Crossfit. Chances are, you've seen some commercial or t-shirt or someone mentioning it on a social media site. It has become some sort of weird phenomenon in American fitness culture.
Personally, I hate it. Well, maybe 'hate' is too strong of a word. I strongly dislike it, and I'll show you why.
Firstly, it's a cult. Yeah, you read that right-- a fitness cult. Men's Health thinks so. Heck, crossfit even admitted it themselves. It's a widespread organization that tends to suck people in. It brainwashes them (no, seriously) to a certain extent and makes them blind to everything else. What do I mean by that? Well, first off, crossfitters think of themselves as totally awesome and the rest of the world sees them as insane. It turns people into sadists. The workouts are ludicrous and they love it. I remember a while back seeing someone on Facebook who used "puked" and ":D" in the same sentence.
Why it's retarded
People actually pay lots of money to do something in a group setting they could do on their own. Like, $100/month minimum, on top of gym dues (if applicable).
"Forging elite fitness" is their slogan (which is parodied in this blog). They consider themselves elite "athletes," when, in fact, their haphazard and unfocused crazy workouts leave them as jacks of all trades, and masters of none.
Most crossfit locations follow a "Workout of the Day," or WOD. It's typically a random combination of at least 3 stations, it has a rigid structire, and is done for time. Everyone does the same exact damn thing, regardless of skill level. As if that wasn't bad enough, good form is not emphasized, which is just begging for injury.
And then there are the kipping pullups.
Kipping (exploiting momentum to get one's body up the bar) pullups have a special place in crossfit hate, for obvious reasons. A kipping pullup might as well be called a "cheating" pullup, because all it does is enable you to do an arbitrarily large number of the exercise with ZERO practicality. YouTube videos of the exercise have incredibly low ratings-- and just look at the comments.
And for good measure, here's another blog post that roasts crossfit.
Devil's advocate
What it will do is get you into shape, and it does tend to make people look good, though it's definitely one of the most painful paths to accomplish this. Sometimes it goes too far with women's bodies, though.
Crossfit can show you your limits, and make them grow. Self-discipline and tenacity carries over to the real world. It teaches you how to overcome mental barriers, and if you're not a self-motivating type, it can show you how easy your "workouts" are in comparison. Good stuff can come out of pushing yourself so hard, as long as it doesn't burn you out (which is ultimately inevitable, anyway). Building character and what doesn't kill you and all that.
