Foundations

“Foundations” is a further explanation of what CrossFit is and why the methodology approaches health and fitness in the way it does.

What is striking about CrossFit is that everything has a definition. Everything is based on the scientific approach of measurability and predictability.

CrossFit is a core stength and conditioning program.

“Core” is used in two ways here.

The first in the sense that CrossFit is core curriculum for optimizing the human body. The manual for turning any health marker deemed as sick or normal into fitness. The sick/health/fit continuumm is a theme that will crop up over and over. The idea is that elite athletes can not only perform at high levels but their health markers are also in the exceptional ranges.

The second is in the literal sense of the word. To produce power, strength, and speed, you need to generate force from the core of your body and transfer it outward. “Core to extremity” is a big concept that you will see repeated throught the journal.

Because CrossFit sees itself as a core curriculum, it needs to prepare athletes for anything. This is why specializing in any sport is seen as ‘fringe’. The more you specialize in cardiovascular endurance, the more the other 10 physical fitness skills will suffer.

It’s also been seen that you fail at the margins of your exposure to things so expanding those margins will increase your fitness.

The article goes on to talk through major themes of CrossFit and how they are all interconnected.

The major themes are:

• Neuroendocrine Adaptation
• Power
• Cross-Training
• Functional Movements
• Aerobics and Anaerobics
• Routines
• The Olympic Lifts
• Gymnastics
• Diet

article link

Highlights

• [page 1]: CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program.

• [page 1]: CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains

• [page 1]: The CrossFit Program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks.

• [page 1]: our program is distinctive, if not unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-training with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional movements, and the development of successful diet strategies.

• [page 1]: Well, at CrossFit we work exclusively with compound movements and shorter high intensity cardiovascular sessions. We’ve replaced the lateral raise with pushpress, the curl with pull-ups, and the leg extension with squats. For every long distance effort our athletes will do five or six at short distance. Why? Because compound or functional movements and high intensity or anaerobic cardio is radically more effective at eliciting nearly any desired fitness result.

• [page 2]: Increased power, strength, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, coordination, agility, balance, and coordination are each important to the world’s best athletes and to our grandparents.

• [page 2]: Of course, we can’t load your grandmother with the same squatting weight that we’d assign an Olympic skier, but they both need to squat. In fact, squatting is essential to maintaining functional independence and improving fitness.

• [page 2]: First, we are a core strength and conditioning program in the sense that the fitness we develop is foundational to all other athletic needs. This is the same sense in which the university courses required of a particular major are called the “core curriculum”.

• [page 2]: Second, we are a “core” strength and conditioning program in the literal sense meaning the center of something. Much of our work focuses on the major functional axis of the human body, the extension and flexion, of the hips and extension, flexion, and rotation of the torso or trunk.

• [page 2]: At CrossFit we endeavor to develop our athletes from the inside out, from core to extremity, which is by the way how good functional movements recruit muscle, from the core to the extremities.

• [page 2]: Can I enjoy optimal health without being an athlete? 2

• [page 3]: No! Athletes experience a protection from the ravages of aging and disease that non-athletes never find.

• [page 3]: If you think that strength isn’t important consider that strength loss is what puts people in nursing homes.

• [page 3]: Athletes have greater bone density, stronger immune systems, less coronary heart disease, reduced cancer risk, fewer strokes, and less depression than non-athletes

• [page 3]: The CrossFit definition of an athlete is “a person who is trained or skilled in strength, power, balance and agility, flexibility, and endurance”.

• [page 3]: It seems as though all of the body functions that can go awry have states that are pathological, normal, and exceptional and that elite athletes typically show these parameters in the exceptional range.

• [page 3]: It is also interesting to notice that the health professional maintains your health with drugs and surgery each with potentially undesirable side effect whereas the CrossFit Coach typically achieves a superior result always with “side benefit” vs. side effect.

• [page 3]: The CrossFit view is that fitness and health are the same thing.

• [page 3]: Diet - lays the molecular foundations for fitness and health. Metabolic Conditioning - builds capacity in each of three metabolic pathways, beginning with aerobic, then lactic acid, and then phosphocreatine pathways. Gymnastics - establishes functional capacity for body control and range of motion. Weightlifting and throwing - develop ability to control external objects and produce power. Sport - applies fitness in competitive atmosphere with more randomized movements and skill mastery.

• [page 4]: It turns out that the intensity of training that optimizes physical conditioning is not sustainable past forty-five minutes to an hour. Athletes that train for hours a day are developing skill or training for sports that include adaptations inconsistent with elite strength and conditioning. Past one hour, more is not better!

• [page 4]: “Fringe Athletes”

• [page 4]: The endurance athlete has trained long past any cardiovascular health benefit and has lost ground in strength, speed, and power, typically does nothing for coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy and possesses little more than average flexibility.

• [page 4]: No triathlete is in ideal shape to wrestle, box, pole-vault, sprint, play any ball sport, fight fires, or do police work. Each of these requires a fitness level far beyond the needs of the endurance athlete. None of this suggests that being a marathoner, triathlete or other endurance athlete is a bad thing; just don’t believe that training as a long distance athlete gives you the fitness that is prerequisite to many sports.

• [page 4]: CrossFit considers the Sumo Wrestler, triathlete, marathoner, and power lifter to be “fringe athletes” in that their fitness demands are so specialized as to be inconsistent with the adaptations that give maximum competency at all physical challenges.

• [page 4]: Aerobics and Anaerobics

• [page 4]: Our main purpose here is to discuss how anaerobic and aerobic training support performance variables like strength, power, speed, and endurance. We also support the contention that total conditioning and optimal health necessitates training each of the physiological systems in a systematic fashion.

• [page 4]: Athletes engaging in excessive aerobic training witness decreases in muscle mass, strength, speed, and power. It is not uncommon to find marathoners with a vertical leap of several inches and a bench press well below average for most athletes. Aerobic activity has a pronounced tendency to decrease anaerobic capacity. This does not 4

• [page 5]: bode well for athletes or the individual interested in total conditioning or optimal health.

• [page 5]: Anaerobic activity also benefits cardiovascular function and decreases body fat. Anaerobic activity is unique in its capacity to dramatically improve power, speed, strength, and muscle mass. Anaerobic conditioning allows us to exert tremendous forces over a very brief time.

• [page 5]: Perhaps the aspect of anaerobic conditioning that bears greatest consideration is that anaerobic conditioning will not adversely affect aerobic capacity! In fact, properly structured, anaerobic activity can be used to develop a very high level of aerobic fitness without the muscle wasting consistent with high volume aerobic exercise!

• [page 5]: The CrossFit approach is to judiciously balance anaerobic and aerobic exercise in a manner that is consistent with the athlete’s goals. Our exercise prescriptions adhere to proper specificity, progression, variation, and recovery to optimize adaptations.

• [page 5]: The Olympic Lifts, a.k.a., Weightlifting

• [page 5]: These lifts train athletes to effectively activate more muscle fibers more rapidly than through any other modality of training. The explosiveness that results from this training is of vital necessity to every sport.

• [page 5]: Practicing the Olympic lifts teaches one to apply force to muscle groups in proper sequence, i.e., from the center of the body to its extremities (core to extremity).

• [page 5]: Learning this vital technical lesson benefits all athletes who need to impart force to another person or object as is commonly required in nearly all sports.

• [page 5]: In addition to learning to impart explosive forces, the clean and jerk and snatch condition the body to receive such forces from another moving body both safely and effectively.

• [page 5]: Gymnastics

• [page 5]: The extraordinary value of gymnastics as a training modality lies in its reliance on the body’s own weight as the sole source of resistance. This places a unique premium on the improvement of strength to weight ratio.

• [page 6]: As important as the capacity of this modality is for strength development it is without a doubt the ultimate approach to improving coordination, balance, agility, accuracy, and flexibility. Through the use of numerous presses, handstands, scales, and other floor work the gymnast’s training greatly enhances kinesthetic sense.

• [page 6]: For a combination of strength, flexibility, well-developed physique, coordination, balance, accuracy, and agility the gymnast has no equal in the sports world. The inclusion of this training modality is absurdly absent from nearly all training programs.

• [page 6]: Routines

• [page 6]: There is no ideal routine!

• [page 6]: In fact, the chief value of any routine lies in abandoning it for another.

• [page 6]: Any routine, no matter how complete, contains within its omissions the parameters for which there will be no adaptation.

• [page 6]: The breadth of adaptation will exactly match the breadth of the stimulus.

• [page 6]: For this reason the CrossFit program embraces short, middle, and long distance metabolic conditioning, low, moderate, and heavy load assignment. We encourage creative and continuously varied compositions that tax physiological functions against every realistically conceivable combination of stressors.

• [page 6]: Developing a fitness that is varied yet complete defines the very art of strength and conditioning coaching.

• [page 6]: This is not a comforting message in an age where scientific certainty and specialization confer authority and expertise.

• [page 6]: Neuroendocrine Adaptation

• [page 6]: “Neuroendocrine adaptation” is a change in the body that affects you either neurologically or hormonally. Most important adaptations to exercise are in part or completely a result of a hormonal or neurological shift.

• [page 6]: Dr. William Kraemer, Penn State University,

• [page 6]: Earlier we faulted isolation movements as being ineffectual. Now we can tell you that one of the critical elements missing from these movements is that they invoke essentially no neuroendocrine response.

• [page 6]: Among the hormonal responses vital to athletic development are substantial increases in testosterone, insulinlike growth factor, and human growth hormone.

• [page 6]: Heavy load weight training, short rest between sets, high heart rates, high intensity training, and short rest intervals, though not entirely distinct components, are all associated with a high neuroendocrine response.

• [page 6]: Power

• [page 6]: Power is defined as the “time rate of doing work.”

• [page 6]: At CrossFit “power” is the undisputed king of performance. Power is in simplest terms, “hard and fast.”

• [page 6]: Additionally, power is the definition of intensity, which in turn has been linked to nearly every positive aspect of fitness. Increases in strength, performance, muscle mass, and bone density all arise in proportion to the intensity of exercise. And again, intensity is defined as power.

• [page 6]: Power is one of the four defining themes of the CrossFit 6

• [page 7]: Program.

• [page 7]: Cross-Training

• [page 7]: At CrossFit we take a much broader view of the term. We view cross training as exceeding the normal parameters of the regular demands of your sport or training.

• [page 7]: The CrossFit Program recognizes functional, metabolic, and modal cross training. That is we regularly train past the normal motions, metabolic pathways, and modes or sports common to the athlete’s sport or exercise regimen.

• [page 7]: The CrossFit coaching staff had long ago noticed that athletes are weakest at the margins of their exposure for almost every measurable parameter.

• [page 7]: For instance, if you only cycle between five to seven miles at each training effort you will test weak at less than five and greater than seven miles. This is true for range of motion, load, rest, intensity, and power, etc.

• [page 7]: The CrossFit workouts are engineered to expand the margins of exposure as broad as function and capacity will allow. Cross training is one of the four CrossFit defining themes.

• [page 7]: Functional Movements

• [page 7]: Squatting is standing from a seated position; deadlifting is picking any object off the ground.They are both functional movements. Leg extension and leg curl both have no equivalent in nature and are in turn nonfunctional movements. The bulk of isolation movements are non-functional movements. By contrast the compound or multi-joint movements are functional. Natural movement typically involves the movement of multiple joints for every activity.

• [page 7]: The importance of functional movements is primarily two-fold. First of all the functional movements are mechanically sound and therefore safe, and secondly they are the movements that elicit a high neuroendocrine response.

• [page 7]: The soundness and efficacy of functional movement is so profound that exercising without them is by comparison a colossal waste of time.

• [page 8]: Diet

• [page 8]: Protein should be lean and varied and account for about 30% of your total caloric load. Carbohydrates should be predominantly low-glycemic and account for about 40% of your total caloric load. Fat should be predominantly monounsaturated and account for about 30% of your total caloric load.

• [page 8]: In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar.

• [page 8]: Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health.

• [page 8]: Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all circumspect.

• [page 8]: Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is the primary culprit in nutritionally caused health problems. High glycemic carbohydrates are those that raise blood sugar too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas, and most processed carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding, and refining. Processing of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to elevate blood sugar.

• [page 8]: The problem with high-glycemic carbohydrates is that they give an inordinate insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been positively linked to obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, blood pressure, mood dysfunction and a Pandora’s box of disease and disability.

• [page 8]: Current research strongly supports the link between caloric restriction and an increased life expectancy.

• [page 8]: The CrossFit prescription allows a reduced caloric intake and yet still provides ample nutrition for rigorous activity.