by John Brown

Created on: May 19, 2010

I am writing this in rebuttal to Mr. O'Hare's article about the safety of CrossFit as a training methodology as he has gotten several facts incorrect and has over generalized the CrossFit population; specifically in regards to trainers and gym owners.

The first point that I wish to address is Mr. O'hare's comment about the movements being unsafe in the context of a workout; unfortunately what Mr. O'hare fails to see is that these are movements that are performed by people in their everyday lives without any training and usually in a rush.  That single mother that is rushing to get out of the door in the morning because she is late for work and ends up throwing her child up on to her shoulder; that is a clean.  And chances are that mother has not been taught that particular movement, isn't thinking about form and likely has several other things in her hands.

In regards to muscle imbalances I will say that nature has no regard for these balances and if life requires them to do these movements, chances are they are going to do them in a less safe way and in a more uncontrolled setting.  Joining a CrossFit gym will allow someone the opportunity to see how you move and then address any issues that you may have, including telling you if you need a trip to a physical therapist, chiropractor or even a doctor.

The comments about "Pukey" and "Rhabdo" the clowns  have been kicked around and generally beaten like a dead horse.  Saying that these clowns are promoters of rhabdomyolysis is as egregious as saying that Smokey the Bear is promoting forrest fires.  As far as the condition of rhabdo itself, the number of cases of exercise induced rhabdo make up a very small number of the cases found each year, and of those, only a miniscule fraction of these are caused by programs like CrossFit.  If one were to look up the number of cases of rhabdo that occur in the New York, Chicago and Boston marathon's each year, they might be appalled to learn the facts when compared to CrossFit.

As to the standard of Coaching comments.  CrossFit is in the process of attaining accreditation and one of the steps that lead to that accreditation is to require a test that all level 1 certified trainer's must past.  This accreditation is being run through ANSI, one of the strictest standardization organizations in the world.  Once the accreditation is attained, CrossFit will be one of, if not THE ONLY internationally accredited fitness program in the world.  When that happens, it will be impossible for a CrossFit gym to operate without one of the trainers at that gym to carry an actual accredited certification.  Since the author wishes to suggest that CrossFit is the evil greed monger preying on people's money, might I suggest that he does some research to find out how much an ANSI standardized accreditation costs.  The bottom line is that the majority of the second to last paragraph is flat out incorrect and borders on slander.

Can CrossFit be dangerous?  Absolutely, so can driving your car on the wrong side of the road, firing a gun while pointed at your crotch and blow drying your hair while standing in the shower.  But you would not likely go out and intentionally do those things incorrectly and expect to not make it into the Darwin Awards.

Learn more about this author, John Brown.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.