If you are unfamiliar with CrossFit, your cable package clearly doesn’t include ESPN3. About a year ago, ESPN3 dumped its 24/7 uninterrupted coverage of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in favor of endless reruns of the CrossFit Games. Increased publicity has led, predictably, to increased criticism.
We have been CrossFitting for nearly five years. We decided that it was time to add our voices to this contentious debate.
We have been CrossFitting for nearly five years. We decided that it was time to add our voices to this contentious debate.
Much of the recent criticism of CrossFit has come as the result of a study published in The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research by a team of researchers at Ohio State University. The title betrays little of the study’s underlying criticism, “Crossfit-based high intensity power training improves maximal aerobic fitness and body composition.”
Researchers at Ohio State put 43 healthy individuals (23 males, 20 females) through a 10-week CrossFit training program. The conclusions of the study were positive overall about the methodology, “[CrossFit] significantly improves VO2max and body composition in subjects of both genders across all levels of fitness.”
The researchers, however, also included a heavy-handed critique that was seized upon by CrossFit’s critics.
Researchers at Ohio State put 43 healthy individuals (23 males, 20 females) through a 10-week CrossFit training program. The conclusions of the study were positive overall about the methodology, “[CrossFit] significantly improves VO2max and body composition in subjects of both genders across all levels of fitness.”
The researchers, however, also included a heavy-handed critique that was seized upon by CrossFit’s critics.
“In spite of a deliberate periodization and supervision of our CrossFit-based training program by certified fitness professionals, a notable percentage of our subjects (16%) did not complete the training program and return for follow-up testing. While peer-reviewed evidence of injury rates pertaining to high intensity training programs is sparse, there are emerging reports of increased rates of musculoskeletal and metabolic injury in these programs. . . . This may call into question the risk-benefit ratio for such extreme training programs.”
We have three major concerns and/or disagreements with the Ohio State Researchers:
- Not returning for “follow-up testing” is not the same as dropping out for injury. This may be semantics, but they really need to clarify that they visited the injured at home and found them, in the middle of the day, laid up on a couch watching QVC. Otherwise it’s a bit premature to put all of them on the injured reserve list.
- As if a 16% injury rate is not shocking enough: 16% of 43 participants equates to exactly 6.88 participants not completing the training. There is no excuse for not including a footnote describing the hideous Tarantino-style mishap that led to a participant being reduced to nine-tenths of his or her former self.
- Even if we assume that the program injured every one of those 6.88 participants, it still does not put CrossFit out of line with other sports participation injuries. In fact, CrossFit is quite safe compared to other common athletic activities. In 1994, British researcher Brian Hamill set out to figure out the relative risk of different sporting activities. He sent out detailed surveys to schools, universities and athletic associations around the word asking them to report sports injuries. Since Hamill’s analysis did not include CrossFit, we did that math ourselves. All of Hamill’s injury numbers are reported as the number of injuries per 100 hours or participation. This makes it easy to compare the safety of different activities. In order to convert the Ohio State CrossFit injury numbers, we had to make one small assumption. We credited the 6.88 dropouts with having completed 50% of the program. In other words, we assumed that some of them dropped out on day one and some dropped out at toward the end of the program and on average they completed half. If the injury rate in the Ohio State study is representative of CrossFit overall, CrossFit’s injury rate is .35 per 100 hours of participation. Based on Hamill’s survey, CrossFit is safer than schoolyard soccer (6.20 injuries per 100 hours), rugby (1.92 injuries per 100 hours) and basketball (1.03 injuries per 100 hours).
Fact: CrossFit is 1,783% safer than going out on a schoolyard soccer field. Of course, critics are more likely to trumpet the fact that CrossFit is 696% riskier than playing badminton.
Here is how CrossFit stacks up according to Hamill’s research:
Fact: Anyone raising the alarm about the safety of CrossFit while encouraging kids to play soccer either cannot do math or has not analyzed these data.
The one thing is clear from Hamill’s research: all sporting activities carry some risk of injury. If you have ever read a story about someone being surgically separated from their couch, you know that inactivity and obesity also carry their own set of risks.
It has been awhile since either of us studied macroeconomics. But here’s our simple risk-benefit ratio. The risks associated with CrossFit are lower than the risks associated with many other common high-intensity sporting activities. And the rewards of CrossFit are clear. We will again quote from the Ohio State study: “[CrossFit] significantly improves VO2max and body composition in subjects of both genders across all levels of fitness.”
In the past, when we were asked why we CrossFit, we usually pointed to the fact that CrossFit varies the exercise program daily. When you walk into the gym, you never know what will be expected of you. One day might include 400-meter sprints. The next might require heavy Olympic lifts alternating with handstand pushups. This plays perfectly to our short attention spans.
It has been awhile since either of us studied macroeconomics. But here’s our simple risk-benefit ratio. The risks associated with CrossFit are lower than the risks associated with many other common high-intensity sporting activities. And the rewards of CrossFit are clear. We will again quote from the Ohio State study: “[CrossFit] significantly improves VO2max and body composition in subjects of both genders across all levels of fitness.”
In the past, when we were asked why we CrossFit, we usually pointed to the fact that CrossFit varies the exercise program daily. When you walk into the gym, you never know what will be expected of you. One day might include 400-meter sprints. The next might require heavy Olympic lifts alternating with handstand pushups. This plays perfectly to our short attention spans.
Fact: When we say short, we mean it. Particularly Steven. We would estimate that his attention span sits somewhere between that of a six week old puppy and two-year-old child high on birthday cake.
From now on our answer will be different. Armed with real data, we will simply say, “Because it’s fun, safe and highly effective.”
