This should stir up some interesting discussion… 
http://www.crossfitfootball.com
Came across this through a discussion we had at work regarding training for athletics, mainly team sports. This was brought up for review and most if not all of us were in agreement that this type of training for sports is downright… DUMB.
Thoughts?
There’s only one reason why I’m able to justify the 30seconds of my life that I spent following the link you posted (already knowing that I would be shaking my head or possibly vomiting in my mouth), and the attached photo is it.
Made it all better.
From what I’ve heard from the local crossfit guy in my town, vomiting in your own mouth is actually encouraged at his facility. Particularly if the provided bucket is already full.
I was particularly impressed by one of the workouts, which I will describe:
Run 12 100m sprints, starting each sprint on the minute. Then you’re supposed to post the times of your first and last. Allow me to editorialize a sample result:
First: 11.5
Last: 456.8 (Had to drag myself down the track with my hands because I tore my right quad and my left ham)
lol i cant actually imagine anyone even trying to put in a full out effort on every sprint. regardless, these guys seem to be training for projectile vomitting competitions.
Guess I don’t need to preach to the choir here. BTW, the girls in James’ photo are sufficiently fit that you can bet they don’t do this kind of training except in photo shoots.
The only decent athletes I’ve seen come from Crossfit were decent athletes before they did Crossfit. Same goes for attractive girls.
Why do you all hate on Crossfit? It seems to me that whenever something is posted that’s not specifically related sprinting, most are just looking for a witty reply or comment, not actually a discussion of value.
Crossfit Football has great value for training football players. The fitness and necessary strength training (it has both, I hope you saw) will serve only to support a player’s football-specific training, not replace it. This program in this current form is meant as an off season S&C plan.
NumberTwo: Unfortunately, that is what many Crossfit affiliates often preach, but they have to make their marketing pitch and it doesn’t really represent what it’s all about. Too many affiliates have bastardized the Crossfit methodology. This doesn’t include CFFB.
timh, its not that its not specifically related to sprinting, its that its not specifically related to ANYTHING, besides doing crossfit. Almost every workout of theirs would seem to enter the glycolytic area, and Charlie and many others have said that football is alactic and aerobic, so no need to enter lactic zone. also, I don’t know that much about crossfit, it seems that everything they do is as fast as possible… that means short rest breaks, incomplete recoveries, which leads to poor form and lower quality of everything in the workout… and racing through olympic lifts, especially for the majority of people that would do this kind of stuff, seems just plain stupid…
Tim, I understand how you might, based upon some of these responses, get the idea that this type of internet forum may be like others in which the atmosphere is ‘it’s our way or the highway’.
I can assure you that this is not the case here, however.
It just so happens to be that the Cross-fit model of training is unsuitable for most athletes. I’m not going to take the time to explain why it is astronomically misdirected to use in the training of American or European footballers, as well as most other athletes non-competive stage training because I went down that road with some of the cross-fit ‘cult’ 5 years ago (and it is a cult Tim).
Cross-fit is fine for the general fitness enthusiast, weekend warrior, housewife, etcetera and I suspect that those are exactly the markets that support its growth (at least in CONUS)
As for any debate to the contrary, there is no debate Tim; because my rational, as well as others here and I have no problem in speaking for Charlie, Number Two, and others in this regard, is that the physiological impact of the randomness, energy system demand, to name just a couple, and ironically being the very premise of the cross-fit model (ergo the NON-system), is what makes it entirely inappropriate to be used by individuals whose sport preparation (regardless of time of year) demands a highly thoughtful, well planned, and systematic approach.
Incidentally, I am a physical preparation coach for a top 25 collegiate Division 1 American football program and at the risk of sounding like I know what I’m talking about, please trust me when I state that I know what I’m talking about.
I cannot stop laughing.
Beyond funny.
I think Crossfit can speak for itself. Follow the link to Crossfit’s “What Is Crossfit” page, and you see an image of very out-of-shape, not athletic-looking-at-all, guy puking into, and around, a bucket. That’s one Crossfit’s initial marketing pages on their website! I’m not highly motivated to be that guy.
From the founder’s mouth: “Does it makes sense for the NFL Lineman? No!”
I saw that picture as well and made the website viewing at least bearable
i can see massive benefit doing this for the average Joe Blow who does not compete or only competes for FUN, like touch footy etc.
To make some $$ - it would be a good model to follow for PT’s, people like, no, love variety and there is plenty of variety in crossfit.
But as they say - not any good for athletes, well, naturally
I can’t speak for WRCortese5, but I think that his intention was to setup some sort of discussion about CF Football since it’s fairly new and might influence way strength & conditioning is conducted for football players.
Thank you for taking the time to type out a response, James. However, I can’t help but feel that you didn’t look at the site closely enough and the arguments that you used don’t really apply to CFFB.
“For football, we know the demands; … timeframe and scale, and we know when, where, and how game day is played. Knowing this, we can precisely prepare for the demands of the sport.” (John Welbourn) Given that, it would be ridiculous if the program was random, I agree… is it though? The strength workouts at the very least look quite cyclic. It’s followed by higher volume assistance work - conditioning - at most 15 minutes (including rest). Pretty systemic.
Could you take a second look (not just the bikini footballers), and tell me a bit more specifically what is wrong with this sort of training during the off-season?
Tim, with respect, since 2003 I’ve published an enormous amount of free information that regards my thoughts on the physical preparation of American footballers and the absolute very last interest of mine is to spend one second more than was necessary to obtain that nice photo of the girls on that website.
I must ask you to understand that I possess a knowing as a result of exhaustive research, practice in the field, and developing correspondences with incredibly well established and honored sport scientists from overseas and it pains me to even think about reviewing information published by anyone who is affiliated with an organization such as cross-fit.
Simply based upon this:
I will tell you that this is the language of flatlanders and I reside in the world of an added dimension (read Abott)
Meaning, it is irresponsible to the point of being offensive to consider any part of the training process while ignoring another.
Remember this, American football is bioenergetically and biodynamically characterized by a multitude of factors that can in no way, shape, or form be optimally addressed, even partially, void of understanding the whole- and no cracker jack box cross-fit certification or otherwise can begin to approach the necessary level of information that meets my standard of qualification in this regard.
Incidentally, if cross-fit ever makes its way into influencing the majority of the sport training world, well I’d have to give some serious consideration to leaving the country or making a career change.
Heh, fair enough.