The Story Of Crossfit

The Story Of Crossfit

            Imagine this, you’re sitting on the couch, having a glass of wine, watching your favorite TV show, feeling great.  Then out of nowhere your heart starts to hammer in your chest, making you start to worry.  Your heart rate skyrockets and your vision starts to go blurry.  Before you know it you wake up a few minutes later laying on your side with a sheen of sweat covering your body, knowing that you’ve just had an “episode.” This is what 3 million people in America have to deal with on a daily basis.  This is called POTS.  The effects of POTS gets better with everyday exercise but only with the right kind of exercise. Crossfit gives the people with POTS the right kind of exercise that is needed to help with this incurable disorder.  Crossfit gives people with POTS their life back.

            Let me be clear when I say that Crossfit doesn’t hurt people, it saves them.  The people that go into a gym for the first time, with none to little physical exercising previously, and think that they can just do everything listed in a class, will in turn hurt themselves.  These are the people that give Crossfit a bad name.  With the right techniques and coaching you will not only succeed in the sport but go far beyond what you thought you could accomplish before you started.

            The sport of Crossfit has become increasingly more popular in this day and age.  With the sport getting started in 2000, stated by the Crossfit website, and not really gaining attention or speed until 2007-2008, you can absolutely say this is a new way to exercise. The attention started to happen in once social media was introduced and affiliates started appearing in more places. Currently, on the Crossfit website (map.crossfit.com)  it states that there are gyms located in 142 countries, 7 continents and more than 10,000 affiliates.  Now why would there be so many locations if all that Crossfit does is hurt people? Dave Castro, the founder of Crossfit, and everything that falls under the Crossfit names, wanted this to be a worldwide phenomena which it has turned into the past couple of years.   

            Facts show, on the National Institute of Health (NCBI) that of the top three most popular ways to exercise, high intensity interval training, (HIIT) is one of them and is one of the main ways that Crossfit pursues exercise.  HIIT isn’t just used in boxes Crossfit gyms, it’s also used for training in sports like in training for things like, football, soccer, and boxing, to create a realm of idea of what a high heart rate should look like. This is what people’s concerns are when revolving around Crossfit.  People against Crossfit often say say that there isn’t enough time between intervals for “adequate” rest along with improper training. When studies actually show that, “High-intensity functional training programs, including Crossfit, have similar or lower potential for injury than traditional physical training activities. (NCBI)” If this is a good way for people to gain physical exercise why is there so much backlash?

            While researching on the National Institute of Health I saw an article under related information titled, “Bias due to selective inclusion and reporting of outcomes and analyses in systematic reviews of randomized trials of healthcare interventions. (NCBI Article II)”  Why is this important you ask?  Well first off one of the first things the research paper states is, “Systematic reviews may be compromised by selective inclusion and reporting of outcomes and analyses.”  This in layman’s terms is basically saying that reviews can be messed up by only including certain data, thus creating a false idea of the subject being talked about. Now the article itself is not particularly talking about Crossfit but does point out how there are many studies that are concluded based off of only the data the person wants to portray, not the overall aspect.  If people are only basing their bias off of articles that aren’t true, then wouldn’t their beliefs be falsified?

            Crossfit is an extreme sport that people of all shapes and sizes can participate in.  It doesn’t just create athletes but better individuals.  Through researched facts any person can see how Crossfit can affect someone’s day to day life and how it can create not just a better lifestyle but a better way of living. The people that don’t know their facts are the ones that create the bad name for the sport, and keep millions of others from finding their true potential.  As the years go by, I know that Crossfit will gain more popularity and will be shown in a better light.  This will not only benefit people personally but benefit our entire species as a whole.

           

Works Cited:

Claudino, João Gustavo, Tim J. Gabbett, Frank Bourgeois, Helton De Sá Souza, Rafael Chagas Miranda, Bruno Mezêncio, Rafael Soncin, Carlos Alberto Cardoso Filho, Martim Bottaro, Arnaldo Jose Hernandez, Alberto Carlos Amadio, and Julio Cerca Serrão. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2018. Web.

Page, M J, J E McKenzie, J. Kirkham, K. Dwan, S. Kramer, S. Green, and A. Forbes. "Bias Due to Selective Inclusion and Reporting of Outcomes and Analyses in Systematic Reviews of Randomised Trials of Healthcare Interventions." Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 01 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2018.

"View More." CrossFit Exercises & Demos. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2018.