First off it’s Friday and that’s a good thing.
Second, I can’t stand the term “sport specific” but what I can’t stand more is a complete lack of regard for appropriate training methodologies when training an athlete for specific competition. Which is why I can’t stand Crossfit Football.
Quite frankly Crossfit Football, as a training system with the specific goal of training an American football athlete, is a joke.
Why, you ask?
- Football is played by position. With each position having varying bioenergetic demands. For example: the typical play last 4-6 seconds. A lineman is engaged in what is basically a close quarters fight the entire time, while a receiver is running a sprint the entire time.
How are these bioenergetic and biodynamic regimes the same?
- There is a complete lack fo regard for timing of training means and recovery form those means. For example: most of the workouts have multiple gassers, thats an all out 100yrd sprint, typically separated with indiscriminate rest periods.
How many football players runs for 100yrds on a play?
- They use traditional olympic lifts during the season. I don’t care what your thoughts are on olympic lifting and whether it’s useful or not, but there is no way to justify having a “professional” athlete (I’m guessing this means NFL) perform something like a clean or a snatch. Find me one player on an NFL team who’s wrists and shoulders feel good after a month of training camp, 4 preseason games and 6 weeks of the regular season.
I don’t know if the Crossfit Football guys are NFL strength coaches but I do know Buddy Morris was (browns) and now he’s back at Pitt training football players and if the current results are any indication, doing a damn good job of it. Buddy, among many other very successful coaches, doesnt see the validity of it: (Not all that safe for work if you know what I mean.)
The ultimate problem with Crossfit Football is that it just “gets you in shape” to play football. That doesnt mean anything, it has no context. James Smith, Buddy’s assistant has put it best, “Getting in shape for football is a very simplistic way of describing a very complex thing“.
Although I have a lot of problems with Crossfit, in a lot of ways I think Crossfit is great, it’s opened a lot of people up to actually training and working hard and shunning the treadmills, ellipticals and weight machines. This however is a sham, Crossfit should stay out of the sport training realm, it has nothing to do with sport training. BTW, it’s NOT GPP for most sports.
One of the things I do like about Crossfit is the group training aspect, no doubt about it, training with a group will absolutely make you better. Click me
Tip O’ the day: If you’re trying to lose weight don’t drink regular sodas. One a day can lead to a 16lbs weight increase or loss in a year.
Friday moment of zen: watch this video it’s strange but awesome.
About Roy:
