Response to Hating on Crossfit’s Form

A lot of people out there think that Crossfit teaches bad form, which is entirely false. I’ll try to be nice in this post, but sometimes I can’t help myself when discussing this topic. I’m going to argue my case about why crossfit’s form isn’t bad, and is probably better than the people who say we have better form, and break it into categories.

Practice

As I mentioned above it takes practice in order to have perfect form. The first time I ever got under a barbell my freshman year of high school to squat, my form was AWFUL. But since then, I’ve practiced my form and gotten much better form squatting. Ever heard of the saying, “Practice makes better.” It’s a simple quote, but in reality, it’s completely true. It takes practice to get better and better. I’m constantly learning new things on how to improve my form in varies skills, lifts, and body weight movements. It takes a lot to become an expert in performing the skills, lifts and body weight movements that crossfit uses. Form might get worse as the movements progress in the conditioning part of the workout, but this is where scaling comes into play, which is another huge proponent of crossfit. Scaling the movement in order to progress to the actual movement will help in the long run.

Scaling

Scaling in crossfit is important for building up the capacity to do the main movement. There are many different ways to scale movements, some easier than other’s but this is huge in crossfit in order to build proper form when you move up to the main movement. Every movement in crossfit is scalable. No matter how you do it, you can scale a movement for each individual person so they are capable of performing it. This is why anyone can do crossfit, because it’s not about what everyone around you is doing, it’s about what you’re doing, and improving your own skill set. Whether it’s less weight on a lift, or doing ring rows instead of pull-ups, in a crossfit class for beginners, you will rarely see the whole class doing everything the same. The key part of scaling and learning the progressions, is to know your own body. If you’re one rep max is the prescribed weight, it’s not a smart idea to do that workout Rx. You should pick a weight you can do that whole entire workout. This is where you have to be smart. If you can only get 10 pull-ups, but the workout is calling for 50, you should scale those as well. No matter what the workout prescribes, you should know your own body, and skill level enough to be able to figure out something you can do for the entire workout.

Form Over Load

A lot of people think that crossfit is all about lifting the most weight and sacrificing form in the process, when in reality, it’s the complete opposite. Crossfit is all about learning the correct form. Form is important in every single thing we do, and without proper form, you won’t do that movement. It doesn’t matter where you go in a crossfit gym, form is always taught the correct way no matter what anyone says. When crossfitter’s are building strength might they have failed reps, of course, who doesn’t? That’s part of training. Pushing yourself to see if you can increase your strength by trying a heavy weight. But we do it in a safe way. Although injuries have happened from people going too heavy, or freak of nature things, we still try to have correct form in everything we do. No one will ever judge you in a crossfit gym for how much weight you can lift or how many pull-ups you can do. As long as your form is correct in doing the weight you do, we will all be happy for you.