Maybe it's time constraints, as everyone works more hours they don't have time for steady low-intensity exercise so they must pack it into shorter more intense sessions.
It's meant to be exhausting. What does the author think working out is about?
> It also looks fruitless. Why not join a roofing
> crew for a few hours instead?
The author is fairly disconnected from reality, and has also failed to do the very basic research to answer her own title.
People do high weight, low rep workouts because they take little time and provide high value. (Also for a segment of people the body releases endorphines in response to strenous activity.)
The author also manages to completely fail to build a logical connection between two things they wrote themselves:
> more than a little dangerous. (What if a sledgehammer slips
> paying .... watchful eye of a demanding authority figure
The authority figure's job is to make sure the former doesn't happen.
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If the author wasn't so earnestly clueless i'd think this is a troll article meant to engender annoyance in anyone with a little clue.
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That said, Crossfit could stand to lose some of its cult trappings.
Strength also correlates with muscle mass (you need them to be strong) and muscle burns a lot of energy, which means you will both be less cold in winter AND be able to eat more food healthily. Food is tasty.
It actually might save you in a car crash. Strength makes it less likely to dislocate joints and also makes it moderately likelier that you will be able to pull yourself out of a wreck. Being in good shape also makes adrenaline more useful because your body can actually do stuff.
And good cardio form helps with the old ticker not getting tired out too much after spikes in heart rate, spikes also tend to last less time.
Furthermore, scares won't give you a heart attack because high heart rate won't be a shock to your body (afaik heart attacks happen when the body gets shocked and things sticking to your artery walls get dislodged and travel to bad parts of your body to form clots).
And I guess you just don't like food all that much.
Sure, but the subset of situations where it will save you is so small and the level of effort required high enough that you can't really argue that you should become strong because it will help you survive.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with exercising in order to be healthy, or to look good, or for fun if that's ones fancy. But the fascination with physical strength that seems to be fairly common boggles me.
In realm of physical activity, getting stronger means getting faster, more agile, better precision and increasing ones endurance. And as an added bonus mental state improves as well.
An athlete wants to have as good a ratio between mass and strength as possible.
Thus when I was pursuing strength I was doing it for the sake of increasing my athletic performance.
A moderate level of strength and endurance is beneficial. Longterm, for your health. As you get older maintaining your physical strength becomes more difficult. Starting off with a decent level of fitness as your body begins to decline will put you in a better spot at 70 than someone who struggled up stairs when they were young.
Here's a practical one, not being winded at the top of the stairs. I work on the 3rd floor of a building. There's one elevator, it's painfully slow. Most people take the stairs. Every day people pass by my cubicle (near the entrance) winded from their walk across the parking lot and up the stairs. That's pathetic (having been there myself a couple years back, it's depressing too).
Have or want children? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to play with them for more than 10 minutes before feeling exhausted? Or to be able to carry them in from the car when they've passed out (or pretended to be asleep), even when they're older than 2 or 3?
Ever find your home office has filled with clutter and wanted to clean it out? Being able to carry out a box of trash or recyclables or giveaway stuffs without needing to stop every 10' or carry one item at a time is nice.
EDIT: I'm not in great shape, that's been my state for 10 years now. I am, however, in better shape now than most of that decade. Beyond the practical uses of this physical condition, it's helped me out in a number of other ways. I'm more alert. I sleep better (those two are, of course, related). I'm more attractive (hey, no more double chin!) which also helps with self-esteem. My mood is generally better (if you read my post history you'll find a history of depression, I won't say fitness has eliminated it, but it certainly is helping for me).
Back to (somewhat) practical uses of better strength. I'm able to help friends with tasks around their homes instead of trying to come up with excuses to avoid it (because I was, for a time, more of a drag in those cases than a help). I can go play laser tag without collapsing at the end (4 years ago, it was embarrassing). Bowling, not the most demanding of games, no longer exhausts my arms (I bowl both left and right handed).
Cool, these are some good examples. I'd say though that they're more examples of moderate fitness (someone who regularly exercises should be able to do all that, I think? I mean, I do basically no exercise but can go up five floors being maybe a little out of breath, but not 'winded'. depends on the pace, I guess?), rather than what the article talks about.
From the article:
> By the ’90s, when the soft curves of Ursula Andress had been replaced by the hard bodies of Cindy Crawford and Elle Macpherson, you still worked out to prepare for the beach or the bedroom. These days, though, you aren’t preparing for fun or romance. You’re preparing for an unforeseen natural disaster, or a burning building, or Armageddon.
>“We have sought to build a program that will best prepare trainees for any physical contingency — not only for the unknown, but for the unknowable.” This dark talk passes for welcoming language on the website of CrossFit, the intense, ultracompetitive conditioning program whose motto, “Forging Elite Fitness,” reflects our current fascination with both elite athletes and elite military forces.
Most exercise is an exercise (pun intended) in futility. Sure, running/swimming will burn calories and increase muscle mass (in the case of swimming)
Do you know what else burns calories? Muscle mass
But of course they buy the common mindset of this being dangerous, etc. I'd risk to say the risk of injuries in lifting weights is much less than in other sports (maybe except swimming).
People do high weight, low rep workouts indeed, but that's bodybuilding or olympic weightlifting. Crossfit is more a middle weight / middle rep style, looking to develop power more than force. Even endurance is emphasised more than force.
This style of workout is aerobically exhausting (it leaves you breathless), like jogging, and I think this is what the author calls exhausting.
Low-weight high-rep exercises, like they do in Crossfit, will do very little to develop "power" (which I'm assuming you mean to refer to being able to apply a large amount of force across a distance in a very short amount of time, i.e: explosiveness).
Power comes from fast-twitch type 2b muscle fibers, and the amount you have varies based on your genetic makeup [2]. Its possible to recruit the other types of muscle fibers to become fast-twitch type 2b but that requires continuous retraining of fibers through plyometrics; as soon as you stop your body will regress to its natural ratio of muscle fiber types. Fast twitch type 2b muscle fiber tires extremely quickly (I remember reading ~10s but I can't find a source) and is not something that can be trained using high-rep exercises [1].
Doing hang-cleans (never do these [3]), sloppy squats, "chin-ups" and other Crossfit staples for time in rapid succession and in high volume will only really help you lose weight and slip a disc in your back, but it will do very little to develop "power". If you want real power and explosiveness train like an Olympic sprinter: high-weight low-rep complex exercises and low-rep plyometrics [1].
[2]
Arabatzi, F, and K Eleftherios. “Olympic weightlifting training causes different knee muscle-coactivation adaptations compared with traditional weight training.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 26.8 (2012): 2192-2201.
The thing about cross fit is that it usually pushes for the "if it's hurting, it's good" mentality, which is not true at all. I find conventional weightlifting gets it much better - lift heavy, watch your form, don't break your back.
This. I have no problem with people who do reps to failure, but I do have a problem with reps for time. As you get tired, your form gets worse and worse. This is fine for calisthenics, (hard to tear something while doing push-ups) but it's bad for heavier weight, and it's ridiculously dangerous for technical lifts like clean and snatch.
I do enjoy joking about WODs, though. "Okay - I'm gonna do AMRAP snatch on a bosu ball, and then do box jumps onto another bosu ball!"
Why is it that 'this' has appeared as a one word response in 3 of the 6 sibling responses to this question? Is it related to the subject matter? Should I start reading 'This.' in a meat-head voice?
I guess it's another way of saying "I agree." I haven't even thought about its connotations, but I do notice that a lot of people say it on /r/fitness. Maybe it is a meathead thing.
I noticed it on reddit in general, not specific to /r/fitness. I don't know if it started there, but it's become pretty widespread as a form of agreement in other forums I frequent and in real life with friends and coworkers using it in their speech.
More like "I agree strongly, your comment captures my exact thoughts, and brings up a very important point". Something I actually learned on HN, but it seems to be imported from Reddit and generally is frowned upon here if sole content of a comment.
Remember kids, you only have a finite amount of connective tissue and cartilage and once its gone its gone. Unless you can pay for a 25000$ exotic platelet rich plasma transfusion or have a secret cache of bio-engineered body parts.
The author is a dink. He doesn't even answer the "why" question. I'll tell ya why: because it works. Your stupid aerobics class does barely anything for your health. Strength and conditioning work out on the other hand, does what your body is meant to do. Yes it's tiring, but that's the point.
Said that, there are some people that take it to extremes, but that is just like in any other industry/sport.
I was under the impression aerobic exercise has benefits for the heart, lungs, and circulation, at least? Can you elaborate on the "barely anything" bit?
I think that's the mindset the author has an issue with. You said "you will get some (benefits) initially but will quickly stall" like it's a bad thing. Fitness doesn't improve forever with any program, you're still going to die.
If you view fitness as a means to an end (health/long life) then you've got to realize there are diminishing returns. There have been many studies showing the diminishing returns kick in very quickly (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/running-just-5-minu...).
If you want to be an elite athlete that's fine, but you should at least acknowledge it's its own reward and not claim it's about health.
When a man sees an ideal male, he aspires to be that man, like James Bond
When a woman sees an ideal woman, she makes a tumblr about how that ideal is not real, or not what men want, or a crazy obsessed person who hates themselves, etc.
Men climb the mountain to reach the top.
Women complain that there is a mountain top, and declare wherever they are to be the new mountain top
James Bond is an utter tosspot though. Emulating him in real life is unlikely to end up with much other than liver cirrhosis and repeatedly being punched in the face.
Earlier comments are already critiquing the author for suggesting that exercise is a bad thing or that particular exercises don't work, but that perspective misses the point. The author isn't criticizing exercise itself, but she is instead observing the almost religious focus on suffering that happens to be embodied by approaches such as Crossfit. I admit to being puzzled as well.
I am perplexed by the degree of what I might call fitness elitism that exists in a nation as fundamentally unfit as the US (I'm American, BTW). I'm seeing a lot of comments about how simple exercise isn't effective and HIT is a necessity, etc. HIT is great, but it's a pretense to suggest that running, biking, or aerobics that raise your heart rate without being tortuous are not also effective exercises that can drastically improve one's health. I feel that there is an unnecessary focus on very intense exercise programs when simple cardiovascular conditioning that nearly anyone can do has the potential to drastically improve the health of so many.
I am not a proponent of Extreme fitness but HIIT is several times more effective then plain running or biking or other activities when you compare it with the time you give.
Maybe the root cause (of interest in HIIT) is the standard American hurry. If we all slowed down we'd probably be more healthy as a people.
Also, there's a difference (and some overlap) between being healthy, and looking ripped. Eg you can be one without the other. One of the reasons I enjoy visiting countries that don't view a rushed and punishing car-commute as normal, is that everyone looks so happy and healthy.
> Maybe the root cause (of interest in HIIT) is the standard American hurry.
I agree, I think that's the root cause. There are more things we'd like to do than time available, so people optimize.
> If we all slowed down we'd probably be more healthy as a people.
Probably true, but unfortunately we don't have much choice. We slave away most of our lives to keep the economy going, so it's hard to slow down. The problem isn't people having too much time for their hobbies.
I think the purpose of crossfit is to get a full body workout that you don't get with running or biking. A lot of the motivation behind exercise is as much about looking good as it is being healthy.
Also pain and pleasure have been human experiences correlated since forever[1]. Just because the author has had a certain upbringing doesn't mean that she is the voice of the reason.
Even leaving neurochemical pathways aside, our culture is like that in many aspects. I mean even selflessness is the way many people understand being a good person, doing something good that feels bad is supposed to be better than doing something good that also feels good. I don't agree with that view, but it's pretty much ingrained with out western culture.
To answer why people would push to get so fit, you have to explain the emotion and motivation behind it. Simply saying it's healthy or makes you strong only extends the question.
Partly they do it because of the emotional reward from exhaustion, progressing overcoming challenges, feeling stronger or more capable, approaching an ideal appearance, comparing themselves to others, and maybe a couple others. I believe all of those things make people feel good and want to continue.
You also have to explain why now compared to a few decades ago, though, which the above doesn't explain.
I think the main reason is that the American environments surround us with gluttonous and unhealthy food and behaviors that, if we didn't work to make ourselves healthy, we could too easily slide down a slippery slope and become. The more junk food and labor-saving devices around us, the greater the temptation, therefore the greater need to resist, therefore the greater enthusiasm to work.
In principle you could test this hypothesis. It suggests that in communities with healthy food and active lifestyles, you'd find less extreme fitness and more regular fitness. In communities with unhealthy food and sedentary lifestyles, you'd find the people who pursued fitness would pursue it more extremely.
FWIW When I, as a European, went to a US high school almost 20 years ago one of the big differences that struck me was that people tended to be either overweight at best or morbidly obese at worst or super skinny and super healthy.
This was my impression too, as an American studying in Europe. I was amazed that everyone seemed to be in "okay" shape, but few people focussed on exercise as in America. They went for walks after meals out of habit, biked places out of convenience, and ate moderately sized meals as normal.
I feel what is really wrong with the article is why do people feel the need to get an explanation for the things others do. Do people really stop to ask themselves why they like the things they themselves like. Every time you like something, do you stop to wonder about the evolutionary or genetic reasons behind your feeling good.
> Every time you like something, do you stop to wonder about the evolutionary or genetic reasons behind your feeling good.
Yes. Deeper understanding of myself and others pays off in a lot of ways -- it helps me find other things I might like (and avoid things I probably won't), helps me predict the future, and helps me connect more deeply with others.
Perhaps it correlates with Americans' obsession with youth? Everyone wants to stay young and working out is the most obvious and effective way of doing that.
A crossfit gym also gives people a sense of being, a sense of purpose, and a 'family'. They don't get this at a traditional gym, even an 'accommodating' one like Planet Fitness.
I think it's a lot simpler than the author is trying to make out:
Traditional gym exercises are boring and hard.
Cardio is boring. 60 minutes on a treadmill, 5 times a week is really boring after a while. All that racking up weights and unracking is tedious. Bicep curls? Tedious. Situps? Tedious.
The reason why people are constantly thinking up new ways to exercise is simply to add a bit of variety and encourage people to keep working out. You can probably get similar results to a sledgehammer drill by doing a combo of situps, pullups and squats, but a lot of people would find that kinda dull and give up after a while.
When you add in the possibility that by doing these "new" exercises they might be getting fitter or stronger in less time than a traditional exercise, it's really quite motivating. It's not necessarily true (I've seen a lot of fads come and go), but if it gets them to keep on exercising, then it's probably worth it.
I think it's not just about boredom, it's about the time it takes. If you can trade 60 minutes on a treadmill 5 times a week for 20 minutes of HIT 3 times a week, that's over three productive hours a week saved already (and more likely 5-10, if you count going to and from gym, additional showering and the fact that it fragments your day if you're not smart about your daily routine).
I'm planning to start HIT for this very reason. I don't like exercising, I have many more interesting things to do, but I need to improve my health. Therefore I seek to maximize effect while minimizing time wasted.
> Cardio is boring. 60 minutes on a treadmill, 5 times a week is really boring after a while.
This is why I don't run or cycle inside. The only reason I took to indoor cycling was because of a back injury that made riding a bike difficult/painful, it's healed up now. For running, the last few months have been fantastic on my usual trail. I've gotten to see flowers bloom and fade, grass go from brown (hot summer) to green again as the temperatures dropped and soon I'll get to see the leaves turn and fall.
High intensity work is nothing new. Anyone who played sports in high school will tell you that practices are all about doing as much volume as you can in the limited time you have after school.
If it works for high school athletes, it works for people who are ten years older, too.
Personally, I look at results. If you can be motivated by Richard Simmons, go for it - the guy is 15 years older than my dad and is still in damn good shape. If you can be motivated by Crossfit, go for it, as long as you aren't getting scoliosis for time. If you can be motivated by the standard bro-split, that's great. Everyone is different.
All I can say is that when I show up to the gym, I'm lifting heavy, and I'm lifting to get freaking tired. It's worked for me. If flouncing on the elliptical for half an hour and doing 3 reps of 10 to success isn't doing anything, you might want to consider changing it up.
Yeah it's basically just conditioning work rebranded. Nothing new that boxers, rugby players, an so on, didn't do before. It's a little bit a "response" to the strength and size centered lifting, or simple endurance cardio.
I think the problem and criticism is that many of those programs aren't programs at all, and they aren't based on anything, not even personal experience. If you look at any elite crossfitter his training is more likely to look like traditional strength training with proper form lifting, plus maybe WOD for the conditioning part, than pure crossfit WOD centered training. Centering the training in whatever weaknesses he may have, and so on. And of course whatever exercise they are planning to compete on.
Of course if your trainer is a good trainer you are going to get that, in a normal gym or in a crossfit gym. The problem is that as a program the base crossfit program doesn't offer much to a novice, except for the community and the encouragement that comes with it to pursue high intensity training. But outside of that the program itself won't offer any proper guiding unless you have a trainer that provides that guiding outside the program.
I think that a lot of people play sports in high school, were in reasonable shape then, and then find themselves in their 20's/30's/etc. in worse shape and uninspired by the routes they can take to get fit.
I remember hating running suicides on the basketball court, but I got into better shape running those than I do running on the treadmill, which I find largely tedious and am constantly finding ways to keep my mind entertained/distracted.
There is also the team aspect. When we did conditioning, we had coaches sharing the same experience. I don't get that running, lifting by myself, doing P90x, or other solitary workouts.
I've never done Crossfit, largely because I find their power lifting routines dangerous, but I can certainly understand why more extreme group exercise is really increasing in popularity. I think a lot of people grew up exercising in similar conditions, know that it worked for them then, and want to find something similar later in life.
As a powerlifter, I still don't really understand the allure of crossfit. You don't develop strength nearly as efficiently as when following powerlifting or olympic lifting routines, you expend exceedingly more effort than traditional routines, and the strength gained isn't nearly as translational (there are few situations where such a blend of strength and endurance would actually be necessary).
Instead of doing crossfit, why not just lift and do HIIT?
Perhaps an element of it is the daily novelty. Maybe people dislike going in and doing the big 3 or olympic lifts every session? I don't really know.
I see a lot of heavy lifters who start out solo, or lift in groups of 2 or maybe 3. They use their time efficiently and get a lot done, they don't spend the whole day in the gym and besides the casual chat with other people in the gym, they don't form a huge group. The heavy lifters do routines that seem impossible to start with. Nobody looks at a powerlifter and says 'sure, I'll do that'. You have to start small, and then good form is really important. Frankly it may even be a bit scary to step into the weight room and start with light weights, unsure of your form.
Then there's cross-fit. It's mostly done in huge groups by people of various levels of fitness. It's very vocal, it's very collective/team based. While exercises are done individually, they're done within a group, often with some form of coaching. Anyone can start, form isn't a priority and from what I've seen, form is adjusted to finish the exercise, meaning you can take shortcuts and use bigger weights and do more reps easier, without actually training as hard as when you'd have used 'proper' form.
It's inviting with low-barriers to entry.
The thing that surprises me is this, once you're doing cross-fit for a few months, get into it, do your reading on diet, resting and exercises, how the hell you can continue doing cross-fit is beyond me.
That having been said, a guy above this post said 'do whatever works for you'. And I really agree with that. Somehow some people really dig cross-fit and it's the only thing that gets them excited about exercise. If that's true, then great. I applaud cross fit for that reason alone. As long as they don't lift really heavy with bad form like I've seen some do, cause that can give you injuries you'll feel every day for the next 20 years. It's that bad.
When I pass a crossfit gym I think, "Hey, that looks like fun." I've never thought that about any standard gym. Olympic lifts are interesting and technical, but I wouldn't call them fun.
I posted this as an answer to a comment, but I think it merits existing as an answer to the OP question.
Why do americans push for extreme fitness? I don't know, I don't even know that they push for extreme fitness, most of them look very fat to me (a lot of us Europeans are following suit extremely quickly) so it's hard to say that a significant amount of the population is pushing towards anything in particular in regards to fitness.
BUT I think fitness is important. I work out multiple times a day and generally spend terrible amounts of time and mental energy towards fitness.
The best explanation, other than "it feels good", I've found about this is an old post by The Art of Manliness - every man (and woman) should be able to save their own life, possibly the lives of their loved ones: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be...
Why? Because one day you might have to and how are you going to feel if you aren't able to?
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