Today’s guest post was written by Charlie Deal. He’s one hell of an athlete and regularly outperforms whippersnappers such as myself. His real job though, is as Chef and Owner of both Jujube in Chapel Hill and Dos Perros in Durham. Previously on Knife City Creamery, he posted his Top 10 Great Beers of 2010. I’ll let Charlie take it from here.
I am not Rich Froning Jr.
And I wasn’t 10 or 15 years ago, or however much older I am than he is. I’m also not Ray Lewis, LeBron James, or any other elite athlete at any sport. I’m just a guy who wanted to get into the best shape of my life. So I started CrossFit.
And it happened. I got into really great shape. Let me back up a bit first. While never an elite athlete, I wasn’t a slouch either. I played sports my entire life and did reasonably well. I got in and out of shape over the years, but the methods I used in my younger, freer years weren’t going to work for me anymore. Quite frankly, because I didn’t have the time, because before, “working out” was just all I did. I was either rock climbing all day, going on long rides, or swimming, or playing competitive sports. It was almost impossible to not be in reasonably good shape. But not anymore. Between the specter of age and time constraints making me pick my spots, I was fighting a losing battle. Until CrossFit.
By the spring of 2009, I’d put on my typical winter layer and was ready to shake it off. I signed up for the CrossFit Durham boot camp and I was off and running. Completely hooked, I transitioned right into the regular programming after 6 weeks and I was excited to find that it was not only effective, but also something I was pretty good at. In the first 2 month, I dropped from 210 to 195, lost 3 inches off my waist, and I was stronger than I’d ever been. That fall, another 5 lbs lighter, I competed in the MS ride, doing two centuries, both under 5 hours, on back to back days, despite the fact that I almost never rode the entire summer. I trained for back-to-back, 20mph centuries working out 1 hour a day, 3 days a week. What’s more, I could now clean and jerk my bodyweight. That’s why CrossFit is so effing great!
Well, something happened. Not to me, and not the effectiveness of the programming, for me, but to CrossFit, itself. Somewhere along the way, everyone started becoming obsessed with the CrossFit Games. Maybe it was all along, but if it wasn’t, it became official. CrossFit was no longer a fitness program. CrossFit was a sport, and everyone tried to figure out how to get best at that sport. Ironic, really, because here I always saw CrossFit as, for lack of a better term, a short cut to getting good at other sports. Take my cycling story, for instance. There’s no way in hell I would have been able to do those centuries, that fast, had I simply been riding for 1 hour, 3x a week, let alone gained the total body strength I’d amassed. But now everyone was looking for the fast track to getting good at the sport of CrossFit.
So, it looks like we’re scrapping traditional programming and turning into weightlifters because, “that’s what Rich Froning does and he finished 2nd in the games”. Not just at my box, but seemingly everywhere. Because that’s all I’m hearing from the CrossFit world, that we’ve got to move on from “sexy metcon”. That, all-of-a-sudden, it stopped working. Well, that’s great. For Rich. But I’m not Rich Froning. I’m a 42-year-old guy who wants to look good with his shirt off and be able to join the fast Sunday ride when I get a chance and not get dropped. If we have a stump in the yard that needs removing, I want to be able to grab a maul and take care of business without fucking up my back. And because I’ve got two restaurants to run, that means I need to figure out how to do that in as little time as possible. And CrossFit, at least the CrossFit that I started doing a few years ago, did that just fine.
Traditional CrossFit may stop being effective once you get to a certain level individually, but it hasn’t stopped being effective in general. So why is everyone so hell bent on fucking with it? I see two reasons.
1) Worst case scenario; out of fear they’re turning into nothing more than a cheerleader, coaches are feeling the need to “evolve” the programming. Simply cycling through the established WODs, just making little tweaks here and there is too boring. Problem is, that thought process is really just masturbatory. The same thing happens in my business. Chefs start making food for chefs, and not for people. They forget what their job is and start doing things to keep themselves interested rather than giving people what they want. Surely there’s a balance, or everyone would just serve hamburgers and chicken, but that balance does lie somewhere short of veering off the path strictly for the sake of self-relevancy. And, at it’s worst, ditching fundamental elements of CrossFit, like Metcon, is just that. Screwing with the program just to show that you’re more than just a disciple.
2) Not as bad but still not great is the notion that, “this is what Froning does”. But I’ve already covered that. I’m happy it works for him, but our goals and our bodies are not remotely the same. And the more the games become about lifting heavy things (as the series of sectional WODs seemed to be), the more focusing on weights at the expense of metcon is going to be more important anyway. Assuming, of course, your goal is to compete at CrossFit.
Which, of course, is the irony. I do sort of want to compete at CrossFit. Every day, at my box. It’s part of what makes CrossFit so damned effective. I’m chasing someone and/or someone is chasing me. Well, I was until they started taking away the clock or only using it to make sure we get our 4 minutes of rest between lifting sets.
So, I guess my question is this: Is CrossFit done being CrossFit? Is it time for me to find a new workout program that fits my needs? Or are we going to put this crap behind us once the games are over and the 99% of us doing this just to stay in shape can stop pretending we’re Rich Froning.
That’s the thing about traditional CrossFit. Outsiders love to take shots at it because they claim it is “one size fits all” training. But the thing is, it works, so they can suck it. But maybe they’re right, to a very small extent. Maybe one size only fits all but the absolute upper echelon. Those guys seemingly need something else. Apparently at least if they want to succeed at the Games. The first time someone told me, “You know, the top competitors aren’t even doing CrossFit,” he said it as if it were an indictment on CrossFit programming. But it’s not. CrossFit works great, provided you have the rather humble goals of being in really great shape. It seems, however, it’s not the best way to get ready to max out higher than anyone else on a C+J ladder. But, again, I’m cool with that.
But one size that seemingly doesn’t even fit most is turning it into power lifting, because I’m hearing grumbles from all of us with normal jobs and who simply want to keep our shit tight. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say there are more of us then there are CrossFit “elite”.
Oh, and Rich. I’ve never met you, of course, and honestly don’t have anything against you at all. Yours is just the name that keeps getting used every time someone explains to me why we should be spending every day lifting with rest. I don’t doubt this works for you and others of your stature. Obviously, the proof is in the pudding. You’re crushing it. So, it was not my intention to make this about you. But lots of other people already have.
I don’t claim to be an expert on training and it is not my intention to tell anyone what they should and shouldn’t be doing. Hell, I don’t even want to be the one who is in charge of coming up with what I should or shouldn’t be doing in terms of my fitness. That’s why I joined CrossFit. I’m not the one with the answers. Those would be the people who figured out how to make me as fit as I had ever been in my life, without working out all day every day. I just want to know why everyone has decided that doesn’t work anymore.
Can I have my CrossFit back?
[image via 
