Why is CrossFit considered as Dangerous Workout & Is it Safe? (2021)

 

Why is CrossFit considered as dangerous Workout & is it safe?

 Why is CrossFit considered as dangerous workout, now that's a very frequently asked question by all the CrossFit beginners and athletes all around the world. Everyday more and more people are joining the CrossFit boxes all around the world. Even after the opinions of so many health experts & body builders that CrossFit is dangerous its popularity is increasing day by day especially among the youths. All because of two reasons:

·       CrossFit has a strong group of admirers & follower who encourage other people to join the CrossFit training to achieve their fitness goals.

·       These followers market it across all platforms with complete perfection, convince people by wearing the branded CrossFit t-shirts & clothes.

That’s why people are getting attracted towards it at a very fast pace. Because it seems “cool”. But is it that good? Being completely honest with you, these weight trainings, highly intense CrossFit workouts, powerlifts do affect our body in a bad way. That’s why people who are really concerned about their health have started raising the question that ‘Is CrossFit dangerous?’.

So, that’s why in this article I am gonna share with you guys some reasons why CrossFit isn’t the best workout regimen for you. I am not saying that it’s not good for everyone out there but why majority of the population should avoid getting involved in this highly intense training regime and why CrossFit sucks.

So, I am gonna share with you some problems with CrossFit & how safe is CrossFit.

1.    Many times it takes you off-track from your fitness goals- Now you all must be feeling a little bit confused so let’s understand it with a small example. Let’s say you are preparing for a race or a marathon. Marathon runners need a lean body with high stamina which simply means a light body with full of energy and stamina. Well, to increase stamina you do not need to include a lot of weights in your exercises cause you don’t want to bulk up. You need a light body weight. But if you do it the CrossFit way, then at first you will try to keep on track, train for your competition or marathon to increase your stamina but slowly & slowly you will not even notice that when your stamina training changed into weight training or body building. That’s the irony with the CrossFit.

2.    It leads to postural issues- CrossFit is a highly intense workout regimen with functional dynamic movements. It’s meant to push your body to its utter limits which lead to postural issues in absolutely every CrossFit athlete. It is one of the CrossFit problems. I would say that if you have any health issues with your body or movement issues for example lets say hip mobility or freezing of shoulder, I would recommend you to stay away from CrossFit or if you are a CrossFit practitioner then take a break of a week or two and talk to your doctor. I mean according to my experience I have seen many people developing poor posture.

3.    They smell of sweat, chalk & iron- CrossFit gyms which are known as ‘boxes’ smell of sweat, chalk & iron. All CrossFit gyms look badass from outside, like we think that they would be full of heavy weight machines but on the other hand, you will get to see only barbells, pull-up bars, giant heavy hammers and tyres. Yup that’s right and a lot of injured athletes.

4.    Lack of compound barbell exercises experience- So, the first thing you should know is that the CrossFit is full of barbell exercises and movements like squats, overhead presses to more complicated exercises like cleans & snatches. But here comes the main problem. Most of the people don’t do it in the right form or posture which in turn leads to heavy injuries. This usually happens because people start adding more weight in their workouts even before properly learning the posture. So take your time, learn the basics and then go forward with your workout. Listen to your body and if it’s saying no then it would be best to leave it cause CrossFit is not meant for everyone.

5.    Lack of access to a perfect CrossFit gym or trainer- Now, its absolutely true that CrossFit gyms are open all around the world. But how many of them do have coaches or trainers who are actually reliable? Out of 100, less then 50%. They all claim to be well experienced with the CrossFit exercises or programs but that’s a lie! Performing CrossFit exercises without a experienced trainer is a call for disaster. But at the same time, finding a perfect coach is also very difficult. So, if you are not in contact with a experienced coach its best not to do it.

Controversy behind CrossFit- The dark side of CrossFit

Maybe more than any other workout or exercise, CrossFit has consistently been encircled by controversies all around the world. Established in 2000 by Greg Glassman, CrossFit is an exceptional dynamic movement exercise that consolidates cardiovascular exercises with strength training for short periods yet very troublesome. These intense sessions are called workouts of the day or WODs. Usually these WODs include exercises like weighted squats, weighted push-ups, Olympic weightlifting etc. The programme accentuates scaling activities to people for their own growth but the people who go against it say that’s not the situation. Well, according to them they can state the reasons as to why CrossFit is considered as dangerous workout or what's wrong with CrossFit.

Michael Boyle, as we all know is a world famous Boston trainer who trains Olympic athletes & works for the Boston’s professional sports teams. He says that: “I don’t believe exercise at that intensity is appropriate for most people”. While Boyle says that he do upholds a few aspects of CrossFit for example- multi-joint exercises & some circuit trainings with short intervals in between but he adds that the framework isn’t ok for the normal people highlighting the fact that the CrossFit uses its own insurance policy as potential evidence for its dangers.

Regardless of cynics like Boyle who was first brought into the CrossFit controversies when the military became worried about the high pace of injuries related with CrossFit for its personnel and consulted him as a specialist- results came out in favour of CrossFit.

Indeed, even Callahan concedes that legitimate scaling doesn’t generally occur in CrossFit because numerous teachers are not qualified enough. According t him it happens because a lot of trainers out there are not qualified enough. And on the other hand, normal people are not ready to handle that much pressure.

Is CrossFit Safe? Benefits & Risks of CrossFit

Several studies have been conducted around CrossFit and it turns out that it is relatively safer than the traditional training methods. Recently a study was published in the orthopaedic journal of sports medicine according to which it surveyed a total of 3000 CrossFit participants from which 30% of the participants reported physical injury while doing CrossFit exercises. All of the injuries were commonly defined as tendon, bone, joint or ligament injury sustained while doing CrossFit that resulted in a consultation with a physician. I would recommend that before starting with CrossFit, you should do some research on the benefits & risks of CrossFit or why is CrossFit considered as dangerous workout.

Is CrossFit more dangerous than other workouts or weightlifting?

So, a lot of people now days are asking this question whether CrossFit is more dangerous than other workouts or is CrossFit more dangerous then weightlifting. Now we all know that it is a combination of functional dynamic movements performed at a high intensity level and it has attracted people from all over the globe.

Numerous studies have been conducted regarding the health effects of the CrossFit on our body which give evidence of pretty indecent injuries. But ‘Is CrossFit really more dangerous than other workouts?’. Let’s have a look.

·       According to a case report of 2013 in the ophthalmological medicine, a 25 years old patient was presented to the doctors with a detached retina. This happened while he was using an elastic resistance band for CrossFit training and it snapped him back in his eye. But by god’s grace, his retina was successfully reattached.

·       Moving forward, we found that in an article published in CrossFit journal Greg Glassman described a condition what he calls as: rhabdomyolysis. So what happens in this condition is when you train so hard even more then what you are capable of & crossing all your limits in a short period of time, your muscle fibbers break down and get released into your bloodstreams which leads to kidney failure and even death.

·       According to a research conducted and published in the journal of sports medicine, it was found that men get more injured then women while working out in the CrossFit boxes. This research was conducted in the 3 major cities of America: New York, Rochester & Philadelphia. CrossFit men reported sustaining more injuries than women.

Now these studies revealed that the injury rate of CrossFit is a lot similar to other type of common workouts like powerlifting or gymnastics. Now it’s very important to keep a note of this fact that these studies were conducted with very small sizes of samples, so they will not be able to give the knowledge of the broader experience of CrossFit. Self-announcing isn’t the most dependable type of information and the individuals who were harmed during CrossFit may have been bound to react to the overviews about injury than the individuals who have had just certain encounters. So, in my opinion CrossFit is Dangerous for most of the people other than the athletes and should avoid doing it if you are not preparing for a competition or championship. So, that's my personal research & honest opinion on why is CrossFit considered as dangerous workout.