Poliquin on CrossFit

Posted by Tim on Feb 4th, 2012 in Featured, Workouts | 0 comments

I’ve been wanting to write about CrossFit for some time now. There’s a lot I like about the movement. And there are a handful of concerns that I have as a trainer. One of the things I like about it is the fresh new inflow of fitness enthusiasts into the general public.

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know some of these people. Dai Manuel is one of them. If I’ve a got a question about CrossFit I go to him. Click on his name if you want know more about CrossFit.

Charles Poliquin is a world famous strength and conditioning coach. He wrote a recent blog about CrossFit. His comments are very clear and have a great deal more authority than any opinion I would offer. Here are his words:

CrossFit has great intentions. It is a socially based system that encourages camaraderie and sense of belonging to a team. A major strength of CrossFit is that it helps people in the gym who are not motivated to train alone.

I travel the world over and I see an increasing number of CrossFit teachers attending my classes. Upon first arrival, my staff and I can point out which CrossFitters have great results, and which have less than optimal results.

Here is what I like about CrossFit enthusiasts:

1. They believe in hard work and are not afraid of doing it.

2. They go for efficiency and use the most bang for your buck exercises. Why go to Tae Kwon Do when you can go to Krav Maga? I like the fact that they train women to do chin-ups, power cleans, and deadlifts.

3. They are very keen on proper nutrition. In all fairness, I would say that of all my students, CrossFitters are the best educated about how to eat for performance and body composition. A large proportion of my new BioSignature students own CrossFit operations.

4. They train exercises that you would normally avoid…or forget to do for some reason.

Here is what I see as potential concerns with CrossFit:

1. Technique is often horrendous. Competing to achieve personal records in number of reps or load at any cost kicks proper mechanics out the door.

2. Students do exercises that are completely out of their range of motor skills. For instance, novice CrossFitters doing strongman exercise such as Continental cleans with an axle puts them at very high risk of injury.

3. The sequencing of exercises will often impede progress.

4. Sometimes the exercises chosen have little return on the investment. A lot of effort is put in, but the exercise in question doesn’t elicit strength, neuromuscular, or hypertrophic gains.

Here is what I have observed in the CrossFitters who get great results:

1. The instructors know how to do the Olympic lifts and the related lifts well. Why? Because they searched for the right instruction from coaches like Pierre Roy, Mike Burgener, and John Broz, to name a few.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you want to be the best, learn from the best.

2. They follow a periodized system, complete with variation in all loading parameters. Periodization goes against the initial dogma of CrossFit, so hardliners stay away from it.

I agree that hard work is essential for results. However, hard smart work gets you there faster. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Flushable toilets are not Paleolithic either, and I will continue to use them too…

3. They are well aware of the advantages of varying tempos to accelerate training response.

4. They care about orthopedic issues and they include remedial work, not just prime work, in their program design.

5. Exercise order and selection is optimal. I once had a workout at Erik Kilstrup’s CrossFit facility in Copenhagen. Only with National teams have I ever seen so many young women do pull-ups with perfect form. They weren’t doing the kipping one that mimics a penguin having a series of epileptic seizures. Kilstrup actually forbids kipping pull-ups in his facility.

I am utterly convinced that CrossFit is a great product with a huge potential to improve.

Ok, I’m (Tim) back. There’s only one bit of clarification I want to make about something Poliquin said. The confusion must have come in the translation from Canadian to English. Anyway, he says that Crossfitters who get great results periodize. The “it” they stay away from is the initial dogma of CrossFit which does not follow a periodization model.

Thank you Charles Poliquin for saying what I wanted to and better than I could have.

Comment below and pass this on to the Fitness Junky in your life. Crossfitter or not.