CrossFit + traditional lifting

[etownfit]

What are your thoughts on combining CrossFit/power lifting and traditional body building regiments to prepare for a bikini/figure comp? Has any one tried it?

[gearbox]

I love cf cause it focuses on squat clean Deads pull ups. Doing there work outs your burning some serious calories. Assuming you can maintain a steady pace for 20 mins or so.
Certain cf work outs are similar to HIT style lifting.

[Doom44]

Cross fit is metabolic training. Different than bb hit training. They are not the same

[gearbox]

I said certain work outs
Like doing Deads then going over to squat with no rest and its quick high intensity
But yes many cf routines are.totally different. Some days its all running jumping etc..

[Doom44]

I see. How do you think about cf? Alots of crossfitter get injure by doing cf wod. Do you experience any injure?

[etownfit]

I see. How do you think about cf? Alots of crossfitter get injure by doing cf wod. Do you experience any injure?

I'll have to say as a crossfit coach ive observed that injuries in CrossFit happen due to bad coaching, not giving your body proper rest and inability to leave the ego at the door... I travel a lot and every time I do I try to stop in at different crossFit boxes; nothing errks me more than seeing a coach watching someone do a movement with bad form letting it go just so they can finish the work out
I have made people I coach strip weight off if they consistently keep doing bad form after I correct them

[etownfit]

I'll have to say as a crossfit coach ive observed that injuries in CrossFit happen due to bad coaching, not giving your body proper rest and inability to leave the ego at the door... I travel a lot and every time I do I try to stop in at different crossFit boxes; nothing errks me more than seeing a coach watching someone do a movement with bad form letting it go just so they can finish the work out
I have made people I coach strip weight off if they consistently keep doing bad form after I correct them

And I have experienced injuries from doing CrossFit and it's because I haven't given myself a proper rest time

[etownfit]

Cross fit is metabolic training. Different than bb hit training. They are not the same

Its come along way in terms of programming a lot of people are starting to focus on Olympic lifts and heavy...I started following outlaw programming it's the best I've found so far a lot of technical heavy lifting introducing things that Crossfit really didn't use before like bench press banded or chain deads ect
the metcons are heavy but you are forced to pace not sprint through it

[NightStalker]

I agree etown... injuries in CF are typically associated with bad form and/or not enough rest.
I will say that CF is very "pull" heavy, i.e. pull-ups, C2B, MU, snatches, cleans which can lead to muscle unbalance in the upper body. There are very few exercises that work heavy chest and tri (primarily just dips, PU and MU). I feel the shoulder issues I have had are because of this unbalance and I have started to incorporate bench, flat bench dumbbell press, dips and tricep extensions into my routine 2-3 times a week. Positive results thus far...

[cj111]

CF is great. I don't necessarily do all the workouts they do, but applying that style of training to an ordinary gym session , the high intensity, has worked wonders on my body.
I haven't done a bicep curl in 3 months and still have same size arms, if no bigger.
Haven't isolated the tris either, just do dips and push press, and they are still big.
I got bored of the monotonous gym routine , ie arm day leg day blah blah. This was just a refreshing change! Plus its hard as hell to boot

[ObviousDecoy]

Olympic lifts are fun. I often start a workout with a few sets of power cleans to get my heart going. Anything to avoid doing cardio

[evander87]

For bikini division? You'll be just fine. Lift heavy on your heavy lift days and CF only on cardio days. Making sure you LISTEN TO YOUR BODY and if you need a rest day TAKE IT. YOu look pretty lean in your AVI depending on how far out from show you are, or this is off season you can bump up your calorie intake and grow the muscles.

If you decide to bump up to figure then you're going to want to add more heavy lifting days and less CF days.

[Doom44]

Good read.

The Fallacy of High-Rep Olympic Lifting
by Mark Rippetoe - 8/26/2013

Here's what you need to know...

o High-rep snatches or clean and jerks can be done safely by very experienced Olympic lifters. But they wouldn't do them anyway because there's no purpose.

o The average person who does high-rep Olympic lifts is a walking encyclopedia of bad, unsafe, and unproductive form.

o Snatches and clean and jerks, as technique-dependent lifts, fall apart easily in the presence of fatigue.

o There's a time for conditioning, but there are better ways to do it than to perform the Olympic lifts like a jackass.

The use of high-rep snatches and clean and jerks for conditioning must be evaluated in the context of the program. Are we using them for exercise or training? And does it really matter?

First, if an experienced Olympic lifter wants to use snatches and C&Js for conditioning or on a dare, sure, go ahead. An experienced lifter actually knows how to do them correctly. And he has had back position and lockout technique hammered into his head enough that these important factors will not erode that much with fatigue - the reps will just be rested longer in between.

So, for an experienced lifter, high-rep snatches won't be a problem. But such a person won't do them anyway, since high-rep snatches don't accomplish anything productive.

For casual exercisers, CrossFit-types and the like, the calculation is a bit different. The vomit I see on the internet - complete lumbar flexion, everything pressed out, everything intentionally rebounded from the floor, all done under the watchful eye of some moron saying "Nice!" - makes me of two minds.

Part of me hopes the fools hurt themselves badly (after all, orthopedic surgeons gotta eat too), and part of me hopes their incompetent, stupid-ass coaches all die in a great Job-like mass of infection (boils, abscessed hemorrhoids, lungs full of fluid, etc.).

It's both an embarrassment to watch and a testament to the fact that apparently tens of thousands of people don't know what the **** they are doing, and have no apparent desire to learn.


But Are They Good for Conditioning?
But the real question here is this: what do you hope to accomplish by doing high-rep snatches, done either correctly or incorrectly? And in either case, is there a better alternative, and why?

"Conditioning" is the use of high-intensity, longer-duration glycolytic exercise to elevate heart rate and respiration rate for the purpose of adapting to this type of work. Conditioning is a type of stress to which the body quickly adapts.

You know this is true if you've been paying attention. It doesn't take an already-strong person more than three or four weeks to get back into very good condition if he has somehow lost it. But it takes a distance runner a couple of years to get strong if he's never been strong before.

The task of getting strong vs. the task of getting in condition presents a problem, since the two types of adaptation compete for resources within the organism in a predictable way: conditioning interferes with strength acquisition, and strength training improves work output without doing any conditioning.

If conditioning is important to you, being stronger should be more important, and getting strong is made a slower process if you try to do conditioning - work that interferes with getting stronger - while trying to get strong. There will be time for conditioning, later. After you get strong.

Using high-rep, light-weight "snatches" and "clean and jerks" for the purpose of conditioning is rather pointless, in that these two technique-dependent movements break down under fatigue, especially for a person for whom technique and strength has not been previously established.

For everybody that does them, doing high numbers of reps with light weights and bad form adapts you to doing precisely that: lots of very light reps, done wrong. So doing them this way can't possibly make you better at doing snatches and C&Js, it can't make you stronger, and there are much better and safer ways to do conditioning... when it's time to do conditioning.


So Why Do Them?

Because the "WOD" says so? Because they're "fun"? Because everybody else in the class is doing them, so you have to? Because they "gas" you? Because you want to get "smoked" with a movement that isn't boring, because you're not "tired" of doing them yet because you haven't practiced them enough to really even have any idea at all about how to do them correctly?

If this is the case, you're not training the snatch and the C&J anyway. You're just exercising with them.


From Exerciser to Trainer
What's the difference? I'll refresh your memory. Briefly, capital-"T" Training is the process of driving a physical adaptation in a specific direction for a specific purpose, while capital-"E" Exercise is what we do for the way it makes us feel today: before, during, and after the workout itself.

For most people - housewives, car salesmen, fat people, the dull and torpid - Exercise is enough. It's better than sitting on your ass. But at some point, some of these people will graduate to Training, and when this happens, planning must occur.

Planning means that there will be lots of days when your workout doesn't make you feel like you want it to, but because you're now Training, you do it anyway, because it's part of the process that generates the result for which you planned.


Effective Conditioning
If you want to do conditioning effectively, push the Prowler, run some hills, or do some sprints. They're easier to dose accurately, they don't make you look like an inexperienced fool, and they lack the injury potential of rounded-back, incorrectly-locked-out-overhead, bounced-off-the-floor barbell movements.

They are a much better alternative because they can be programmed into your Training. If you want to do some explosive conditioning work that won't be detrimental to your shoulder and back health (and your self-worth), do some kettlebell swings or some dumbbell snatches. Leave the Olympic lifts to the Olympic lifters.

But if you just want some Exercise, enjoy yourself, make sure you pay your gym dues, and everybody will be happy.