Regarding Crossfit

As much as I love CF, there are some things that I am highly critical of:

1) 3 days on/1 off. That does not work well for us older folk. Although we may be stronger at 47 compared to 25-30, we need more recovery time!

2) Some routines are flat out stupid! Like doing Cleans or Snatches in "Reps for time". Some lifts are not to be taken lightly (pun intended) as far as form is concerned; the clean, and the snatch are the ALL about proper form. For that matter, so are [heavy] Deadlifts and Squats.

Regardless, aside from a few quirks here and there, CF is still a great system.

A friend of mine added the following:

Rick, I've got a few of my own thoughts to add (some of which you covered).

1. Crossfit is not perfect. But don't tell that to the many Crossfitters who've elevated it to a religion-like status. The CF community is very dogmatic and intolerant of alternative workouts, which makes it uncomfortable for guys like me who prefer to mix in other forms of exercise.

2. The shoulders are abused. At least mine are. I have to skip some CF WOD's if I feel like my shoulders have already been worked hard recently. During my first couple months of CF, I stuck with the schedule, and the result was a lot of shoulder pain--not soreness, but pain. I couldn't reach for a glass in the cupboard without grimacing. There are too many high rep overhead lifts, and they just tore up my shoulders.

3. Local clubs may go "off-schedule." The CF gym I go to doesn't stick strictly to the main CF schedule, and the guy doing the local schedule doesn't give much regard to avoiding consecutive workouts that hammer the same body parts. Instead of splitting up the rest days, they just use the weekend as their two rest days for the week. This disregard for proper recovery can diminish results and lead to injury.

4. Like P90X, nobody's gonna get big doing Crossfit. There are a lot of big guys doing CF, but they were big before. [I disagree with this statement]

5. Injury = Effort. That is, hurting yourself (like ripping up your hands, or puking during a workout) are congratulated rather than discouraged.

6. There's an emphasis on competition rather than self-improvement. This isn't too bad (at least in my gym), but there's definitely some focus on beating each other every day when we write our results on the white board. I personally pay more attention to whether or not I've improved since the last time I did the workout.

7. It can be expensive. I think most for-profit CF gyms charge well over $100 per month. I use a non-profit gym, but make volunteer payments occasionally for use of the gym.

Don't get me wrong, I like Crossfit, but it's not the be-all end-all in fitness, which is why I do other workouts a couple times per week.