- But in the Times article--headlined "Getting Fit, Even If It Kills You"--Glassman used the kind of tough-guy talk he used to shout at CrossFitters during their WODs. "It can kill you...I've always been completely honest about that," he said. "If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks.
I'm glad I have a professional helping me start with weightlifting. am_Unition, I think you might find this a good read
Thanks for the tag.
Although the business model is questionable, the physical training methods are generally tried and true... when they're being performed safely.
CrossFit is an extreme form of HIIT, something I've been putting myself through lately. Short of 'roids, HIIT is the most effective way to build muscle and/or burn fat, hands down. They're spot on in their incorporation of the "big lifts" - bench, deadlift, squat, and overhead press, but the looseness of their licensing and certification is an issue. No one should EVER be encouraging people to proceed with a lift when their form looks like this.
Back when I was 19, during the coursework for my B.S., I was required to take a kinesiology course. Being a procrastinator, by the time I signed up for classes, only a few kinesiology classes were left to choose from, and I reluctantly picked weight lifting. One lecture a week, and two sessions per week in a gym with weights. I couldn't bench my body weight, I could only manage 5 or 6 pull-ups, my max squat was just about my bodyweight, etc. The coach/professor was generally very competent, and would teach us proper form prior to introducing a new movement, then patrol around during the lifting session and correct anything that was too far from a safe form. I lucked out on stumbling into such a good learning environment for weight training.
So now, just to repeat what you've probably heard several hundred times: TECHNIQUE AND FORM ARE EVERYTHING, especially as you creep up towards amounts of weight that can seriously injure (or even kill you) if you aren't focused and trained properly. So no, you can't just saunter into a CrossFit "box" without prior weight lifting experience and hit a WOD without expecting to pull a muscle or two. Most people realize this. Indeed, CrossFit seems to appeal to those already in decent shape looking to "take it to the next level" and find like-minded friends (read: folks rabidly dwelling on physical fitness) to form support groups.
You don't need to join CrossFit to craft up and execute workouts that are comparable to their WODs. You say you've gotten a professional (personal trainer, I assume) to help you start weightlifting. Excellent choice. Depending on what you're training for, you could ask your trainer to put you through some HIIT-style workouts. Like CrossFit, you will be made to do some high-resistance, low-repetition movements in tandem with low-resistance, high-repetition exercises, often in a circuit. Just be sure, while you have this professional oversight, to learn correct form on the big lifts, with as heavy of a weight as you can manage while maintaining proper form. In addition to the four I listed earlier, I recommend pull-ups, incline bench, standing or seated row, and leg press.
Some people don't get CrossFit, and that's fine. It makes sense to me. I'm just one notch too low on the dedication meter, and quite honestly I don't want to make friends whose lives revolve around fitness.
One aside: Diet is probably 70% of "results". You can train your little heart out, but if you aren't eating right, you won't see the gains or losses you were looking for. The biggest thing to pay attention to is net calories.
Ummmm, also, if you have any questions, let 'em rip... may take me a while to answer though, life's been on warp speed for a few weeks now.
Nice!
We're just about even, I have to switch-grip as well if I'm going for more than one or two reps at that weight.
I have a 250 lb squat (ass to grass), and a 205 lb bench.
Honestly, I'm expecting to really put up bigger numbers on my deadlifts soon. As you can tell, I'm a little behind there from what are considered typical numbers.
- One aside: Diet is probably 70% of "results". You can train your little heart out, but if you aren't eating right, you won't see the gains or losses you were looking for. The biggest thing to pay attention to is net calories.
Where'd you get that number, 70%? I've heard things like that, and can even attest to it personally -- I've been active and exercising my whole life, but never experienced weight loss and a physique like when I fasted intermittently for 40 days. I just wonder what the percentage of "results" comes from diet really is. Is it overwhelmingly more than exercise?
It's mostly about net calories, for managing weight loss or gain. That's what most people are interested in. A forty day fast is gonna deplete fat reserves, simple as that.
When I hop on an exercise bike and burn through a few hundred calories, that's great. Then if I turn around and go eat a 900 calorie (I'll be talking in terms of the SI "kilo-calorie" unit, like on food labels) meal, what good was it, if I could have eaten a 600 calorie meal that was just as filling? I wasted my time doing cardio. OK, not exactly, your cardiovascular system would be the more healthier for it, but your weight wouldn't change much.
To put things into perspective, a pound of fat is around 3500 calories. Burning 10 calories per minute on the exercise bike is a brutal pace, and that's 350 minutes. So you've got six hours or more per week at the gym vs. altering your diet to eat 500 calories below your BMR each day. One seems markedly easier to me than the other. The trick is getting all your micronutrients in on a restricted diet.
To finally answer the question; 70% is a reductionist estimation that merely serves to emphasize how altering your diet will probably be the easiest way to see results. Even in the case of trying to gain muscle (or any mass), I would again try to relate the importance of diet.
Thank you! Could you expound on your point of eating a less caloric meal that's just as filling? I think I know that one's feeling of fullness isn't 100% correlated with caloric density, but what meal is two-thirds the calories but just as filling?
Like veen said, eating at a slower pace can help. Our processed food, fast food being the prime example, is so dense in calories that it's easy to consume more than your body required before the signal of "fullness" arrives to the brain from the stomach. And the signal delay makes sense, evolutionarily. A delayed response will give a person the opportunity to overeat, when the food was plentiful enough, and store the excess within their fat reserves for when times get tough. Unfortunately, it's 2015 AD, not BC.
Try to eat things that occupy large amounts of volume, even though they're not dense in calories. Vegetables are great. You can make a huge salad, with chicken and a tasty vinaigrette, and you'll only tally up a few hundred calories. Personally, I cheat, and drink a fair amount of muscle milk dissolved in regular skim milk, and I'll substitute that for a meal pretty often, at least lately, during my "cutting" phase.
Coincidentally I just watched that bad form video today. Painful to watch, really.
- Although the business model is questionable, the physical training methods are generally tried and true... when they're being performed safely.
But isn't that the problem? The author even managed to get certified. Two days and $1000 and you can open your own 'box'. That doesn't mean all Crossfit is bad, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Crossfit trainers are pretty capable. It does mean that Crossfit itself probably isn't contributing anything good, and that the proper trainers are good trainers despite Crossfit, not because of it.
Saying 'Crossfit can be good, if done safe' isn't a good argument: replace the Crossfit part with anything else that can easily injure you and it sounds ridiculous. Even a newb like me can understand the bad form in this video, and it's from the Crossfit Olympics of all things. By the way, that guy mocking the Games got his entire YouTube channel removed by lawyers from Crossfit because of that very video.
With a proper trainer and good form you can do nearly every weird training programme and survive it, but that doesn't mean those programmes aren't dangerous.
When it comes to my own training, I am being taught the basics by a skilled trainer, but I'm still in th phase. If I have any questions, I'll shoot 'em your way, thanks!
Oh yeah, hahah, I agree with you all the way. I won't sit here and defend Crossfit. Like I said, I'm a notch below those guys (maybe more than one notch) when it comes to the insanity factor. And yep, you have people paying for the pedigree to run a brand-name gym who may or may not have any business managing anything at all. I'm sure release papers are signed upon applying for gym membership, but you have to wonder if there's still room for lawsuits if the fad keeps spreading.
For training, as with anything, you need to know your limits. Trying to hit your max (or higher) after you've been doing other taxing activities? Not really a good situation to put your body through. Especially when it's televised. The chicks lifting 365? Yeah, I've never deadlifted above 275, but I also didn't look anything like that while doing it.
Anyway, I'm on a cut now. Lost about 11 pounds within the last two months. Mostly fat, but also a bit of muscle mass. Still lifting big, but eating at a caloric deficit. Jesus, this is the most bro paragraph ever typed up on Hubski. Maybe even the whole damn post.