Crossfit Football

[timh]

@James_Smith

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 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?