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CrossFitCrossFit is a strength and conditioning fitness methodology. Its stated goal is to create "the quintessential athlete, equal parts gymnast, Olympic weightlifter, and sprinter."[1] Crossfit is not sport-specific and promotes broad and general overall physical fitness. Its growing popularity has been fuelled by a virtual community Internet model.
DescriptionCrossFit maintains that proficiency is required in each of 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy.[1] The program's weightlifting component includes complex, compound movements with heavy loads. CrossFit also uses kettlebells, gymnastics rings, pull-up bars and many calisthenics exercises. CrossFit may call on athletes to run, row, climb ropes, jump up on boxes, flip giant tires, and carry odd objects. They can also bounce medicine balls against the floor or a target on a wall. CrossFit workouts typically call for athletes to work hard and fast, often with no rest. Many CrossFit gyms use scoring and ranking systems, transforming workouts into sport.[2][3]CrossFit responds to criticism that its program is too intense by citing an essential element of its methodology: workouts should always be individually scaled and varied. CrossFit seeks to unify health and fitness. It defines health as sustained fitness. CrossFit’s prescription for achieving this fitness is constantly varied high intensity functional movements. CrossFit says fitness can be graphed in three dimensions, with duration of effort on the x-axis, power on the y-axis, and age on the z-axis. At each duration, power capacity is averaged across a variety of modal domains (skills and drills). CrossFit says it increases work capacity and speed in these domains by provoking neurologic and hormonal adaptations across all metabolic pathways. CrossFit says it is building a technology of human performance through careful definition of terms, constant experimentation and precise measurement by using a force, distance and time approach, rather than a molecular one. CrossFit views such measures as lactate threshold and vo2 max as correlates or components of fitness, but says measuring actual performance in specific workouts is of far greater interest to athletes and coaches. [1] CrossFit was introduced to the academic exercise physiology community at a meeting of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists in April, 2009. [2] On diet, CrossFit advocates eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Many CrossFitters follow the Zone Diet or the Paleolithic diet. CrossFit adaptations include programs tailored for children, seniors, football players, military special forces candidates, triathletes and martial artists. Most CrossFit gyms also offer "On Ramp" or "Elements of CrossFit" introductory classes for beginners. Some Crossfit athletes perform the "Workout of the Day" posted at the CrossFit website and never visit a CrossFit gym. Others formulate their own workouts based on CrossFit's principles. In 2007, the United States Marine Corps began a shift in its physical training program. The emphasis is moving away from aerobic training and toward more combat-oriented "functional fitness training" by incorporating CrossFit principles. Many U.S. and Canadian police and fire departments, U.S. Army Special Forces and the Canadian Forces now base some of their physical training on CrossFit principles. [3] CrossFit is being adopted by a growing number of high school physical education teachers and by teams at both the high school and college level. [4] CrossFit's affiliate model rejects franchising and requires few start up expenditures. CrossFit headquarters certifies CrossFit trainers, approves applications for gyms to become affiliates and publishes "The CrossFit Journal", but does not share in revenue from membership fees. Affiliate owners pay either $500, $1,000 or $2,000 annually for affiliation and are then free to develop their own programming, instructional methods and membership fee structure. CrossFit says this de-centralized model, which shares some common features with open source and crowdsourcing projects, allows best practices to emerge from a diversity of collaboative approaches.[5] Monthly membership fees generally range from $85 to $300, with $150 a fee often charged. Many affiliates feature small group classes that allow for individual coaching. Classes often include a warm up, a skill development segment, and a high-intensity timed workout that lasts 10 to 20 minutes. History and growth
 Greg Glassman, a former gymnast[citation needed], created the CrossFit training methodology in the 1980s. The program gained the attention of various military and law enforcement agencies. In 1995, Glassman was hired to train the Santa Cruz, CA police department. The first CrossFit gym opened in Santa Cruz in 1995. The CrossFit website, launched in 2001, now includes an extensive video library of exercise demonstrations and a very active discussion forum. The number of CrossFit-affiliated gyms has grown from 18 in 2005 to over 1,500 in 2009, with 500 more affiliation requests pending. According to Canada's Business News Network, CrossFit is "one of the fastest growing fitness movements on the planet."[5] The privately-held company was described as "hugely profitable" in a CrossFit Journal article that estimated annual revenue from just one of CrossFit's three revenue streams at $6.48 million [4]. CrossFit has been criticized for its perceived "cult-like" mentality.[1][6] Some fitness professionals[2][7] and a senior officer who commands the U.S. Navy’s Center for Personal and Professional Development[8] believe CrossFit workouts are so intense that participants risk injury or even death from rhabdomyolysis. Mark Twight, Mark Rippetoe, Dan John, Robb Wolf, and Ross Enamitt are trainers once very active in the CrossFit community who have either reduced or ended their association with it. Some of them question CrossFit's management practices and say it is not truly an open source movement open to change. [5]CrossFit has also been criticized for lax certification standards and for failing to provide any oversight of affiliates. Everyone who pays $1,000 to attend a weekend seminar is certified as a CrossFit trainer; there are no pre-requisites or exams. Certification as a "Level 2" trainer requires extensive practical testing and the failure rate ranges from 50% and 80%. In October 2008, a Virginia jury awarded $300,000 in damages to a man disabled by a workout at a gym that had been CrossFit-affiliated, but was not affiliated at the time of the alleged injury. (The trainer was not certified by Crossfit and CrossFit was not named as a defendant.)[8] CrossFit subsequently established the affiliate-owned CrossFit Risk Retention Group to provide a form of self-insurance and vigorously defend any future lawsuits. CrossFit says its rate of rhabdomyolysis is a small fraction of the rate for many other sports or conventional police and military training. It says that there are actuarial studies proving that claim forthcoming. CrossFit GamesSince 2006, the CrossFit Games have been held to find the best male and female performers in specific CrossFit workouts. The CrossFit Games consist of two days and anywhere from 4-8 workouts. The workouts are unknown to the competitors until days prior to the Games. Performance enhancing drug testing was introduced at the 2009 Games.
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