Not even just 'Frenemies?" CrossFit and the NPGL

The teams of the inaugural season of the NPGL. (adapted from NPGL.com)

You ever notice how there are those combinations of things that just ought to be GREAT, but ultimately, just fail to stick together? Vinegar and oil. Mentos and Diet Coke. [Insert some trendy celebutant] and [Insert some other celebutant]?!

Who are these people?! (Just kidding, Ozzy rules!!)

I'd have thought, after 10 years of steady growth, of really enjoying the thrill of kicking pretty much the entire fitness industry in the collective nuts (1), CrossFit TM would enjoy a new bit of friendly competition. It certainly gives another aspect into the dominance they have over the performance fitness universe they ultimately built from the ground up (2). Or, given that seemingly 90+% of their on- and off-Grid talent is coming out of the CrossFit community, the NPGL would be eager (or at least not reluctant) to name what appears, at least for now, to be the very best way to get in shape for their new sport!

Instead, we get this weird radio silence. Which isn't EVEN as good as if there were outright hostilities, so at least we'd all know where we all stood. Nope, this is like when parents are fighting, but the shouting has stopped... and the house is now icily quiet. Every one keeps their heads down, tries not to drop anything, or in any way add to the tension...

I've watched two 2-hour NPGL competitions so far. Wall-to-wall in CrossFitters. I literally JUST watched some of them at the CrossFit Regionals this year. They interviewed them. The C-word never ONCE came up. I can ONLY assume they've been banned (or at least strongly warned) against using it, but why? Marcus Hendren is on the DC Brawlers, who just edged out the NY Rhinos (still not sure about the name, kids). Why do I know who the goober with the iffy hair who exercises really well is? CrossFit. His interview? "I'm here with the team, we're gonna try to work together, communication, Grid, opportunity, Grid, Brawlers.... blah blah blah." Not one mention of "I came in fourth place to some seriously god-like MFers at the Central East Regionals, which means *I'm* pretty much god-like, and I'm gonna rip some shit up and show people what CrossFittians can do!! Hendren SMASH!! "

"Hendren SMASH!!" If he didn't yell that, it was a missed opportunity. (carrotsncake.com)

On the other hand, the NPGL commentators were reduced to having ***NOTHING*** to talk about. Where did all these ridiculously fit young (and slightly older) fitness athletes come from? Apparently vomited forth from the Grid itself, given there was NO background given for anyone. There was much talk about "generalists" vs. "specialists," which *I* know meant "well-rounded CrossFitter" vs. "powerlifter/gymnast specialist." Which again, would be OK if there was enough discussion of that actually means, in other words, who's made what trade-offs in their training. 10 heavy deadlifts coming up? Gimme a cockstrong deadlifter who can lift 10x as much, so can bomb through them! Need someone to knock out 20 bar over burpees? Apparently (according to the DC/NY match) a gymnast is what you need to bomb them out in 20 seconds... but WHY is that the case over a generalist? You know, and *I* know, but to whoever might be discovering the sport on their own... there's just NO background, no discussion....

"So, this guy comes to us from... uh, whatever. You know? Just... whatever, man. You're not my dad." (shutterstock.com)

From the other camp, CrossFit has seen fit to try to hype up EVERY big name convert to the sport.... but to very little effect, so far.  Footballer Discovers CrossFit. Basketballer Discovers CrossFit. Opera Singer Discovers CrossFit. Oddly enough (as awesome as each of those stories was), there's never any follow up. Why? Probably because when someone from an EXTREMELY skill-based sport, which is also EXTREMELY competitive just to make it to the highest levels, who has already completed 99.9% of the work to be at the top, adding in some CrossFit to the mix won't make that much difference.(3)

Granted, the CrossFit influence on the world of Olympic weightlifting have been (and will continue to be) massive, with record-breaking attendance numbers and participation... and some pretty impressive numbers being posted by CrossFitters in their debut meets. And NO ONE shies away from saying what gym a competitor lifts at, CrossFit or not.

But NOW, here's an entire sport LITERALLY grown out of the fertile land Coach Glassman tilled and sewed with his free online workouts for crazy people. (OK, can you have a *literal* metaphor? Bah...)  Nearly every single competitor is from a CrossFit gym, and if NOT, *that's* interesting, too. Who ELSE is creating athletes good at this? Don't we want to know? I do!! Are ALL former-college gymnasts bound to be good? Former collegiate football players? Some sub-set? Where do they train? How do they train? Maybe its just me being a coach and all... but to me, the training is as exciting as the final competition. Maybe even more so. That one-second fault for a bad tag doesn't mean as much if I don't have a good feel for which team seems like they *ought* to win, based on training and experience. Which means constant and repeated mentions for various CrossFit (and other) gyms. Which means free advertising for the Mothership. But I guess that's a... bad thing? Also, athletes being paid to be athletes, which is a model CrossFit has never once even dabbled with, so does it still count as competition? Again... is that a bad thing? How many professional "CrossFitters" are there? Rich and Samantha clearly made good cash last year... how many others made enough to live on? Any?

I guess when I started writing this, I was sort of hoping I'd stumble into some sort of epiphany about why things are the way they are between CrossFit HQ and the NPGL. (For the record, every time I use both names in a single sentence, I get a thrill of excitement. I sort of assume I'll get a letter from the Russels or mocked by Drywall. This paragraph is made of pure internet win... and or fail. We'll see.) In the end, I don't know. I just don't know. How is Crossfit not a sponsor of the NPGL? Is Reebok planning on swooping in? Their CrossFittian shoes ought to be just as stellar for Grid workouts, no?

Oh, Flying Spaghetti Monster, my eyes, MY EYES!! Somewhere, Coach (Baby) Mark just started giggling and he doesn't know why. (pfitpfun.com review of the Reebok ATV 19x, and they apparently LOVED them... oof. My eyes.)

In the end, I got nothing. I ought to have two things to really like, without worry that, like bickering parents, there's suddenly going to be an all-out war and eventual divorce... which would suck for everybody involved.

Notes:
(1) Yes, for all the powerlifters and bodybuilders, and basically everyone else who ALREADY had a gym obsession, CrossFit has been and always will be stupid to you, because it doesn't meet your goals. That's perfectly OK. In the same way that doing the same three lifts (and an infinite number of accessory lifts) and wearing 3-ply canvas underwear is stupid to me (it really is), that doesn't mean that what powerlifters do in pursuit of a 1,000# squat is any less valid. Its my opinion. Yours is yours. Opinions are like assholes. Mine smells like roses.

(2) Yes, some other names helped build the foundation and provided competitive support along the way. This isn't about them, and not having TV, I don't have to hear their annoying-as-crap infomercials anymore, so I can't even remember the names. Q-80-Z? Linsanity? Was that a thing?

(3) Now, those kids we're building from the ground up with massively improved General Physical Preparedness and solution sets... gonna be monsters. Go google the Martin kids from CrossFit Brand X. MONSTERS.

12-07-13: Friday the 13th Triplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday the 13th, July 2012

The overhead squat (shown to not-quite full-depth, though as always, it could just be a timing artifact, and she's .1 seconds before or after hitting full depth). As always, the hip crease should be BELOW the top of the knee. Way easier said than typed...

Former CrossFit-trainer and Paleo-guru Robb Wolf coaches the proper bottom position of the OHS. (crossfit)

This is how we got the bar into position, with the addition of getting the bar behind our heads BEFORE jerking it overhead, so that it would go straight up into the right position. We also didn't drop it and celebrate as soon as we got it up there... Natalie Burgener was really just doing a classic clean & jerk. 

Sage Burgener demos more proper clean & jerk technique. The other difference to note is that, when using this as the set-up for the OHS, the hand position ends up quite a bit wider, and the final foot stance stays closer to that in the 4th frame (top right), rather than closing up after the jerk to get the bar overhead. (crossfit)

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet showing awesome overhead squat positioning down in the bottom.  (CrossFit Games)

Original Firebreather Greg Amundson shows off perfect form coming out of the hole. (CrossFit)

CrossFit HQ's trainer Nicole Carroll looks way too comfortable in the bottom position. (CrossFit)

Proper box jumping, though I'd say the trunk lean in the very first frame might be a bit excessive. Still, going into and out of the slight squat, his trunk is kept mostly upright (as compared to having that much lean in the 4th frame), which saves considerable energy and wear-n-tear on the back.

Banded pull-ups. A necessary evil, I guess... Must get stronger, dammit! 

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet mid-muscle-up, proving exactly why ring dips are so obviously crucial to the movement! (CrossFit Games)

---

WoD: 3 Rounds for Time

• 2 Overhead Squats @ 75% of Bodyweight or 1RM OHS = 95#
• 5 Box Jumps 30"
• 7 Dead Hang Pullups (blue band)

As I'm writing this, I'm also watching the 2012 Reebok Crossfit Games. It's refreshing to remind myself just how far I have to go if I ever want to pretend to compete on that stage (having paid my $20 get immediately eliminated in this year's Open leading up to the Games.) Damn impressive, even if, as usual, the chuckleheads posting on the live stream are (at least some of them) among the very worst that CrossFit has to offer. (As a side note, this week saw the shutting down of Beast Modal Domains, aka the Conscience of HQ, and the epic ignoring of CrossFit Mean Streets proving themselves to be the biggest d-bags on the planet...) I may yet end up writing a full opinion-piece on all of that... with the reminder to my few readers that, though I'm affiliated with a gym, I'm not an employee and my views are my own. (In other words, HQ can piss up a rope if they think they can shut me down by pressuring my affiliate or by sending anonymous packages to my employers. That post will actually be called "In Defense of CrossFit," but it will NOT be a kool-ade zombie defense...)

OK, back on topic. After a few days off, it was time for my first quick burner in some time. Overhead squats, limited more by my 1RM than my bodyweight, box jumps, and pull-ups. The only scaling I opted for was a band on the pull-ups. 7 rounds of 3 I would have done unbanded. 3 rounds of 7 is just too many at once. (Have I mentioned lately that I really need to tighten way up on my diet? It'll make things like pull-ups MUCH easier...) My overhead form on the OHS is getting much better, and I felt pretty solid warming up to my game weight of 95# (75% of my 1RM of 125#).  For this workout, we had to clean it from the bar, get it behind the head, then jerk it up overhead into the OHS squat position... more on that later.  Box jumps were no sweat. Banded pull-ups... well, they'll always annoy me.

First round went pretty much to plan. Annoyingly, in the second and third rounds, I struggled to keep the weight overhead on the 2nd OHS rep of each round. Though I didn't get no-repped, I decided then and there I would be doing some extra work after the WoD to make up for it. I finished with a total time of 3:58, with at least a minute of that coming while dealing with the barbell. I was usually able to get it cleaned up to the shoulders pretty quickly, and then behind the neck. After that, there was usually a (seemingly eternal) struggle to figure out hand placement and foot position. I kept trying to put my feet too wide or angled too far out, but then knowing that from that position, I'd set myself up for some severe knee caving action. So then the feet would have to come back in prior to starting a rep. All in all, it left me really distracted for the actual lifts, so in that light, its not surprising I was dumping to the front coming out of the second rep.

After the workout, I worked with Coach Greg for a bit on hand and foot positioning, and then banged out a set of 5 reps at 95#, all of which felt better than ANY of the reps in the workout. Hm, in hindsight, that does actually raise a complaint for me: I truly believe in the CrossFit approach of Mechanics -> Consistency -> Intensity. Given that, at the first moment I started struggling with form, I probably should have shit-canned the WoD for myself, and just focused on putting in solid work on the OHS all by itself. Dammit...

After my remedial OHS work, I set up some rings, which I haven't been on in a fairly long time, and put in some time working ring dips and ring rows. At some point (again, after finally getting food and diet stuff locked in, and some gut-padding shedded), I'd really like to start working towards a muscle-up. Finally. ;)  One thing I can't wait for is this: Finally buying a house (cleared for closing and mortgage stuff) in August. I'll finally be able to set-up the garage gym, and *this* time I'm planning on making full use of it. Rings, olympic bar and all. w00t!

12-01-29: The Reebok CrossFit commercial

The Reebok:CrossFit Commercial 

During the 2011 NFC championship game, the world of fitness was changed forever when this little gem was aired for the first time:



Wow, I mean just wow, right? Seriously, the sport of fitness HAS arrived. Of course, all hell broke loose on the interwebz, with those FOR Reebok:CrossFit acting like the tide has completely turned, and now everyone on the planet will clearly begin CrossFitting tomorrow (or maybe the next day). On the other hand, holy crap, the haters couldn't fall out of the woodwork fast enough to start shitting all over it. My personal take on it? I think the commercial is a wretched pile of horse manure. Despite how truly "punny" the red box imagery is,* and they are *fairly* iconic, they also make the entire CrossFit "thing" seem pre-packaged and assembly line. Given that most of the pre-existing confusion about CrossFit is based on the unfounded assumption that there is no scaling or substitutions, and that its a one-size-fits-all approach, I personally kind of hate any things that could feed into that misconception.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and for what it's worth, if someone told me that the decision was made to actively ignore the idiot haters and just go for it, I would actually appreciate that. I would even support it. However, after the questionable image decision, (which lasts for most of the commercial, by the way), comes the 10-15 seconds of utter shitting-of-the-sheets. Not-Unfit-Hipster-Man opens the box and is treated to a hip, fast, exciting, MTV-generation jump-cut medley of insanely fit people doing insanely intense workouts. What's wrong with that? Well, from the beginning, one of the main points of CrossFit's infinitely scalable workouts is that ANYONE can do it, from (yes, ok) the strongest, fastest athletes on the planet all the way down to you, me, and our parents and kids. Funny. I don't see any of *us* in that commercial. While I might be impressed by the commercial, I don't feel represented. At all. In fact, after 3 years of CrossFitting, I'm actually feeling a little LESS "CrossFitty" as a result of this.

Reebok:CrossFit followed it up with this much improved attempt:



Again, only the strong, fast, and beautiful are represented. Its impressive and striking, but its in NO way representative of everything that CrossFit can be. And AGAIN, having somewhat left themselves open to criticism. Beautiful case in point: Fitness Lonnie.



Sheer poetry. But, on the other hand, once upon a time, the people in charge knew how to make a commercial.


 Two words (sorry Mom): FUCK YEAH. (If I could make that blink, I would.) I want to do THAT. It looks hard, but rewarding. There are insanely impressive athletes and AVERAGE JOES, working out side-by-side. There's yelling, intensity, coaching, support, and COMMUNITY. On top of that, go to youtube and search for "What is CrossFit". There are a metric crap-ton of videos created by the various affiliates, each one showing their own individual character and traits.

So, while I personally think that the *business* part of the Reebok:CrossFit crossover is pretty impressive, I'm left a bit cold by their marketing attempts. Their clothing line is boring to look upon, but according the athletes being given lots of free Reebok gear, its insanely comfortable to work-out in, and, its possible (if unlikely) that they may even improve performance. The co-sponsorship of the CrossFit Games got them onto ESPN 2, which is kind of awesome. Here again, only the shiny awesometastic athletes get featured on the games, so while they're fun to watch, and in a few years, I would LOVE to compete at the Masters level (against the aging but still awesometastic current champions), they still don't really reflect on the other 99% of us out there.

*CrossFit gyms tend to be devoid of equipment, compared to the average $10/month gym which is just loaded with equipment, wall to wall. With the comparative lack of equipment, a CrossFit gym looks more like an empty box. Get it? Isn't the red box imagery awesome in that light?