by Caleb Wyeth

Created on: September 16, 2009

The direct and obvious answer is: it depends. Is it a good alternative to what?

Bearing in mind that the health, wellness and fitness industries are rife with misinformation, let's first examine what CrossFit claims to be. According to www.crossfit.com, it is ...the principle strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

The site goes on to boast about CrossFit's broad and inclusive spectrum of applicability, its scalability, and its unchanging programs; whether you are and elderly diabetic, teen athlete, or cage fighter, CrossFit appears to be for you. A major tenet and foundational premise of CrossFit in their claim of being a superior fitness program (check out their website and read between the lines; it is painfully obvious that the program sees itself in this light) is that all of our fitness needs differ only by degree and not kind. Founded by a former gymnast named Greg Glassman in the 1980's, CrossFit is believed by Glassman to be wholly unique in its aims, prescriptions, methodologies, and implementation lofty claims indeed (quoted in Glassman's article - Understanding CrossFit, in the April 2007 CrossFit Journal).

Let us now examine some practical elements of the program. As a Certified Personal Trainer through the American Council on Exercise and lifelong athlete, I have participated in and spent a great deal of time trying various exercises, fitness fads and trends over the years, including CrossFit, mainly because it is my responsibility to stay on tip of these trends to be a good fitness professional. As advertised, the actual exercise programs are intense, constantly varied, and more or less focused on functional movements. They are usually scalable if the exerciser has the knowledge to appropriately scale (although many do not). You can certainly push yourself to incredible heights, and if you know how to appropriately perform and scale the movements, and are otherwise healthy, I do believe virtually anyone would benefit from participating in a CrossFit program. An additional benefit is the fact that many workouts and exercises require little to no specialized equipment, allowing you to perform your own workouts or participate as part of a group or with and a CrossFit affiliated gym.

But lastly, as a responsible fitness professional, we should bear in mind that there are

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