Just as a matter of course, Mark Twight, who trained the actors for 300, is a professional athlete with years of training and experience under his belt. In his own words discussing the 300 training, he makes no mention of CrossFit ( http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=35 ). Beyond that, it’s been well documented that the 300 actors put hours in the gym every day to get their physiques ready for the movie. Compare that to CrossFit which is 3 days on, 1 off and the workouts are usually completed in well under an hour (including warm-up time).

Anyway, just struck me as disingenuous to use 300 as a selling point for CrossFit — it seems awfully similar to holding out the ripped body of the 1 in 100 who lost 50 pounds using 6 minute abs.

I hear this knock on Crossfit quite a bit — that to try to be good at a lot of things, you wind up being good at nothing. But what these critics fail to consider is the target trainee audience. CrossFit was never intended to be a sports-specific training regimen; by design it is meant to be GPP for the sport of “active life”, no more than that.

Another knock is the issue of form in the Oly lifts. Critics here should remember that the purpose of CrossFit is not to train Oly lifters (and the accompanying flawless form), but to train athletes with Oly & derivative lifts as a part of the overall scheme. Big difference here. Safety is a concern of course, but there’s no need to be fanatical about form in the later group.

I am glad everyone is already familiar with Crossfit and even use it in their own programming.

With any program that focuses on intensity comes with a degradation in form, even from the most experienced practitioners of that movement. With any good Crossfit affiliate (Yes there are bad ones) there is a extreme focus on good form. The problem is that for new comers to Crossfit they usually give it a try with out any regard to proper form (guilty) with a unifying focus on rounds/time/weight.

Most people will want to try out some work outs before the head into a good Crossfit gym so if your one of those people please do this. 1.) Pick a WOD with movements you are familair with 2.) Study the movements before trying it so you have a semblance of proper form 3.) Video tape your self doing the work out. If you are embarrassed about taping your self in public just hide the digi cam in your jacket or something. When you finish watch the video and make look at your form. I record almost all my workouts and watch them after to make sure my form is spot on.