Crossfit: Movement, Consistency and Intensity?

This is actually one of my views on Crossfit, "the sport of fitness". As a disclaimer at the start, I have nothing against the methodology of Crossfit because I use some of their principles in the way I train my clients as well. But if you feel that it might be an insult, feel free to close the window and not read on. I'm just providing my perspective. However, reading the Crossfit Journal one day and coming across this article/video gave me abit of a shock.

I remembered awhile back when I got to know what Crossfit was, it was in its developmental stages just before the big boom it experienced to the expansion of its community today. Back then, everything was simple and nothing such as rope climbs or any other form of "different" movements were used, making it relevant to everyone. If I am not wrong as well, from what I have read, the foundations of their training methodology focuses on three things: movement, consistency and intensity. This made absolutely perfect sense to me, because firstly, the movement should be the first thing to get right. Once you are able to get the movement right, it's keeping it consistent before thinking of upping the intensity of the movement. That is actually how I train my clients and base my training philosophy on that.

However, upon going through that article on the Crossfit Journal, I was very shocked by the approach that was proposed to "being better" at the sport of fitness. Suggestions such as pushing the limits and leaving form out of the window just to improve the results of a workout are just something really shocking to hear. Someone with perfect technique or a technician in a movement gets criticized for keeping his form in a trade-off for speed to increase performance in a certain workout. Personally, I rather get better with good technique than "push the pain barrier". That's why although I improve on my personal bests, I always feel that they can be better because I feel that each personal best, there's always something that can be improved or worked on.

Yes, we always want to improve ourselves. Yes, we always want to do better. But we also want to keep doing it and we want to be able to maintain our health and fitness. Shouldn't the focus be on being as fit as possible when "fit" means not only the ability to perform well but also be injury-free?

P.S. Not saying that everyone involved with Crossfit is not a technician because I have seen some who have such good technique. But how many percentage of the whole Crossfit population is that?

Stay Strong and Keep Training,

The Training Geek.