We’re not in a cult!!! … are we?
I only have time right now for a quick burst transmission, so stay tuned for some more specific responses to current shit, and some new articles, in the very near future. All I really want to express right now is this; I am glad that people are enjoying a debate over ideas on this site. That is what this place is all about, for better or worse, and in whatever way you choose to express it. Question shit.
Sometimes awakenings are painful, nobody who has commented recently seems afraid of a little pain. Use your real name or a pseudonym, post pure hate or contribute fresh ideas. Take a new look at an old idea or vice versa. Pain is an indicator that you are being challenged, and challenges are an opportunity for you to define your character. The choices you make, how you face a challenge, defines the kind of person you are.
The arguments in the CultFit article resounded with some of you and the points were validated in various ways by the responses of others. Fucking great! Some people have found here articulated the ideas that they held for a long time, others became more entrenched in their original mode of thinking (or un-thinking). I know that the crossfit.com message board is highly regulated, I know that posts and users and people and ideas and questions are being deleted from there regularly – excommunicated as it were.
As expressed in the article, “there is an ominous totalitarian element in the information control that is exercised by CultFit online.” I am glad that people have a place to engage in discourse without judgement or consequence (aside from me flaming you when you sound like a retard – despite my best efforts I can not de-stupid anybody).
The comments section for the CultFit article is already nearly three times longer than the article itself (which was not short) and that alone can be seen to some degree as a measure of the pertinence of the ideas therein. For those of you who enjoyed the humor in it, learned from it, were enlightened by it, were inspired by it (positively or negatively), or even were completely disgusted by it – rock on.
I do not require defending, feel free to burn me at the stake if it gets you off. Just think about this for one second before reacting. A good test to see if you are brainwashed is when somebody criticizes something, if you get pissed off, then you’re probably brainwashed.
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I posted the following on thursday 091029, #144, but it too was deleted:
I didn’t want to break my silence, but there was one particular comment that was so well reasoned and intelligent that I felt it warranted a response. I forget who it was, but the person mentioned that he or she worked in lab and that to take the data of one particular individual and come to a conclusion for an entire population is not scientific. I too have worked in a lab and I’d like to retort with the following:
1. Human beings are not lab rats
2. Any data becomes more precise as you collect more and more of it, I absolutely agree. But here is the critical point: The individuals who CF for a few years count far less in terms of data than Greg Glassman. I get your point about needing more than one individual to come to any conclusion, but you could say that each year he CF’d counts as 1 individual year, so that his data is still far more precise than the hoardes of premature “data” now flowing in. Yes, the total number of years he has CF’d is less, by now, then the total number of years the entire population has CF’d, but that ignores the critical aspect of body degradation, which is what my main problem with CF is all about. It degrades the body, and severely hampers your ability to practices “fitness” long term. And again, I point to Greg Glassman as the ultimate example of that.
Still waiting on that response, Greg Glassman.
That does not violate any of the terms of the comments section, but was deleted. It is clearly censorship of critical thought. Since I cannot post on Crossfit.com anymore, I will post here. I dare anyone to respond with intelligent thought and come to a different conclusion. If necessary, I will give anyone the posts that I made to show that I was very polite, articulate, a fair. Furthermore, I tried to create a new thread on the Message Board, but it never showed up. Also, I asked for someone to provide a link to an old thread that discussed my points, but not one single person, from all the hundreds of people who posted, could do that. The message board also requires an account, so I feel that self-censorship due to cultish tendencies is strong. Therefore anonymous posts in the “Comments” section is by far the most appropriate. I will summon the spirit of Publius, author(s) of the Federalist Papers (the smartest bunch of the Founding Fathers), and defend anonymous speech.
Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. it thus exemplifies the purpose behind the bill of rights, and of the first amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation– and their ideas from suppression– at the hand of an intolerant society.
“…the right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. but political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.”
- mcintyre v. ohio elections commission 514 u.s. 334 (1995) justice stevens writing for the majority
That “v.” between mcintyre and ohio means it was a Supreme Court case, btw
though often maligned (typically by those frustrated by an inability to engage in ad hominem attacks) anonymous speech has a long and storied history in the united states. used by the likes of mark twain (aka samuel langhorne clemens) to criticize common ignorance, and perhaps most famously by alexander hamilton, james madison and john jay (aka publius) to write the federalist papers, i think i’m in good company in using one or another nom de plume. particularly in light of an emerging trend against vocalizing dissent, i believe in the critical importance of anonymity and its role in dissident speech. i also believe that keeping authorship anonymous moves the focus of discussion to the content of speech and away from the speaker- as it should be. i believe not only that you should be comfortable with anonymous speech in such an environment, but that you should be suspicious of any speech that isn’t.
CrossFitters are a patriotic bunch! You all should appreciate something from the Founding Fathers, right?
Parker,
I recall your posts on the board and I don’t think that anyone will argue that you were polite – except perhaps that politeness goes out the window with persistent insistence. However, you would be foolish to deny that the comments section of the WOD was a poor place to discuss the matter. The purpose of that section of the site is to archive results of a WOD so that it can be referenced at a later time. If you are being censored, its because of your misuse.
Longevity in fitness is really quite an elusive thing. If you run marathons, you will have bad knees when you get older. You don’t see people that coach boxing in a boxing match, frequently because they were injured at some point in their career – or because the goals that they were setting out to meet in their training faded away with time.
You keep on pointing to Glassman as the poster child for doing CrossFit long term and using this one statistical outlier as the basis of your entire argument. I disagree with your rationale. Glassman is what – 53 years old? You can’t exactly expect him to be the worlds pinnacle of fitness – despite the success of his program.
The big problem with your rationale is that it takes almost no factors into consideration except that Glassman has been practicing CrossFit principles for longer than anyone else.
Let’s take a track athlete for instance. Most people who compete in the same event on a high school track team are going to participate in roughly the same training regimen. However, you are going to have some athletes that are more successful than others. Your success in fitness is not 100% determined by the training regimen you follow. There are other considerations to factor in:
1) Genetics
2) How frequently does the athlete follow the program?
3) To what intensity does the athlete train?
In the Army, we use the FITT approach to fitness: Frequency, Intensity, Type, Time. Each of these 4 factors are components of the end result. It’s not as simple as “Who has been in the Army the longest?” to determine the most fit person in the room – as you will likely find that the two questions produce very different answers.
And also, to what standard do you judge fitness? Are you calling Glassman unfit based on comparison to other (younger) CrossFit athletes? Are you comparing him to olympians? Average people? Average people his age? You have not quantified what you consider to be fit and neither have you quantified his level of fitness. You have simply made claims that he is unfit.
Beyond that, I have been to a CrossFit gym twice – once to check it out and again to actually work out. While speaking with the owner of the gym, we talked about how he is drastically fallen out of shape since starting the gym – because it is much harder to stay on a strict regimen when you are running a business. I think this pertains to Glassman on much larger scale. So back to my factors of fitness –
I think we can agree that his age plays a factor into the role his genetics play. Sure, he may have been a great athlete at one point in time – but people deteriorate as they age – so his fitness is going to deteriorate with age.
I think we can also agree that being a trainer does not necessarily mean you are fit. In fact, I think it should be easy for a trainer to make their students more fit than they themselves are. Half of the reason for this is competition. Glassman no longer competes. Competition is one of the elements of any elite athlete – it makes you better.
This leads me into my next factor – intensity, which has undoubtedly decreased for Glassman as he is no longer competing which is where the most intense physical activity occurs.
Now, personally I am not an avid CrossFitter. I do follow the WOD from time to time and I do recommend elements of the fitness technique to anyone who is trying to improve their fitness – it is built on sound principles, combining the the best principles of every successful training regimen. I myself like to think of CrossFit.com as kind of a Fight Club organization. It’s interesting that so many people will simply “do as told” on such a large scale. Kind of interesting to see the discipline in my opinon – and really not scary like some other cults such as the Church (the world’s religious organizations are the largest of the slave nations) as the goal is basically of self improvement.
Anyway, I’m wandering now – I guess I would like to see you clean up your argument before continuing:
To what degree is Glassman “unfit”?
How exactly is his state of unfit relevant.
Rather than posting a largely irrelevant post, please organize your argument in such a manner that someone can intelligently respond – I’d be happy to do so as a more or less neutral party.
Hey Nathan
Thanks for commenting. This is really what I am looking for; a civil discussion on health, fitness, and longevity without any of the emotion surrounding CrossFit. I don’t know where else to go: I tried to post a comment on the message board, twice, but it never showed up. I asked everyone for a link, no one did. But a huge problem with the message board is that you need an account, so not everyone can chime in. That is why I chose the comments section-there are reasons, but in the end it was the only place to pose the questions. I will not deny, now, that it is a terrible place to ask a legit question and expect an intelligent response. Not to mention, I wanted someone representing CF to answer, I didn’t really care to hear xyz’s input. And it would have been great because it would be there for everyone to see, and comment. I was told it was an open forum.
The “greg is a statistical outlier” position is a little much, in my opinion. Greg is the only full bit of “data” to come back on CrossFit’s long-term potential. Its simply the logical conclusion you come to when CF is presented as scientific. He is the only bit of data, so he can’t be an outlier. He is it. The term outlier implies that there are massive amounts of other “data” taken–and there are not. There are alot of people who have CF’d for a few years, sure, but that is not 20+ years. If he is an outlier and I am wrong to base my conclusions based on one person, then CF can’t say that their program is healthy, long term.
You’re exactly right about marathons killing your body. Long distance running is hard on your body, and of course the original marathoner died after completing it, as many others do each year. That is an acute, versus chronic, injury, i suppose. but marathons, as you point out, pose a chronic injury threat to your knees.
Greg being too busy and thus out of shape is a massive problem, as it flies in the face of the CF doctrine of scalability. No, most certainly, he does not have to be “elite.” But his schedule should not inhibit his fitness as CF is “infinitely scalable.” He should simply scale it to meet his needs. Do you see what I mean? Jack LaLanne travels way more than GG, i assume, and is killin it in his 90′s. Also, what good is a fitness program that isn’t practical for successful people?
As far as to what degree is Greg Glassman unfit, that is a great question. I can only go off of what my eyes, from viewing the CF journal, can tell me. CF claims empiricism etc., the whole “super-wellness” idea from the “what is fitness” article, but does not provide any of those empirical markers. So I don’t know to what degree Greg glassman is unfit because he won’t publish his blood panel (cholesterol, tryg., insulin sensitivity, etc.) My eyes don’t deceive me, however, and I can tell you that he is not fit.
It does matter that he is not fit, and it does matter that a trainer be fit. First, it’s hypocritical to preach elite fitness and be out of shape. A child would recognize that. His lack of fitness is a serious problem. It makes me question the durability of CF. I have actually written at great length on this subject on the comments at cf and here, I’ll dig around to find it. But look at Jack Lalanne-he followed his program and is still working out at 94 or thereabouts. The fact that Greg is injured doesn’t disqualify him from the data, he is the data. That, in my opinion, is where CF leads – incapacitation. And that is based on the only relevant data. Who can deny that?
I’m disappointed Nathan didn’t respond to my post. Although, I will point out that Nathan seems to be more familiar and involved with CF than he lets on. For example, he said that the WOD comments section was for stating times only. That may be true to an extent, but plenty of posts aren’t related to the WOD, and besides my post was made on a rest day, so there goes that argument. I wasn’t misusing anything.
Longevity isn’t elusive, actually. Although it is in high injury activities like boxing. Longevity is elusive in CF, sure. But if one trains intelligently, you can get all of the health benefits of sports training without any problems (like, say, getting your head bashed in by another human). I again point to Jack LaLanne, Art DeVany.
Again, I do not agree that it is ok for a trainer to be out of shape. A coach, sure, but not a trainer whose purpose in life is to make people healthier. As opposed to a coach, whose purpose in life is to make people win a particular competition-and doesnt give a damn about longevity and health. Boxing is a good example.
I believe fitness deteriorates with age, but the rate and speed of that deterioration can be drastically different. I think CF, because it can be so injurious, speeds up fitness deterioration via incapacitation. There are superior programs out there, again, Art Devany, Jack LaLanne, etc.
As far as Glassman not competing, his own words contradict that. he said in his flaming of Josh Hillis that he was the original crossfitter, and at 49 he could still beat the majority of CF’ers. Sounds like fightin words to me.
When all is said and done, I can’t convince anyone of anything, but I can attempt to show the inner contradictions of CF logic. When you add up the outrageous price of CF, the high injury rate, the silly cult mindset, the slowing and weakening of the body as I experienced it, and Greg Glassman’s awful personality and treatment of his own clients, I’d recommend that people just do sprints on their own, learn the olympic lifts somewhere much cheaper, and stick with what really works long term.
Also, meatgrinder, you said you were gonna post the emails CF’ers sent you. Post them!
Parker,
Nice! First of all, thanks for posting your thoughts. I went to crossfit.com and saw everything you described in your previous comment. They were completely shutting you out. I don’t know how into @fit you are but I know that must suck. There were no open topics to debate there, no serious responses… but I’m not surprised. CultFit is not the first organization to preach one thing and practice another. A large part of why I posted this article is to respond to what was happening with you as well as other commenters. It was not my original intent for this website to be the only free speech zone for crossfitters, I simply wanted to open peoples’ eyes, but if crossfit.com is not open to dialogue then I welcome it here wholeheartedly. Thanks for your input, and let us know where the rabbit hole leads you. Keep rockin’!
-M
I’m just angry with myself for getting hoodwinked. I thought I was smarter than that! Oh well 1,000 is a lot of cash, yeah I wasted it, but lesson learned. I actually thought that if I posted something like your article, it would get a good laugh out of people. I didn’t think it would snowball like it has though. I truly hope Greg Glassman has the guts to respond to my questions, which I understand are very embarrassing for him. But I feel entitled to having my questions answered, because I paid him 1,000 damn dollars! And that is embarrassing for me to admit.
Parker… you weren’t hoodwinked… you just missed the point.
You’re 1000 dollars is not wasted!!! Not by any means… In fact your 1000$ was an important investment into the first rung of a
pyramid schemelucrative business opportunity… With you’re investment you are now entitled1. to go out to the country
2. Find an old barn
3. Spraypaint “gym” over the barn-door
4. bring in some old tractor tires and some kettle bells cast out of concrete (cheaper then buying kettle bells and more appealing to bad ass crossfitter/ninja mercenary types)
5. Enlist some
minionsclients6. Charge them 150 dollars a month to work out with you in a group setting for about 5 times a week (should cost you about 20 hours of time a month so if you can get 10 clients we’re looking at about $75 an hour)
7. Count your money!!!
Here were my main questions. I challenge anyone to rationally approach them and come to a different conclusion. (hint- you cant):
1. Why my post was deleted (a link to the cultfit article)
2. Why Greg Glassman is unfit (IT MATTERS)
3. The Multi-Level Marketing nature of CrossFit
4. The lack of “super-wellness” aka fitness hard data (i.e. biological markers-cholesterol, etc.) to support Greg’s claims, despite constantly harping on empiricism.
And here is a longer version of those questions:
As far as Glassman figuring out how to measure fitness from a scientific perspective, I take issue with a number of things. People were quantifying speed, power, etc. long before CF came along, and will continue long after. Second, CF defines fitness as super-wellness, so again he didnt come up with the various metrics to measure fitness by (hdl, ldl, every biological marker etc.) and honestly I have never seen anyone give any numbers regarding those markers, even though it is touted that CF will give you amazing results on your blood panel. I got mine done and my doctor was not particularly impressed, in fact my LDL levels were a bit high (and I was mainsite/strict zone, honestly). Anyone who goes from nothing to any form of exercise will see improved markers, that doesnt mean much though.
2. Greg Glassman being out of shape. Its a problem. He is a fitness professional. He should be fit. A few reasons. First, its obviously hypocritical to promote health and be unhealthy. Second, it makes me wonder about the durability, longevity, and efficacy of the program if the founder (who has said he was the original crossfitter, if not in those words then in that spirit) himself cannot sustain it. My point is that Glassman’s injury is part of the CF data and program. That is what people who CF can expect, given that Glassman CrossFitted the longest. The fact that he does not exercise now demonstrates the severity of his injury. This means that CF’ers can expect to be injured so severely that they will not able to maintain fitness. His days of not exercising and lack of fitness after an injury are not exempt from the so called empirical data. In fact, his elder years are more important than his pre-injury ones, because the time scale is longer, thus more data. It gives insight into the logevity of CrossFit, which given Glassman’s example, is nil. I present these conclusions in “scientific” (data, etc) parlance because that is how CF is pitched by Glassman. But it strikes me as post-modernism, the abuse of scientific lingo by charltans. Like Popper said, anything that can be tested, should be tested. I tested it, it came out poor. Greg tested it, the ultimate CF statistic, and again, no good. Besides, real science begins with a question. The closest I have seen is the CF Journal article “What is Fitness?” where they define fitness as super wellness. So thats another strike for CF. Also, Greg is a fitness professional, not a sports coach. So the sports coach comparison is nonsense.
3. The cultishness of crossfit was spot on. Especially since my post was deleted.
4. The Multi-Level Marketing comparison was enlightening, and upsetting. Do some research on MLM’s, compare it to CrossFit, think about it for a few days, and get back to me. If the parallels are not disturbing enough to warrant further investigation, then fair enough. But in my mind, they are there. And this is coming from someone who has spent a ton of money and time with CrossFit.
I am starting to question the safety of crossfit, long term. Especially in light of “Coach” Glassman’s personal level of fitness. Unfortunately, there’s no way to find out about the long term effects.
I can do lots of GH situps. Am I one day going to pop a disk? Is the stress on the spine cumulative?
If you question the safety of deep squats (as happened on the forum only a few days ago) you are shouted down–if you can’t prove it’s unsafe, then you are not entitled to even question its safety.
So where do you go for information?
buck,
I have some information directly related to your questions that is very telling regarding injury statistics and CrossFit. Here is what I’ve got:
Several days ago I received an email from a concerned CrossFit gym owner who had read the CultFit article and it resonated with him. This person requested to remain anonymous if I ever used this information publicly and I will respect that request.
This CrossFit gym owner explained that CrossFit is relatively new to the fitness world and that many other kinds of gyms have been opened up for a long time. This in itself is no great revelation, but along with gyms has existed the secondary and tertiary industries of equipment, financing, insurance, etc..
Well according to this CrossFit gym owner the insurance business has soured to supporting CrossFit gyms. In fact he was having a very difficult time insuring his business because of the very high injury rate of CrossFit gyms across the country.
Now this is not concrete. There are no numbers or figures or percentages to compare or debate. But in relation to every other type of gym, to include boxing and martial arts gyms, CrossFit rated the highest in regards to injuries. This was to such and extent that a large and growing number of insurance companies are no longer supporting CrossFit.
For this reason the CrossFit Risk Retention Group was formed to provide insurance for the CrossFit community. Essentially this means that CrossFit corporate formed its own company that its affiliates must pay to maintain the insurance required to operate. This is also, to a measurable degree, monopolistic over the pyramid money scheme that CrossFit corporate controls. “You want to open a CultFit gym? Well, aside from your CultFit affiliate fees and CultFit journal fees you gotta get our CultFit insurance as well.”
Not only is it financially a little scary, but evidential of extremely high injury rates inherent with this specific mode of exercise.
“A Risk Retention Group (RRG) is a form of self-insurance. An RRG is formed and owned by its policyholders, and covers specific liabilities and actions, which traditional insurance companies just don’t have the stomach for.
RRGs are common practice for law enforcement officers, doctors practicing emergency medicine, contractors, medical product manufacturers, and a variety of other professionals in high-risk industries.” – crossfit rrg website
Insurance companies don’t have the stomach for!? Police officers, doctors practicing emergency medicine, and other high risk industries!? CrossFit affiliates are glorified garage gyms at best! This stuff is just to get people in better shape, not land on Omaha Beach for christ’s sake!?! Seriously, wtf?
So, obviously this is not a completely reliable source of information, but after a little digging I corroborated many of the claims made by this owner. While I do not have any numbers to support these claims, the trend and its reasons directly points to the rate of injury in CrossFit. So take it for what it’s worth.
-M
Thank you.
I think a person has to balance his goals with his realities. For a soldier/firefighter/LEO, an intense exercise regimen might be necessary. It might be worth pushing the limits and risking injury to be in a position of fitness that might save his or someone else’s life.
For the rest of us, there has to be a boundary as to how far we should go. Crossfit, despite its claims, is all about punishing one’s body to attain what are essentially trivial, ill-defined fitness goals.
At some level, I can admire people who participate in the Crossfit Games. At another level, I watch the videos and think, ‘what’s the point?’
The amount of ‘work’ you can do at age 30 won’t amount to a hill of beans if you can’t get out of bed at age 70.
Good job. Keep it coming!
I have only been diligently partaking in CF for about nine months, but I am in the best shape of my life (I am a 47 yr old attorney, but have previously been police/SWAT and athletics). From my experience, the injury critique relative to insurance is valid, but only when you compare CF exercises and equipment to what you find in the average gym. Most gyms don’t include climbing ropes, rings or bumper plates because they entail more risk and higher premiums. And power lifts definitely require proper training and technique. CF is not for everyone. I would go so far as to argue it is not even for the general public. But for dedicated athletes, military, civilian first responders, and those competent individuals who crave the fitness and satisfaction one derives from physical challenges and intense training, CF is the only way to go. The neuro-endocrine response alone is worth the effort.
Greg glassman has gone on video recently on the CF Journal and said the idea is to be functionally fit until you die, and your death should be a rapid demise rather than long and drawn out. Basically be fully healthy and functioning until you are 100 and then keel over one day. That position, BTW, was stolen from Arthur DeVany. Go watch his DVD’s. Greg Glassman is not fit, so he violates his own principles. Not only that, he embodies the crossfit end result (injury and incapacitation).
As far as who really needs crossfit, i wonder that too. Take MMA fighters for example. Anyone who sees a real fight, in a real life situation, sees something that ends very quickly, as in seconds. Street fights require explosive, violent force, not increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains (which, upon close examination, means precisely nothing and anything simultaneously). If you are fighting 3 rounds of 5 minutes with 1 minute rest in between, then sure maybe you need that type of conditioning, but its not really functional, in my opinion. Didn BJ Penn, the supposed CF’er, quit using CF and became in better shape, or is that just CF haters bashing it? I’d love to hear other thoughts, because this idea is still just being formed in my head.
Another thing, crossfit claims empiricism, right? They say CF exists to increase work capacity in the newtonian sense, as in classical mechanical physics, as in Work = Force times Distance. You can measure distance, sure. But Force = Mass times Acceleration. Acceleration is a change in velocity over time. There is no way anyone, EVER, has actually measured the real scientific work output of any crossfitter. They said at my Level 1 that doing 25 squats in 20 seconds produces 1/3 a horsepower, and wow did I feel powerful, but they never explained exactly how they arrived at those numbers. Mass times Distance over Time is not Power. Mass times Distance is not Work. Mass times Acceleration times Distance is Work. VERY DIFFERENT. Its a farce. Its fake. Therefore, its not empirical, and it is Not scientific.
I think we should start a list of words CrossFitters like to use (without fully understanding their meaning) to bully others and attempt to belittle them. Here are my suggestions:
conjecture, diatribe, data, narrative, work output, emperical
And I’d like to suggest a word for crossfitters to look up:
obstinate
I know this CrossFit theme and my posts have temporarily hijacked this blog, but I really don’t know anywhere else where criticism is allowed. So apologies to MeatGrinder
Just to add to your explanation of work:
The acceleration is due to gravity. A mass is moved a distance against gravitational acceleration is a valid definition of work.
For example: if you lift 10kg, 1m, opposite the direction of gravity (9.8 m/s^2) you have done 98 Joules of work (mass * acceleration * distance), if you lift this load in one second you have created 98 Watts of power. One horsepower is about 746 Watts.
I think @fit’s definition of work is valid, I have not checked the numbers but it seems plausible.
I checked it out with a mechanical engineer. He said:
“. . . .force also is: Fg = Gm1m2/r^2
G is universal gravitational constant: 6.67 x 10^-11
m1, m2 are the two masses that attract each other
Fg is the attractive force between the two masses
r is the distance between the two masses
i.e., Force is not just mass times acceleration, it’s also the force of weight. So, Work = Force times Distance still holds.”
I don’t understand it, either.
This string comments has gone off the deep end but:
In the case you just stated, Fg = Gm1m2/r^2, one of the masses is the mass of the earth, the other is the mass of another object. In this case the distance between the objects, r, would be the radius of the earth (this is the distance from earth’s center of mass that a person of object on the planet’s surface would be)
So if you multiply this out with the universal constant, using the mass of the earth and its radius (6371000 m and 5.9736 *10^24 kg) you come up with:
F = 9.8 m/s^2 * m2 which is mass * gravitational acceleration
The units of G: [m^3/(kg * s^2)]
Don’t apologize to me for a damn thing. I put these articles up here to inspire discourse not minimize it. If I wanted a mindlessly controlled and marginalized point of view I’d just lurk on the crossfit boards all day or talk to a fucking parrot. Talk about this stuff, speak your mind, write about whatever the fuck else comes into your head. I just read some comments here where people are arguing physics for christ’s sake!? Bottom line, every blank comment field possesses unlimited potential for expression. Use it.
-M
You know exercise programs ‘jump the shark’ when they start talking about diet, their program being a ‘way of life’, compare themselves to successful things like the Olympics, focus on their fitness “celebrities”, etc. That is, doing much more than just talking about exercise.
The only workout Glassman does is rake in cash.
The @Fit “journal” is one big non-scientific media driven circle jerk. They’ll get ~100+ “articles” just based on footage from the @Fit Gaymes alone, then another 100 based on “athletes” observations on the Gaymes. The Gaymes are a fitness Woodstock, that is meaningful to them, but meaningless and forgotten by mainstream.
Ouch! Sharp points… wish I had made them.
-M
That I benefited from @fit is undeniable. Two weeks into the program, my wife encouraged me to keep with it. Two years later I still do it on most days.
What I can’t tolerate is the CULTure. They continue to sell, sell, SELL the program based on empirical, measurable outcomes, but have a zero tolerance policy (both from the HQ and from the mainsite forum members) for anyone who questions it. The founder is a huckster.
Also telling is how many knowledgeable, experienced, experts have defected.
And the narcissism is amazing. Bodybuilders are targets for ridicule for the way they perform, but see how many @fit men are shaving their body hair and working out shirtless.
I concur here. I use to do the curls for girls before I started crossfit and freakin loved it. I also trained/helped some of my fellow soldiers at that time to. I run an affiliate out of my garage on the side as I go to college because I enjoy fitness and love to share MY knowledge. I tell people all the time, “this is what I do, this is how I stay in shape and train to do what I like/want to accomplish in life.” I know full well that I know how much I know and do not know about all things fitness, and let my clients know, hey this is what I know, you find something better, tell me and we’ll look at it. If its freakin awesome well god damnit id include it or change my view. Its sad that the majority of these people in crossfit are zealots or just doing it to make money.
1. I buy crossfit journal.
2. I do it for the little bit of coaching in it and for the chance to see an ultra fit girl in tight shorts doing something that I could imagine myself under.
3. I like the exercises, the routine and the free info on the site.
4. I’ve felt this gnawing at me about crossfit since I first saw it in 2004. I never really could put my finger on it but I knew something was behind the big screen. If you subscribe to the journal, you’ve probably seen it, maybe missed it.
I highly suggest watching “The Birth of CrossFit Kids” from November 03, 2009. In it Mikki Lee Martin (one of the “founders” of crossfit kids apparently) says she was at breakfast with her husband (apparently) and the Glassmans. Greg said they should start crossfit kids. Watch closely at 2:00 into the film, watch her body language, tone of voice, eyes, watch everything when she says “When Greg says do something yo-you do it”. She actually stutters during it. How this made it past the anti-information people i’ll never know (subliminal messages maybe). But since I’m bringing it up here it will probably be removed. I do have a knack for reading people, throughout the entire video this woman is uncomfortable, maybe from the camera.
5. Of all the jokes on crossfit the one I find most disturbing is when Greg will say something to the sort of we do this because we love it, we’d do it for free. It just makes me want to run out and join the club-t. I’d like to know how many people “subscribe” to the journal at 25$ a year, probably at least 10,000 (figuring about 2k affiliates, the staff and maybe a couple customers, people like me who don’t go to a gym but use the site) I won’t even count the “cert” classes which even in one of the journals said they net over 5 million a year just in those. So much for the “love”….
6. “HIT” high intensity training, is not new. Quit trying to take credit for it. All you did was program some workouts.
I’m off now but I really appreciate the site Meatgrinder.
What do you guys that are willing to question Glassman think about the Zone. I keep trying to get on it but fall off the wagon before the horse is hitched up. I’d like some real thinkers and users of the Zone to impart some wisdom.
I’m a little scared Dr. Sears might just be one of the steps in the scheme to buy fish oil and the books.
I’m 190# of lean mass. I deadlift 420, run a sub-20 5k, and can do 18 strict pullups. I’m 42. I have asthma and hypertension. Why am I saying this? I don’t follow any particular diet, never have. I don’t Zone, I don’t eat Paleo. I eat what I’m in the mood for. Big Macs, potato chips, and (yikes!) birthday cake. In other words…does Paleo/Zone really matter? If you’re celiac, or have medical conditions, do what you need to. But otherwise, is it worth hammering yourself into a mold you might not fit into?
I asked my doctor about fish oil, and he said yes. I asked if I would feel any different, and he said no. My doc is a sensible guy. I trust him on fish oil. I don’t mega dose. I take 720mg/day, if I remember to do it.
I do Paleo Ish diet, im also young as hell @ 23 and happy with where I am physically, When I was on the zone I was 205 and pretty strong, but it took over my day. I was constantly worried about food. Now I eat 2 or 3 meals a day and relax on eating whatever I feel like. If I dont feel like cooking and want McDonalds ill fuckin eat it. Im not a professional athlete, once someone is willing to pay me to lift or whatever then I will eat like one.
Also im now living in the country and have fresh eggs from free range chickens and eat fresh stuff from my garden and whatnot. Im 180#s and feel faster.
Wow, this is interesting stuff!
First off, I am a Crossfitter. I found the program over a year and a half ago while researching how to better train for my annual hike up Half Dome. I am involved in the “community” through email, message boards and I even volunteer at Certifications and events like the Crossfit Games. I must admit that there are many people who do Crossfit that are extremely over zealous when it comes to living the lifestyle and preaching the gospel of the program to others. I think though, that this is fairly natural for most people when they find something that they love and is positively affecting their lives. That being said, it is just a strength and conditioning program, it isn’t a religion.
I love the fact that I have been able to reach the best fitness level of my life at age 38 thanks to Crossfit and I will continue doing a hybrid of mainsite workouts and my own programming. I don’t think too much about the money or the politics of it all though, I just want to get fit.
Take care guys and I like the open forum.
Someone should start a forum for the @fit rebellion. However, eventually Coach would send in his legal team and have it shut down, or use his Google fu to destroy it.
I agree with the cult label. But, that aspect aside, there is value in what they do. Many people will probably benefit from this approach to fitness, which, while not new, is certainly being drowned out by the bodybuilding approach most mainstream gyms promote. But you have to be smart about it, be able to judge yourself objectively, and asses the risks on your own.
Every movement, every organization will have positives and negatives. Some of their hardcore followers, judging from the comments on the main site are pretty pathetic. I remember one guy saying that he will do Murph while his newborn son was about to go into open heart surgery, in order to feel what his son would go through. That’s just mind boggling. But followers are pathetic no matter what they follow.
Once it goes off the rails, the wisest approach, I think, is to take the positives, ignore the negatives, and try to learn from it. With that in mind, since I do Crossfit type workouts regularly, I would like to learn more about the potential for injury, and long term sustainability. Can anyone post any links, or share information on that?
Thanks.
Will someone please explain what @fit means? I’ve never seen that. Also, regarding the physics, my point was that CF (or apparently @fit) claims empericism but does not publish numbers. If you are increasing work capacity through your workouts, then publish that work capacity increase. Also, I would like to point out that my original 4 questions have yet to be responded to intelligently. Those are:
1. Why my post was deleted (a link to the cultfit article)
2. Why Greg Glassman is unfit (IT MATTERS)
3. The Multi-Level Marketing nature of CrossFit
4. The lack of “super-wellness” aka fitness hard data (i.e. biological markers-cholesterol, etc.) to support Greg’s claims, despite constantly harping on empiricism.
With regard to #2, a long time ago on the @fit forum, someone asked about Coach’s injury, (knee?), and that person was shouted down for trying to cause trouble. IIRC, that person was subsequently banned for violating various and sundry rules.
I think the @fit founder had a background in gymnastics, and the injury might have happened from that.
He apparently was a gymnast before precise sports record keeping was invented, because there is apparently no record of his awesome accomplishments anywhere.
Wow, This Mr Glassman certainly gets people hot and angry…
As a Personal Trainer of 15 years who’s looked into and tried many methods and paths… I feel a little sympathy for Glassman as he could be injured + demotivated or just has an eating and drink problem for all we know… we all have our own demons don’t we?
As to the $1000 which seems to piss you guys off, well that’s about £650 in my money and for that you would only get about fifteen 45 minute sessions with me
However, I do admit to being more than a little sad to find footage of a non adonis like Glassman, when researching Cross fit ( Because someone has challenged me to their How Fit Are You test in June)
Think I will go and start a cult of my own now… at least when people find my footage my belly ain’t hanging over my belt (YET
It isn’t Greg Glassman himself that gets people bothered, it is his bullshit claims that he makes, often.
For example, he talks about infinite scalability, we see Kyle Maynard working out, No Excuses CrossFit, etc., yet Glassman apparently does not work out. A little contradictory.
Oh, Greg Glassman also said Dan John has no squat. This is Dan John we’re talking about. Does Greg Glassman have ANY squat?
Parker,
I recall your posts on the board and I don’t think that anyone will argue that you were polite – except perhaps that politeness goes out the window with persistent insistence. However, you would be foolish to deny that the comments section of the WOD was a poor place to discuss the matter. The purpose of that section of the site is to archive results of a WOD so that it can be referenced at a later time. If you are being censored, its because of your misuse.
Longevity in fitness is really quite an elusive thing. If you run marathons, you will have bad knees when you get older. You don’t see people that coach boxing in a boxing match, frequently because they were injured at some point in their career – or because the goals that they were setting out to meet in their training faded away with time.
You keep on pointing to Glassman as the poster child for doing CrossFit long term and using this one statistical outlier as the basis of your entire argument. I disagree with your rationale. Glassman is what – 53 years old? You can’t exactly expect him to be the worlds pinnacle of fitness – despite the success of his program.
The big problem with your rationale is that it takes almost no factors into consideration except that Glassman has been practicing CrossFit principles for longer than anyone else.
Let’s take a track athlete for instance. Most people who compete in the same event on a high school track team are going to participate in roughly the same training regimen. However, you are going to have some athletes that are more successful than others. Your success in fitness is not 100% determined by the training regimen you follow. There are other considerations to factor in:
1) Genetics
2) How frequently does the athlete follow the program?
3) To what intensity does the athlete train?
In the Army, we use the FITT approach to fitness: Frequency, Intensity, Type, Time. Each of these 4 factors are components of the end result. It’s not as simple as “Who has been in the Army the longest?” to determine the most fit person in the room – as you will likely find that the two questions produce very different answers.
And also, to what standard do you judge fitness? Are you calling Glassman unfit based on comparison to other (younger) CrossFit athletes? Are you comparing him to olympians? Average people? Average people his age? You have not quantified what you consider to be fit and neither have you quantified his level of fitness. You have simply made claims that he is unfit.
Beyond that, I have been to a CrossFit gym twice – once to check it out and again to actually work out. While speaking with the owner of the gym, we talked about how he is drastically fallen out of shape since starting the gym – because it is much harder to stay on a strict regimen when you are running a business. I think this pertains to Glassman on much larger scale. So back to my factors of fitness –
I think we can agree that his age plays a factor into the role his genetics play. Sure, he may have been a great athlete at one point in time – but people deteriorate as they age – so his fitness is going to deteriorate with age.
I think we can also agree that being a trainer does not necessarily mean you are fit. In fact, I think it should be easy for a trainer to make their students more fit than they themselves are. Half of the reason for this is competition. Glassman no longer competes. Competition is one of the elements of any elite athlete – it makes you better.
This leads me into my next factor – intensity, which has undoubtedly decreased for Glassman as he is no longer competing which is where the most intense physical activity occurs.
Now, personally I am not an avid CrossFitter. I do follow the WOD from time to time and I do recommend elements of the fitness technique to anyone who is trying to improve their fitness – it is built on sound principles, combining the the best principles of every successful training regimen. I myself like to think of CrossFit.com as kind of a Fight Club organization. It’s interesting that so many people will simply “do as told” on such a large scale. Kind of interesting to see the discipline in my opinon – and really not scary like some other cults such as the Church (the world’s religious organizations are the largest of the slave nations) as the goal is basically of self improvement.
Anyway, I’m wandering now – I guess I would like to see you clean up your argument before continuing:
To what degree is Glassman “unfit”?
How exactly is his state of unfit relevant.
Rather than posting a largely irrelevant post, please organize your argument in such a manner that someone can intelligently respond – I’d be happy to do so as a more or less neutral party.
It seems to me that many are willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. By which I mean: There are several ways to look at the “CrossFit phenomenon”, and not all of them need produce frothing invective. Sure, if one chooses to focus on the unimpressive physique of its founder, the cultish behavior of its more rabid adherents, and the know-it-all pronouncements of its “experts”, then indignation and even rage are understandable attitudes.
But what if we take a more chilled, eclectic approach – what’s wrong with developing workouts based on a strength & conditioning template that uses functional movements (you know, push / pull / squat / hinge / loaded carry), employing exercises from Olympic Weightlifting, Powerlifting, and Gymnastics ?
Is it too much to ask to ignore the hype, ignore the fatso coach, ignore the militant cultists, but take whatever makes sense and adapt / adopt ?
For the record – I am 45 year-old amateur athlete, and I find CrossFit to be a refreshing return to forgotten fitness methods. And I emphasize “forgotten” – there is nothing new here. I see the cultish elements, I see the shortcomings of certain individuals, but as an independent individual able to think critically, I am able to extract from CrossFit that which makes sense.