TNation is often CF unfriendly and was the primary reason that kept me from trying it. I used to run cross country and wrestle in high school, and have always enjoyed workouts that put you on the boarder of throwing up. I’ve seen a bunch of WoD videos that looked insanely tough, and last month while on vacation I joined a CF gym for the week (was either that or Planet Fitness). In the affiliate where I was a daily routine looked something like this:
warm up (3 rounds)
250m row
10 samson stretches
10 lateral lunges
skill (squat)
10, 8, 5, 3, 1
WoD (3 rounds of 21,15,9)
Power Cleans
Toes to bar
box jumps
As you can see, there is a focus on strength with the squats, and conditioning with the WoD.
In the week I was there, I pushed my first prowler, and flipped my first tire. Everyone was very team oriented and even cheered you on (coming from a shitty commercial gym where I say an average of three words a week to other members, I was amazed). The other CF members challenged me (for the love of god I didn’t want some chick or skinny dude to beat me). I haven’t been this motivated since my last high school wrestling practice.
So why does CF get so much hate? My theory is that the cult sports of Powerlifting, O lifting, and Bodybuilding are happy to be just that. Cult sports. All of a sudden this upstart sport of CF uses great marketing and becomes mainstream in just a matter of years. Now the traditional cult sports aren’t the only ones doing “advanced” lifts (I say advanced because of the lack of people in Planet Fitness type gyms doing anything more complicated than a quarter squat on a smith machine). You’ve got thousands of new people doing Power cleans, snatches, and deadlifts who would never have known what a deadlift was, had they stayed at their yoga class at their local commercial gym. And all of a sudden the eliteness of our traditional cult sports is under attack.
Then there’s the form/technique argument that I always hear. When I got into weightlifting I joined an Olympic lifting club. I can confirm that my Olympic coach, is more qualified to teach O lifts than the instructors at your average CF gym, but WTF… the 105lb girls there just want to learn basic form and aren’t competing for a single max effort lift, and they don’t need advanced instruction. And to all the critics, let’s see how good your clean form looks 5 minutes into your WoD.
And that’s my CF observation!