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> It looks exhausting. It's meant to be exhausting. What does the author think working out is about? > It also looks fruitless. Why not join a roofing > c

> It looks exhausting. 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. - 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. - That said, Crossfit could stand to lose some of its cult trappings.

shin_lao 12y ago
I'm also disappointed by this article. High intensity workouts are actually the golden way toward strength building. Of course like any sport you need a certain degree of supervision to prevent injuries. Where's the author getting at?
- Anderkent 12y ago
  > Where's the author getting at? > High intensity workouts are actually the golden way toward strength building. Well, this. Why is strength building considered worthwhile?
  - JanezStupar 12y ago
    Why do we build foundations for the structures that we build?
    - Anderkent 12y ago
      We do that when it's necessary for stability of the structure, not as a goal to itself. What is strength useful for? (and yes, this is a rephrase of the previous question because of your non-answer)
      - Swizec 12y ago
        What is strength useful for, what is strength useful for!? Every man (and woman) should be able to save their own life and possibly the lives of their loved ones -> http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be-able-to-save-his-own-life-5-fitness-benchmarks-a-man-must-master/ http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be... 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. Bottom line, strength is good for you.
        Anderkent 12y ago
        Haha that link is hilarious. You can do 15 pull-ups? Well, then you don't have to worry about any emergencies. It'll save you if you get into a car accident, surely. And yeah, sorry, but 'get more strength so you can eat more' isn't really very convincing.
        Swizec 12y ago
        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.
  - shin_lao 12y ago
    If you set aside looks, better sleep and overall better mood, core strength is vital to good health. Unless you think back pain is cool, of course. Your body is supposed to get moving.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  This 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).
  - Anderkent 12y ago
    Most people I know who swim do it either because they enjoy it or because it's supposed to help their back.
    - shin_lao 12y ago
      Nothing will help your back more than squats and deadlifts. But swimming is excellent as well.
netcan 12y ago
That said, in the grand scheme of things, it's a peculiar cultural trend.
ovi256 12y ago
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.
- Thriptic 12y ago
  > People do high weight, low rep workouts indeed, but that's bodybuilding or olympic weightlifting That's powerlifting or olympic lifting* Bodybuilding employs higher rep and lower weight hypertrophy workouts.
- eyeJam 12y ago
  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]. Sources: [1] http://smscsqlx.sasktelwebhosting.com/services/exphys/wts%26plyos.pdf http://smscsqlx.sasktelwebhosting.com/services/exphys/wts%26... [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. [3] http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/852/Hang_Clean_vs_Power_Clean.aspx http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Art...
pnt12 12y ago
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.
- omegaham 12y ago
  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!"
  - shasta 12y ago
    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?
    - omegaham 12y ago
      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.
      - Jtsummers 12y ago
        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.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        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.

shin_lao 12y ago

I'm also disappointed by this article. High intensity workouts are actually the golden way toward strength building. Of course like any sport you need a certain degree of supervision to prevent injuries. Where's the author getting at?

Anderkent 12y ago
> Where's the author getting at? > High intensity workouts are actually the golden way toward strength building. Well, this. Why is strength building considered worthwhile?
- JanezStupar 12y ago
  Why do we build foundations for the structures that we build?
  - Anderkent 12y ago
    We do that when it's necessary for stability of the structure, not as a goal to itself. What is strength useful for? (and yes, this is a rephrase of the previous question because of your non-answer)
    - Swizec 12y ago
      What is strength useful for, what is strength useful for!? Every man (and woman) should be able to save their own life and possibly the lives of their loved ones -> http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be-able-to-save-his-own-life-5-fitness-benchmarks-a-man-must-master/ http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/15/every-man-should-be... 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. Bottom line, strength is good for you.
      - Anderkent 12y ago
        Haha that link is hilarious. You can do 15 pull-ups? Well, then you don't have to worry about any emergencies. It'll save you if you get into a car accident, surely. And yeah, sorry, but 'get more strength so you can eat more' isn't really very convincing.
        Swizec 12y ago
        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.
- shin_lao 12y ago
  If you set aside looks, better sleep and overall better mood, core strength is vital to good health. Unless you think back pain is cool, of course. Your body is supposed to get moving.
raverbashing 12y ago
This 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).
- Anderkent 12y ago
  Most people I know who swim do it either because they enjoy it or because it's supposed to help their back.
  - shin_lao 12y ago
    Nothing will help your back more than squats and deadlifts. But swimming is excellent as well.

netcan 12y ago

That said, in the grand scheme of things, it's a peculiar cultural trend.

ovi256 12y ago

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.

Thriptic 12y ago
> People do high weight, low rep workouts indeed, but that's bodybuilding or olympic weightlifting That's powerlifting or olympic lifting* Bodybuilding employs higher rep and lower weight hypertrophy workouts.
eyeJam 12y ago
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]. Sources: [1] http://smscsqlx.sasktelwebhosting.com/services/exphys/wts%26plyos.pdf http://smscsqlx.sasktelwebhosting.com/services/exphys/wts%26... [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. [3] http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/852/Hang_Clean_vs_Power_Clean.aspx http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Art...

pnt12 12y ago

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.

omegaham 12y ago
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!"
- shasta 12y ago
  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?
  - omegaham 12y ago
    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.
    - Jtsummers 12y ago
      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.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      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.