What is CrossFit?

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide. Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.

- CrossFit.com

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Body Weight Strong?

Becoming body weight strong is something I haven't really thought of while doing CrossFit. I've always taken the WOD suggested or created and taken the weight "as is". If I were to do Grace (30 x Clean & Jerks @ 135 lbs) weighing in at 220 lbs myself next to a 180 lbs guy ... how is it fair that he has to do 75% of his body weight where I have to do only 61% of mine? Should I not have to do 165 lbs to equal his percentage of BW?

It didn't really surface until yesterday's WOD with Kelly Hansen and Mike McCune - two strong individuals who weigh in the vicinity of 165 - 180 pounds. We all pushed each other to finish the "Rookie v Veteran" WOD posted here yesterday - had a blast!!!

They struggled on the last two/three rounds of 95# Thrusters but were extremely strong on the other exercises. I had little trouble with the thrusters and ended up finishing about 50 seconds faster than both. But had I increased the thruster weight to 115 lbs (which is the same % of weight for my BW), would I have finished slower?!? That would indicate they are more body weight strong than I am ... and I can't have that now, can I!?! Awesome job to the both of them ... I aspire to be as strong as both of them!!

What are your thoughts? Why do we use the weight prescribed and not increase/decrease to our BW accordingly? Or is the reason to stay the same related to the distance one has to travel ... there is more than 1 component to having "Power" (force x distance / time)?

100 Day Burpee Challenge:
Day 32:
Burpee Buy-In: 528
Burpees Remaining: 4,522

Today's WOD:
Skills Work/Testing:
Pick something you feel is your weakness and test yourself. Weak at rowing, go for a PR in 1K Row or maybe see how many double unders you can do before missing.

1 comment:

Brent Hilton said...

Pretty Good Posts coming from the CF.com site when I posed the same questions ...

"In CrossFit we strive to complete a wide variety of tasks across varying amounts of time. In life the tasks presented may be moving loads in a particular manner, or moving our selves in a particular manner. Life gives us arbitrary loads and arbitrary ways to move our body.
For example, a boulder does not care how much you weigh. It is just a load, and if there comes a situation where you need to lift it, then you just need to lift it regardless of who you are. Power clean perhaps is the best way. A wall does not care how high it is for a 225# guy to climb it. It is just an obstacle, and if you have to climb it, then you must find an effective way to do so. Jumping muscle-up is probably the best way.

Thus we must train for the unknowable. The man/woman who is able to do nearly every task better and faster than anyone else, even the arbitrary tasks, is the fittest person alive."