goddamn workout everytime there's a get together.

[Veloce]

question- how much would you guys say is reasonable for a xfit membership?

[Sebastian]

(10-17-2013 01:04 AM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

question- how much would you guys say is reasonable for a xfit membership?

Wait for the price to go down. It's popping up like yogurt shop.
I say it should drop to $50 a month if you are just doing your WOD on your own.

[Hades]

I'd say that overall, crossfit did more to popularize strength fitness and working out with intensity than pretty much any other exercise program ever invented - the man-titted and similarly cultish Starting Strength crowd really has nothing on these guys - but even considering that, they didn't invent the concept of intense workouts and should quit pretending otherwise.

If anybody is interested in joining a strength fitness workout crowd that's less cultish, pretty much reeks of positivity, and doesn't cost shitloads of money, just hit up barstarzz or madbarz. Those guys are friendly and awesome.

[MikeCF]

(10-17-2013 07:00 AM)Hades Wrote:  

I'd say that overall, crossfit did more to popularize strength fitness and working out with intensity than pretty much any other exercise program ever invented -

XFit ain't got shit on PX90.

P90X is Beachbody's best-selling product after years of positive word of mouth and heavy infomercial advertisements.[3] Despite sales growth slowing to approximately 30%, P90X represented half of Beachbody's $430 million revenue in 2010. [4] As of November 2010, 3 million copies of P90X have been sold for an estimated $420 million.[4] The program had grossed approximately $500 million in sales, as of August 2012.[2]

[MikeCF]

(10-16-2013 02:41 PM)Fisto Wrote:  

I quit my gym. I'm sick of the cult attitude and the way people insist on using the stupid lingo. I'm still friends with people and will always workout that way but it's really annoying.

It costs way too much.

The girls that do it are great until they get "hardcore".

I might go back to the gym after a while but I need a break from hearing about everyone's goddamn workout everytime there's a get together.

Are you paleo, bro? Have you tried these paleo chocolate balls made with raw cocao and coconu oil?

What was your time on Fran? What WOD do you do?

I hope you're only eating grass-fed steaks and cooking your food in grass-fed butter and coconut oil.

There's joke that goes, "You'll never need to ask someone if he trains Xfit. He'll tell you first."

I hang out with a lot of meat heads and bodybuilders. Training almost never comes up just randomly over dinner or whatever.