CrossFit: libertarian cashgrab scam

[Tim Cornelis]

I didn't know a lot about crossfit, it just seemed a little weird to me, but reading a little bit about after seeing some terrible videos, it seems that CrossFit is a libertarian cash grab scam. It is the praxeology of fitness.


Founder is self-described "rabid libertarian";
It contradicts scientific standards and disregards empirical evidence paralleling praxeology;
It is overpriced;
Ineffective programming for strength, muscle building, and conditioning;
Appealing to the uninformed and easily impressionable (equivalent of libertarian internet warriors);
Everyone is expected to compete on the same level playing field ('market') despite different endowments, (bad) luck, and experience;
If you fail because of the above you will face victim blaming (founder: "We have a therapy for injuries at CrossFit called STFU" and researchers found that a coach called someone dropping out because of overtraining a "wuss").
Tied up with the above: personal responsibility ("I have a really big problem with the above statements and the way that the CrossFit culture seeks to push all responsibility onto the individual members. They charge the average person with trying to find a good coach, asking the right questions about certifications, evaluating the workouts, evaluating themselves and their level of fitness, and evaluating the level of safety of workouts and boxes. Due to the multitude of information and misinformation in the fitness world, these are unreasonable expectations to have of the general public when their health is on the line."[1]);
Only a select privileged few are able to fully succeed and become professional, the genetic elite (think Rich Froning Jr. -- the same people always end out on top);
The competitive element within "boxes" (gyms);
The focus on getting in as much reps as possible no matter the (human) cost and suffering;
The above in pursuit of earning points for the sake of points detached from personal usefulness (metaphor for capital accumulation);
Cult-like tendencies paralleling 'Randism'/Objectivism.


[1] http://erinsimmonsfitness.me/2014/09/01/the-science-of-why-i-dont-do-crossfit-a-follow-up/

[motion denied]

"Crossfit is ideal for building cardiovascular endurance. Or, as I like to call it, the ability to lose gains" - Dom

[DOOM]

I'd say every popular subscription program is a scam. Even rappers have their own programs here. It's a pathetic way of earning money but it seems to work.

[STALINwasntSTALLIN]

I'd say every popular subscription program is a scam. Even rappers have their own programs here. It's a pathetic way of earning money but it seems to work.

Move over Marx! Phineas Taylor Barnum was the most astute economist of all time.

_siQqiT48Tc

[Ele'ill]

the physiological / sports medicine concepts that crossfit uses aren't new at all, what's kind of new about it is the social element that makes it very cult like and cliqueish and really draws those types of people into it. There are a few crossfit folks who also use the gym I go to and they are all in ok shape but are extremely arrogant and obnoxious to be around. They assume that because they belong to crossfit that they are automatically in the better shape than other people around them. I've had to deal with this countless times in areas where I run especially if there are stairs or hills involved.

[BIXX]

Having trained cross fit in the past, noen of what was said above is true. Every gym that I've trained with has been cheap, noncompetitive, etc...
That isn't to say that I don't think those issues are there and I do think that cross fit has a kind of cult following, but I so think that the same shit can be said about any gym that co siders itself to make people into 'elite' athletes. Only 2 gyms I've ever been to could consider themselves elite, and they both trained olympic wrestlers, and they didn't get into the whole cukty bullshit. They just were proud of their accomplishments.

Idk. Just random thoughts on the issue.

[Tim Cornelis]

This gym though:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20ylci_the-gym-for-lazy-rich-people_fun
lol.

[Gotya]

I don't know why people making working out some complicated endeavor. You can exercise anywhere. If you don't have equipment, you can do push ups, sit ups and countless other exercises. You can use chairs and couches as makeshift equipment. You can run up and down stairs. I live in a mountainous area. Just walking up these hills is exercise.

Americans sure are book smart, but sometimes lack the basics. You have more cooking shows than ever, but people get fatter. "Personal trainers" are about the biggest scam going. Usually somebody who took some certificate class and now all of the sudden they are some PhD physiologist to people who don't know any better.

The scam and dumbness transcend all politics.

[Lanfear]

I didn't know a lot about crossfit, it just seemed a little weird to me, but reading a little bit about after seeing some terrible videos, it seems that CrossFit is a libertarian cash grab scam. It is the praxeology of fitness.


Founder is self-described "rabid libertarian";
It contradicts scientific standards and disregards empirical evidence paralleling praxeology;
It is overpriced;
Ineffective programming for strength, muscle building, and conditioning;
Appealing to the uninformed and easily impressionable (equivalent of libertarian internet warriors);
Everyone is expected to compete on the same level playing field ('market') despite different endowments, (bad) luck, and experience;
If you fail because of the above you will face victim blaming (founder: "We have a therapy for injuries at CrossFit called STFU" and researchers found that a coach called someone dropping out because of overtraining a "wuss").
Tied up with the above: personal responsibility ("I have a really big problem with the above statements and the way that the CrossFit culture seeks to push all responsibility onto the individual members. They charge the average person with trying to find a good coach, asking the right questions about certifications, evaluating the workouts, evaluating themselves and their level of fitness, and evaluating the level of safety of workouts and boxes. Due to the multitude of information and misinformation in the fitness world, these are unreasonable expectations to have of the general public when their health is on the line."[1]);
Only a select privileged few are able to fully succeed and become professional, the genetic elite (think Rich Froning Jr. -- the same people always end out on top);
The competitive element within "boxes" (gyms);
The focus on getting in as much reps as possible no matter the (human) cost and suffering;
The above in pursuit of earning points for the sake of points detached from personal usefulness (metaphor for capital accumulation);
Cult-like tendencies paralleling 'Randism'/Objectivism.


[1] http://erinsimmonsfitness.me/2014/09/01/the-science-of-why-i-dont-do-crossfit-a-follow-up/

Been doing crossfit for over a year and the majority of this is nonsense. Only the elite few are able to succeed and become professional. Isn't that the same for all sports??

[Tim Cornelis]

To paraphrase Marx, 'just as our opinion of Scientology isn't based on what the Scientologists think of Scientology, so our opinion on Crossfit can't be based on what Crossfitters think of it.'

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

This is funny actually, half of my family are crossfit 'community' members. One of my cousins friends owns a franchise in San jose and invited us to a party of a friend/colleague of hers here in Santa Cruz. I bike over there ready to meet some people, see my fam and it turns out the party is at this chic mansion 20 yards from the ocean. Little did I know it's the founder's of the little gym club chain. So I'm like, ok, not really expecting this, but they have alcohol so it's all good. A few hours, a heap full lunch of awesome bbqed meats, ten beers and useless conversations later most people leave and the hosts and my family stay to cook and eat dinner. By this time my mom gets there from work and we're all making small talk. I'm a little reserved and making very superficial conversation cause I could tell there's not much to talk about with them. The dude would ask me questions like "why did you move to California" and I'd answer that my step-dad died (which is true you know), they'd ask my mom where we're living and she replied "oh we got evicted from our apartment a few months ago". My aunt told me to tell everyone what my father does as a policeman in Germany and I answered that he's in charge of investigating human trafficking and sexual slavery etc. It was apparent that they are completely sheltered from the real world as working people experience it and as the night went on and they got more uncomfortable, we had more and more fun dominating our reality over theirs.

[Rafiq]

There is something profoundly disgusting about crossfit which goes much deeper than being a scam. One should understand Crossfit in terms of the wider Californian Ideology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology) of the 21st century. For those users who cannot smell the context outright, think about the type of people - the smug, yuppie pieces of shit who embrace crossfit - the bluetooth donning fucker whose position he believes is biologically ordained, who interprets his sexual experiences with "evolutionary" pseudo-psychology and so on. Perhaps it is pure laziness that I do not divulge in a clearer manner, regarding why there is a link between Silicon Valley culture and Crossfit. The organized, heavily regulated self-worship, western buddhist ethics of self-overcoming, and so on. For now I can just hope you see it.

It isn't simply Crossfit. The entire ethos of fitness-culture is disgustingly reactionary, and take ten seconds to look at any video ad that involves it if you don't understand. Of course, there is nothing reactionary about regular exercise as such - I myself visit the gym almost every day. The problem is how exercise is interpreted, how it's experienced. At the most elementary level, no ideology actually encourages individualism - so the ethos of fitness, self-worship, "self-improvement" and so on - doesn't actually refer to one's self as such but the place this self has in a wider social context. One shouldn't see the person in the pretentious advertisement exercising as someone simply struggling to look better - one should see them as individuals in a consumerist ritualized trance serving the cult of capital.

[Lanfear]

To paraphrase Marx, 'just as our opinion of Scientology isn't based on what the Scientologists think of Scientology, so our opinion on Crossfit can't be based on what Crossfitters think of it.'

Not can it be based on what haters think if it

[Tim Cornelis]

Well to a scientologist a realist critic is a "hater" too.

[Lanfear]

Well to a scientologist a realist critic is a "hater" too.

Perhaps so. All I can do is talk about my experience and that tells me that the most of what is in the OP is wrong. But like I said that's my experience. Crossfit works for me but it's not all I do in regards working out

[Tim Cornelis]

Does it work for you though? Or you think it works for you.

But for the record, this thread is meant as sort of tongue in cheeck, but in my opinion, with a fair deal of truth in it.

[Lanfear]

Does it work for you though? Or you think it works for you.

But for the record, this thread is meant as sort of tongue in cheeck, but in my opinion, with a fair deal of truth in it.

I'm fitter and I'm stronger since doing it - my big lifts have improved a lot. I can do Olympic movements which I couldn't do before. So yeah, it works for me. The social aspect at my box is also very good and I've made some friends I wouldn't have by just going to the gym.
Do you do crossfit? If the answer is no how do you know there is a fair bit of truth in it? Not having a pop, I understand the hate and ridicule crossfit gets, I'm just windering

[Tim Cornelis]

Well practically anything resembling fitness, which puts stress on your body, will give you some kind of improvement.

I know there's a fair bit of truth in it, because you don't need to do Crossfit to know the price tag, to know that random exercise isn't effective for durable progress (hence why professional Crossfitters don't do crossfit*), to know that they the focus on quantity often leads to the neglecting of quality, or to know that the founder is a self-proclaimed libertarian.


*Another parallel with capitalism, the game is rigged in favour of the elite.

[Lanfear]

Well practically anything resembling fitness, which puts stress on your body, will give you some kind of improvement.

I know there's a fair bit of truth in it, because you don't need to do Crossfit to know the price tag, to know that random exercise isn't effective for durable progress (hence why professional Crossfitters don't do crossfit*), to know that they the focus on quantity often leads to the neglecting of quality, or to know that the founder is a self-proclaimed libertarian.


*Another parallel with capitalism, the game is rigged in favour of the elite.
So you don't actually do crossfit do you?
I know nothing about the founder but I do know that it's not random exercise. I also know that they don't focus in quantity ahead of quality. Qualify comes first where I train. I also know that the elite do do crossfit. They also do other things but they do do crossfit also. Also, I don't see any rigging in it at all

[Tim Cornelis]

Why do you need to have personal experience with something to think it's a bad idea? No, I don't do crossfit, because I try to build mass and strength as optimally as possible. And it is random exercise. Crossfit is based on WOD right? And because it's random exercise, those at the Crossfit games don't do that. They train.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-rippetoe/crossfit-good-bad-ugly_b_4420922.html

"CrossFit - the program on the website and the methods taught at their "certs" -- is Exercise, not Training. Exercise is physical activity for its own sake, a workout done for the effect it produces today, during the workout or right after you're through. Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind, the constituent workouts of which are specifically designed to produce that goal.

Exercise is fun today. Well, it may not be fun, but you've convinced yourself to do it today because you perceive that the effect you produce today is of benefit to you today. You "smashed" or "crushed" or "smoked" that workout... today. Same as the kids in front of the dumbbell rack at the gym catching an arm pump, the workout was about how it made you feel, good or bad, today.

In contrast, Training is about the process you undertake to generate a specific result later, maybe much later, the workouts of which are merely the constituents of the process. Training may even involve a light day that you perceive to be a waste of time if you only consider today.

CrossFit is a random exposure to a variety of different movements at different intensities, most of which are done for time, i.e., as many reps as possible in a stipulated time period or a stipulated number of reps done as fast as possible. As such, it is Exercise, not Training, since it is random, and Training requires that we plan what we are going to do to get ready for a specific task.

Different physical tasks require different physical adaptations; running 26.2 miles is obviously a different task than squatting 700 pounds, and the two efforts require completely different physical adaptations. If a program of physical activity is not designed to get you stronger or faster or better conditioned by producing a specific stress to which a specific desirable adaptation can occur, you don't get to call it training. It is just exercise.

For most people, exercise is perfectly adequate -- it's certainly better than sitting on your ass. For people who perceive themselves as merely housewives, salesmen, or corporate execs, and for most personal training clients and pretty much everybody who can afford a CrossFit membership, exercise is fine. CrossFit sells itself by advertising the random part: random is not boring, and not-boring gets people to come back. Coming back while doing the diet at the same time gets you abs. CrossFit is largely about abs.

CrossFit facilities that no one else in the standard fitness industry has to face: the post-novice trainee.

(...)

As you are obviously aware (since you have memorized my books), a novice trainee is one for whom recovery from each workout is possible within a very short time frame -- 48 hours or so. This is because untrained people are unadapted people, and for unadapted people anything that's harder than what they've been doing causes an adaptation.

This is why CrossFit works so well for the vast majority of the people that start it: for the first time, an exercise program causes them to experience rapid improvement... at first. Then the problem with CrossFit becomes obvious.

CrossFit is not Training. It is Exercise. And exercise -- even poorly-programmed random flailing-around in the floor for time -- causes progress to occur, for a while. For the novice, CrossFit Exercise mimics the effects of Training, because it's hard and because stress causes adaptation. Then, progress slows, since the Laws of Physiology cannot be ignored. The more you adapt to physical stress, the stronger and fitter you become. And the stronger and fitter you become, the more difficult it is to get more strong and more fit, because the easy part of the process has already occurred.

And this is precisely where CrossFit: The Methodology falls apart. Once a person has adapted beyond the ability of random stress applied frequently under time constraints to cause further improvement, progress stalls. And increasing the intensity of the random stress doesn't work either -- that just gets you hurt because you haven't gotten stronger, and your heart and lungs can only work at about 200 BPM and about 50 RPM.

Further progress must be based on an analysis of the adaptation you want to create, and a program of Training for the purpose of causing that adaptation to occur must be correctly designed and followed. Beyond a certain point, random physical stress fails to continue to elicit a favorable adaptation.

(...)

This is precisely why the advanced athletes who win and place at the CrossFit Games do not use CrossFit website programming to achieve advanced levels of the strength and conditioning necessary to perform at that level. None of them. This is widely known and freely admitted by everyone not involved with the company. All athletes at advanced levels must Train intelligently to advance, and CrossFit: The Methodology doesn't do the job."


------------------------------------------

a good comment I saw

"The only reason that CrossFit is doing so well is because of the marketing team that they have. But one seems to forget that the big dogs who have come up with the marketing campaigns and training systems have probably never been athletes or go to the gym everyday. This is just one huge money making business that is destroying people's bodies and lives!

It saddens me to know that the general population know nothing about correct training techniques and international fitness organizations, like CrossFit, are taking advantage of this fact. I hope that one day soon people will realise the harsh realities about this 'sport' and that fitness professionals out there will impart the knowledge of correct training methods and techniques to their clients."

[Lanfear]

Double post

[Lanfear]

The top athletes may not do the WODs on the website? So what? Neither would most gyms. The coaches at mine programme their own and I can assure you it is not random exercises. The like of Froning, Kalipha, Smith, Siggmundsdottir etc programme their own WODs it at least their coaches do. They still do crossfit although they do do other things.
I get that there is a lot of hate for crossfit and some of it may well be justified. There will be bad coaches and bad ambassadors for it but there are bad gyms all over the place also. Like I said earlier, I like it and it works for me

[Tim Cornelis]

But they don't do Crossfit, that's the point. Crossfit: "constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity". I've seen competitive Crossfitters train, and they did normal 3 or 5 reps of squats in a programmatic (i.e. not constantly varied) fashion and not at high intensity. So it misses two out of three qualifies for Crossfit. This is part of training for olympic lifts.

[Lanfear]

Yes, as I said they do do other stuff. They also do crossfit. Look it up, you'll see mate. Also, crossfit includes a lot more than that. Look at the games. Go into any box and you will see that. Lots of people dislike crossfit and slag it off with no rhyme or reason for it. At least you've obviously done some sort of research, looked at things to validate what you're saying. I've read a lot of your posts on fitness related subjects and I respect your opinion. In this case however I just disagree with it and that's because of my own experiences with crossfit.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I quite like the idea of a 'fitness culture'. It doesn't have to be macho, masculine, patriarchal, and elitist.

I'll qualify this by saying that clearly, science shows that bodybuilding can be profoundly unhealthy and for many individuals things like CrossFit won't be the best path to healthiness and happiness for them.

On the other hand it's also a ridiculous extension of identity politics to talk about being unhealthy (with obesity as its proxy) as some category of oppression. Clearly being healthy is objectively better than being unhealthy and should be encouraged as both a social and individual good. Of course this shouldn't lead to 'fat shaming' or any other form of social stigmatisation. But we should support people being genuinely able to lead a healthy lifestyle, through advocacy of regular exercise, greater social/public control over the sorts of foods that are marketed and sold, and changing public attitudes towards the types of substances we ingest.

Being healthy doesn't and shouldn't mean all this macho crap about living off of protein shakes and having a bodybuilder physique; conversely, we shouldn't see obesity/fatness as some sort of legitimate response to the macho culture that often pervades contemporary fitness culture.