I am in limbo with my decision regarding how to approach my rehabilitation. I am at the point where I have stress tested myself with very light weights and very basic movements and as I move towards the inevitable return to work I need to make sure I am up to the task of sitting in the car to work, sitting or standing for 4 hours and driving home PLUS then doing my rehab work whatever that may be. Given my history with P90X that would be an easy place to start, but I am not sure that doing a round of P90X or P90X2 at this point would give me back the functional fitness I am looking for. As good as it is, and it is an excellent program, I am not quite sure that it will suffice. That is where Crossfit comes in.
Before I go into any details I want to quickly address my concern with Crossfit as it stands. For the most part I think it’s a wonderful system, it’s heart is in the right place and the quick format takes care of many of the issues people claim with not having enough time to work out (nice excuse!). I did write a piece not too long ago about the Crossfit Nonsense article that probably was a little harsh but let me take a second here and demonstrate what I meant at the time. I called it Crossfit Caution and I stand by the idea that I presented but before I start let’s look at what Crossfit.com would have had you do last week for workouts:
Monday – Run for 30 minutes
Tuesday – Rest
Wednesday – AMRAP 20 minutes: Row 250m + 25 pushups
Thursday – 50-40-30-20-10 Double Unders plus situps (Double Unders are simply rope skipping with 2 revolutions of the rope per jump, you could sub tuck jumps)
Friday – An Actual workout:
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
5 Handstand push-ups
7 Chest to bar pull-ups
35 pound Dumbbell squat snatch, 10 reps, alternating
Saturday – Rest Day
Sunday – Another actual workout:
21-18-15-12-9-6 and 3 rep rounds of:
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds
Push jerk, 75 pounds
So there you have it, for your 7 days of Crossfit membership you would have stumped up probably in the region of $200 per month for unlimited use only to have 2 days of what anyone would reasonably think of as a “workout” and have only used equipment that most people probably already have at home (save the rowing machine).
What about body parts? How do these 7 days stack up and what happens if you are only able to work out 4 days? Let’s say like me you are busy this week and due to your commitments only have Tuesday Wednesday and Saturday to work out. That means you are unlucky enough to hit 2 rest days and a day of pushups. Even if you were able to follow the program for the 5 active days let’s just look at what you would have worked:
Monday: Cardio
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Cardio plus chest and triceps
Thursday: Cardio and light core (150 situps is light core, yes)
Friday: Shoulders, Upper back, Traps (If you can count a 35lb snatch)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Traps and shoulders
My question is this. Where is the leg work (except the cardio). Also, where is the bicep work knowing that pullups utilise a small amount of bicep work which is reduced by the infamous Crossfit Kipping pullup. How about some oblique or lower abs work? You could argue that the snatches do work the abs to a degree but that’s like saying a squat snatch works the legs with 35lbs.
I am probably going to get a lot of flak for this (thank goodness nobody comes here!) but honestly relying on Crossfit boxes as your fitness all-in-one is just not a great idea. You know what is the best idea? Get some equipment of your own and make sure you are getting a well rounded workout each week. I am sure some people would say that taking a week is not a fair measure but I think spreading your whole body across 2 weeks or more is laying it a bit thin.
So what is the solution? Well, for me, Crossfit is the solution. But it’s a home grown hand picked version that allows me to take the workouts from the last month, pick the ones that are most appropriate for me and do them on my time with my own equipment. Sure, I don’t have the camaraderie I would get at the gym but then again I don’t have to keep telling people not to talk to me while I work out. As I have posted many times, I have made some of the stuff I needed to accomplish this, I got cheap chin up bars, a decent olympic bar and some bumper plates, I made a wallball and some dip bars and bought some kettlebells. That is all I needed to invest in order to give me the workout I wanted and avoid the problems that Crossfit inevitably has in scheduling around busy lives. At what cost? The Newmarket crossfit box wants up to $200 a month for a membership. For the price of 2 months I have an unlimited use gym in my house. You can Crossfit if you want, and I would suggest you do, but I also would suggest that you can do it on your own.
By the way, if you are new to Crossfit and Olympic lifting etc. then I would suggest you take out a short 2-6 month membership and have them teach you how to lift. Then hit the discout fitness store and buy some stuff for yourself.
By the way, this is not meant to be a Crossfit bashing entry, just an eye opener for some people who may think that they can’t Crossfit because they can’t afford it or who think that they can’t Crossfit because they can’t commit to specific non-rest days at their box.
It’s been a while, I have been battling many things, a very sore leg which may have a slight infection, a hacking cough that won’t go away, a significant weight gain that is preventing me from getting to a pain free plateau and a return to coaching that will no doubt throw a wrench into my workout schedule. However, I am glad to report that I have been able to do 2 workouts now using the 135lb olympic bar. It’s not the volume I would like to say I am doing yet but I made it through and recovered in the standard 3 days. This is pretty significant for me because it signifies the threshold that I wanted to reach where I could say I was back into my normal range of functionality. I now realize that I am going to have to start back with my regular stretching and mobility work too since I have been staying away from it in order not to stress my back too much but I know I can’t expect to move any significant weight around without maintaining a good stretching regimen. I have also done a couple of kettlebell workouts with my 45 and 55lb KBs which also represents a milestone given the amount of stress that KB swings put n your spine. My chinups are pretty sad, I am only able to hit about 7 or 8 in a row but I did manage to do a 100 pullup workout a couple of weeks ago mixed in with 100 ring dips.
I started my rest week yesterday with a return to the Plyometrics DVD from the P90X series. I had expected that I would experience it the way I did when I went through the program “properly” the