CrossFit Shadows

And this is exactly what CrossFit is about. CrossFit itself is a religion, and even more than that. The CrossFit community, like a devout sect, refuses to acknowledge the negatives, believes fanatically in its own truth, condemns all other forms of movement, and loudly proclaims that CrossFit is God, there is nothing better, and everything else is just fooling around at a baby shower.

Despite this, I would still like to highlight these shortcomings, because the rise of CrossFit has accelerated, and this form of exercise will soon reach the wider masses, and the day is not far when everyone will know what functional training truly means.

At this point, however, we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to inform that CrossFit, no matter how effective and alternative a form of training it may seem, certainly has its downsides, dangers, and negative effects on the body due to extreme stress.

Like every community, CrossFit also has its shortcomings, which everyone in the CrossFit community is aware of, but the emotional attachment to the sport and the belief that this is the best possible form of training are stronger than anyone acknowledging or even talking about it.

To understand this psychological process, we must know the community itself and the cohesive force that forges CrossFitters into a unity. CrossFit is a lifestyle that satisfies our insatiable desires to conquer ourselves and our bodies, where pure strength dominates, where we reach the limits of our physical performance without any help, relying solely on our bodies and mental strength. It's an intoxicating feeling, I won't deny it, and there's a certain atmosphere to these workouts, but anyone who hasn't participated in such a workout won't understand it anyway.

The lifestyle is there, and then come the props, because they are definitely there. That classic garage feeling still permeates every gym, even if the situation has consolidated a lot since the beginning, and some CrossFit gyms already evoke luxury. Nevertheless, the pursuit of simplicity, Spartan conditions, and that certain CrossFit spirit, which gives the essence of the entire sport, is still present even in the most "prostituted" gyms.

CrossFitters are the chosen ones, the community of initiates, where you also have to show that you are not a soft dick. These thoughts are on the very first pages of the CrossFit Bible, and training sessions are conducted in this spirit. CrossFit is the beginning and the end, there is no other way, no other alternative, while your brain is constantly being washed with the idea that all other training methods are obsolete and outdated. However, let's admit, if we open a sports textbook from the 70s from the Soviet Union, the techniques now sold as brand new are almost verbatim in the chapters discussing the athletes' basic training, with the difference that there we can truly talk about consciousness and optimal training load, which is out of the question in CrossFit, as CrossFit always strives for the highest intensity.

Of course, you can fall in love with this, just like with any other sport, but CrossFitters are different. They are convinced that they are above all other sports, that they are special, that no other sport can even come close to the load and performance they achieve. For them, running a half marathon or swimming 10 km is not a feat. Whatever sport you bring up, they just wave it off and laugh at it, then immediately start self-gratifying themselves while uttering technical terms like deadlift, burpee, or squat clean.

CrossFitters are also characterized by living in a very closed world, and what's worse, they adopt everything they see next to an American flag, or simply written in English, without thinking. Perhaps this is why, with the spread of CrossFit, an unknown phenomenon began to emerge in Hungary at the same pace. Until the mid-2000s, warfare between sports was an unknown concept. Bodybuilders didn't care what anyone else was doing; there was no antagonism between representatives of strength sports, but this state of calm has completely ceased. With the rise of CrossFit and various proliferations of functional training – such as kettlebell, calisthenics, or street workout – a kind of antagonism began, which continues to this day, and this struggle seems to be sharpening. Because it's one thing that CrossFitters deeply despise all sports, but they can especially hate those who do weight training in the gym, cursing them in the most diverse ways. I don't really understand this. Not least because the correct execution of functional exercises requires a foundation that no one should start without perfectly mastering weight training.

And at this point, we have reached the discussion of CrossFit's biggest shortcomings. CrossFit is a complex, extremely diverse, and varied form of training, and the problems begin precisely here. Because if something is very complex and requires many different movement combinations, then it certainly raises problems, and not a few of them. For years, I have been emphasizing that if you do weight training in the gym, do it with correct technique, focusing on the specific body part, otherwise it's not worth starting, and you'll end up with an injury. This is nothing but anatomy. Exercises must be performed only at certain angles, paying attention to breathing, with the correct hand position, carefully attending to every part of the body, with concentration, so that the weight does not move the body into an incorrect range for even a moment.

Most injuries occur when a particular movement is performed with poor posture, incorrect technique, and under weights. This task alone would cause difficulty for 90% of people, and here we are only talking about one exercise. However, CrossFit involves a whole series of exercises, which are also performed in groups, so control over the correct execution of the exercises is completely lost, correct posture is guaranteed not to be achieved, the focus decreases even further due to the constantly high heart rate, not to mention that most people have no idea how to perform a given exercise correctly at all.

Deadlifts, pull-ups, squats, snatches, jerks, dips, lunges, just to mention a few basic exercises, not to mention their various variations. These are exercises that others practice for years to master and execute correctly, while CrossFitters simply pick them up and do them as one of five exercises in a circuit training, all in a group setting.

Take, for example, the deadlift, or any form of weightlifting, which, by the way, is a separate Olympic sport. Weightlifters practice this one movement combination for years from childhood, after precisely learning the posture, before even considering increasing the weight, because professional coaches know exactly how dangerous and complex this task is. But not for CrossFitters, who apply it with such enthusiasm in their training.

Gilbert Jakub Tibor: "Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of CF is weightlifting exercises performed with high repetitions. When I was in Holland, I talked to the guy who was the coach of the local junior weightlifting team at the time, and I asked him what he thought about CrossFit's high-repetition weightlifting exercises. His answer was that he views with clear disapproval how complete beginners perform such complex, coordination-demanding tasks with high repetitions. And again, I would like to emphasize that this is only one exercise out of many that are part of daily CrossFit training."

These voices are, of course, also known in CrossFit circles, and from time to time they come up against these criticisms, but the majority simply refuse to acknowledge them. But if someone does ask them, "if someone's musculoskeletal system is not yet ready for this load, or if they can't even perform a single squat correctly, then on what basis are they doing circuit training with them?", then there is great indignation, and instead of arguments, the trump card comes out, which most often sounds like, "then go back to the gym with all those juiced-up faggots."

The CrossFit training method is also heavily criticized overseas, and not by just anyone. Major scientific sports research organizations like the NSCA or the ACSM criticize the CrossFit training method in numerous high-impact factor articles and draw attention to its extremely high risk of injury. But of course, all this doesn't matter, as these are mostly written by sports doctors and master coaches with scientific degrees who train Olympians. Speaking of scientific degrees and qualifications.

To get an official CrossFit coaching qualification, two things need to be done. You have to pay 1100 dollars and complete a 2!!! day course. Yes, you read that right, a two-day, that is, two-day course. With a two-fucking-day course, anyone can become a coach in a sport whose movements are so complex and intricate that mastering some of its individual exercises would require months of practice and study (see weightlifting). These exercises are extremely prone to injury even after serious foundational training, because muscles and tendons are subjected to such extreme stress that it is not only not advisable but downright dangerous and forbidden for a complete amateur, a person just walking in off the street. This alone would be enough of an argument against CrossFit, but there's something else.

As I mentioned in the first part of the post, CrossFit is a lifestyle, and it has a certain aura and its own special atmosphere, just like any other sport. CrossFitters, as I also mentioned, imagine themselves as some kind of warriors who go into every workout as if they were going to war, they push themselves accordingly, and they expect every member of the community to do the same. They consider their injuries to be battle wounds, and they truly experience them as such.

However, this raises very serious problems, especially considering the load they put on their bodies during training, moreover, compounded by weights. But even worse is that CrossFitters always train with the principle of "more, further, one more set after death," and this is precisely the cocktail that makes CrossFit so insanely dangerous.

But since injuries have come up, let's talk a little about that too, because injuries are a frequent guest among CrossFitters, which, of course, is not surprising at all after what has been described above.

Anyone who has visited the diligent people of Sparta at least once in one of their training camps, which we will now just call a CrossFit gym – so anyone who has been to a CrossFit workout – might have noticed a miraculous tape called Kinesio tape, which in CrossFit circles is a clear indicator that the person is already considered a serious CrossFitter.

But what exactly is Kinesio tape? To answer this, let me now quote the words of Dr. Ildikó Ács, a physiotherapist.

"Kinesio tape is a form of fixation performed with a special taping technique, which, by maintaining and improving joint and muscle functions, relieves pain, aids and supports the body's healing processes, and stabilizes and corrects.

Kinesio tape is generally used for overuse, sprains, strains, muscle fiber tears, overload, various spinal conditions such as displacement of lumbar and cervical vertebrae, posture correction, pain relief, correction of anatomical structures, and other injury treatments."

At this point, I have to ask a question. If CrossFit is such a damn good form of exercise, then why do you see Kinesio tape on almost every third CrossFitter? The answer, of course, is dead simple. CrossFit fundamentally tears the human body apart, because this form of training is not justified anatomically, physically, or in any other way, and the muscles, tendons, and ligaments simply cannot endure and withstand the stress applied by CrossFit in the long term, especially not if the exercises are performed incorrectly from the start.

This is not a matter of religious debate; these are the facts, and the existence of Kinesio tape and its widespread use among CrossFitters is the proof itself, or the embodiment of the consequence, if you prefer. Of course, they will say that this is for prevention, so that muscles don't tear, ligaments don't loosen, and sprains don't occur. This all sounds great, but if CrossFit is such a perfect form of exercise, as they claim, then there should be no need to worry about any of this in the first place.

CrossFit is spreading and reaching increasingly larger masses, and the masses are just like that, attracting average people who will never look behind the scenes of CrossFit and grasp the connections I've tried to outline in this article. For the average person, CrossFit is no different from a spinning or any aerobics class; they just see that there's some new form of exercise, they'll try it, they've heard so much about it anyway. CrossFit is not justified even with serious training experience and professional expertise, let alone for the common person who can't even hold their wrist correctly while performing a simple dumbbell exercise. And these people will be doing CrossFit in the not-so-distant future.

This is all I wanted to say. Everyone should draw their own conclusions and inferences.

benedekbence, Jakub Gilbert Tibor