The CrossFit - The sport of Fitness ...

What is CrossFit?

Let's start by clarifying what CrossFit is, because maybe many people have heard about it in recent years, but maybe - not having seen or tried it before - they don't know what we're really talking about.

Created by Greg Glassman in the United States in the 1970s, CrossFit began to become popular in the 1990s, when the first Gym Box was born in 1995 in Santa Cruz (California), until it reached its final explosion after 2008. Ad today, there are more than eight thousand (in 2012 there were about half) gyms and fitness centers scattered all over the world where crossfit is practiced, thanks to professional coaches and with a specific preparation.

Crossfit is a program of strengthening and physical conditioning designed to help people achieve a complete and general well-being. This program focuses on a series of functional movements that change constantly, performed at high intensity to achieve total physical prowess, and make people ready for every kind of physical challenge.

Glassman says: " Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, few starches and no sugar. Keep the caloric intake at a level that favors training but not the accumulation of fat. train with the main lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J and snatch. In the same way, take over the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dip, rope climbing, push-ups, sit-ups, standing presses, pirouettes, flips, splits and sockets go by bike, run, swim, ride, etc., strong and fast Five or six days a week mix these elements in all the combinations and paths your creativity suggests to you. "He is your enemy. He continues to do short and intense workouts. He learns and practices new sports regularly. "

How an average CrossFit lesson is structured

1. WARM UP / MOBILITY

   Generally it starts with warm up and mobility, that is heating and joint mobility; in this phase a series of free-body exercises is performed (often the jump rope is used) to activate the various muscle groups and joint mobility movements are performed, perhaps for the body districts that will be used in the workout; useful is the use of small tools for myofascial loosening (grid, foamroller, tennis balls, golf, elastics, back balls).

   This initial phase serves to prepare the physique for training, to reduce the risk of injuries and to make movements easier, unblocking and releasing the muscle fascia; typically the duration of this phase is about 1015 minutes, in short it serves to "turn on the engines".

2. SKILL / STRENGTH

   Skill, or skill: in this phase the various types of exercises that will go to make up the workout are explained and practiced, or to improve the technique of performing a specific exercise.

   Strength, that is strength: where the movement is well acquired and mastered by the subject, with the advance of the weeks we proceed to practice that fundamental motor pattern working with Forza programming protocols.

   The Coach shows the correct execution of the movements and their natural didactic progression and puts the accent on the errors that must be avoided; later, the athletes try the exercises themselves while the Coach checks them one by one, correcting where necessary; usually, this phase lasts about 20/30 minutes, and serves precisely to consolidate a motor pattern and / or to acquire strength.

3. WOD

   It is the heart of the lesson, the actual training phase.

   At the end of the skill phase, the Trainer goes on to introduce the Workout of the Day, explaining in detail the exercises and the type of work envisaged, verifies that all the participants have understood and listened to any doubts, after which we leave!

   In this phase there is no time to refine one's technical ability or to ask questions, nor is there time for rest: following the principle of high intensity, athletes are called to give their best in the set time. During the Workout, the Coach constantly and closely monitors CrossFitter, to ensure that they perform all movements correctly and above all in correct posture and in total safety, correcting quickly if necessary; at the same time, it encourages practitioners to push themselves beyond their limits.

   Typically, this phase has a very variable duration, which can range from about 5 to 30 minutes. It is the metabolic part of the workout, often called Metcon .

4. RECOVERY / FLEXIBILITY

   It is the phase dedicated to recovery, muscle stretching and cool-down; under the guidance of the Trainer a series of stretching and de-fatigue exercises is performed, very important to lengthen the muscles and undo the joints after intense work. At this stage the Coach asks athletes for feedback on training and stimulates the discussion on the workout just performed, collecting feelings and clarifying any doubts. It would be good and right to create compensatory exercises based on the kinetic chains and the most stressed muscles during the workout, generally lasting about 10 minutes.

CrossFit exercises

There is no precise and fixed list of exercises to be performed during a CrossFit lesson. On the contrary, during training sessions contaminations from different disciplines and exercises of various kinds alternate, with different functions and characteristics.

Exercises divided by mode (from "Crossfit training guide")

In particular, the CrossFit can combine different sports and movements. You can move from weight lifting to free body exercises, from cardiovascular training to running to climbing. Different tools are used: barbells, medicine balls, gymnastic rings, but also ropes and weights, kettlebells, box jumps, rowers, etc.

After talking about the exercises and how to structure a lesson, we can move on to examine which are therefore the PRO and CONT of this activity:

The pros: Benefits of Crossfit

• Hyper-production of EPOC, an acronym for Excess Post exercise Oxygen Consumption and translated into Italian as Consumption of oxygen in post-training excess.

  The EPOC is the measurement index of the increase in oxygen consumption following a physical activity, intended to satisfy the body's "oxygen debt". In fact, at the end of the physical exercise, the metabolic activity and the caloric expenditure do not immediately return to rest levels, but remain high for a longer or shorter time depending on the intensity and on the duration of the activity performed. Therefore, at the end of the effort the body continues to require oxygen at a higher rate than the basal values.

  EPOC is closely linked to intensity, so the high intensity of CrossFit greatly increases this parameter.

• Stimulate and train resilience, which can be considered as the 4th conditional ability (the 5th can be considered joint mobility). Basically, resilience is the ability of the central nervous system to withstand faticastress over time, and is therefore closely linked to the development of self-efficacy. Enclosing the concept with a quote "What does not kill me makes me stronger" F. Nietzsche
• It has evaluable and standardizable performance parameters, such as the "girls" (coded wod benchmarks, with which the user's fitness status can be parameterized); for example, asking a CrossFitter what it has on the Fran is like asking a sprinter how much he does on the 100 meters.
• The continuous variation of the workouts (every day is always different from the previous one), does not create addiction and stimulates the user, a parameter not to be underestimated; as well as accustoms the subject to learn as many motor patterns as possible. The wod is a stimulating challenge for the user; obviously the challenge is not against others, but against oneself.
• Standardization of movements: each rep, to be valid, must go from point A to point B; for example, in the squat the buttocks must go down under the parallel, in the pullup the chin must reach above the bar etc.
• Improvement of the anaerobic threshold, which means greater capacity to dispose of the lactate produced.
• Stimulating functional hypertrophy, therefore the hypertrophy of the sarcomere and myofibrils, which produces a great neuro-endocrine adaptation. Please refer to a previous article //www.my-personaltrainer.it/allenamento/ipertrofia-funzionale.html
• Power: it is defined as the speed with which a job is performed. Power is everything in CrossFit. Power is both strength and speed.
• Emphasize hip-dominant movements, as elite exercises for power (see the 9 fundamental CF movements).
• To give new impetus to a noble sport like the Olympic weightlifting through the use of Olympic lifts

The cons: Crossfit limits

• Lack of work on the transversal level (given that CrossFit can be counted in the family of functional activities and that "functional" means the use of the body in 3D, that is in all three planes of movement: sagittal, frontal and transverse; the almost total lack of a plan is a factor to be taken into account in the programming).
• Almost all the works are strongly lactic; many claim that lactate work in women with circulatory problems (see eg cellulite) could make the situation worse. (in reality there are no studies that confirm or deny this thesis).
• The wod can be both a pro, as mentioned above, but also a counter: being basically a small competition, against oneself, others or time, the performance factor can invalidate the technique. In fact, it happens to see that when fatigue is felt, consequently the intra and intermuscular coordination failing, the executive technique suffers and not a little, thus increasing the risk of injuries.
• A valid rep is not always synonymous with good execution, for example a squat is valid if I "break the parallel", but I could do it also by using my knees, and as we all know we overload a motor scheme in "fixed" dysfunction even by plus dysfunction (Cook, Burton).
• In the CF we also find explosive and plyometric exercises: if we have a column in dysfunction, so maybe we have lost the neutral of the pelvis for example and we have deactivated some of the deep stabilizers, our gesture could be potentially risky, especially if not compensated with a work of stabilization (Comerford, Mottram).
• Diversification of work is indeed a pro, in function of the discovery of new motor schemes, but it can also be a counter, given that continuously varying the gesture limits the economy of the movement and the consolidation of the motor scheme in the sensory-motor area.
• As a sport that hopes to improve all athletic abilities and all three metabolic pathways, there is little emphasis on breathing and the use of diaphragm training. The diaphragm, as the main inspiratory muscle, should perform at least 2/3 of the respiratory work with the remaining 1/3 performed by the other respiratory muscles; if the diaphragm is "blocked" or limited in the physiological ascent and descent of the phrenic center (which varies from 12 cm in normal respiration up to 10 cm in forced respiration, braked by the system suspending the pericardium, as well as by the pressure of the viscera) limits lung capacity and the use of as much "petrol" as possible; moreover the diaphragm has a fundamental postural role.
• It often happens that the intensity of a wod can lead to vomiting (in the CF it is represented sympathetically with the Pukie vomit Clown), obviously it is a prerogative that can also happen in other high intensity sports; but arriving at this "unpleasant moment" can be a symptom of poor management of the modulation between external load and internal load.
• Training always and perhaps without modulating the programming with days of high intensity and days of unloading, without respecting the "rest day", can decrease the basal concentrations of Testosterone and IGF-1, increase the levels of cortisol and inhibit the production of certain hormones thyroid.

Conclusions

The CrossFit has pros and cons, like all activities; it is therefore not the panacea for all ills: for example, if you want to become "big", then Body Building is the one for you. The purpose of CrossFit is not as aesthetic as in Bodybuilding, but performance; the CF aims to improve your athletic abilities and make you more efficient, the improvement of body composition is a pleasant consequence, not the end.

If you have to win the marathon at the Olympics, even in this case the CrossFit is not for you, because the bottom race is a "species-specific" sport. One of the characteristics of CrossFit is precisely the non-specificity: if you want a discipline that unites and I mix so many together, because maybe you are tired of the classic isotonic work, if you need the group that motivates you and you don't mind the effort, then the CrossFit could do for you.

The contraindications are in principle those that you have for any other high-impact activity: severe heart disease, arthrosis, trauma and / or joint or skeletal diseases. With the necessary precautions, and in the absence of the aforementioned pathologies, anyone can try CrossFit; not only big men strictly without a shirt, with tattoos in full view and a beard up to the chest, I assure you that it is not only for those who close a Fran under 3 minutes ...

Bibliography and Sitography

Weineck J., '' The Optimal Training '', Calzetti Mariucci, Perugia, 2009.

Various Authors, "CrossFit Guide", CrossFit, Inc

Calligaris A. Training Sciences Ed. Società Stampa Sportiva, Rome, 1997.

Ghizzo M. Winning fatigue, Sport & Medicina, 2004.

Tudor B., '' Loss of sport training '', Calzetti Mariucci, Perugia, 2001

Kentta G., Hassmen P. Overtraining and recovery. A conceptual model. Sports Medicine 1998.

McKenzie DC. Markers of excessive exercise. Can J Appl Physiol 1999.

Bosco C., '' The muscular force '', Sports Press Company, Rome, 1997.

Websites consulted: www.kineticcontrol.com, www.wikipedia.org, www.rawtraining.eu, www.crossfit.com, www.projectinvictus.it, www.abcallenamento.it, www.functionalmovement.com