Who Is Fit?

In Feb of 2009 I seized the opportunity of participating in a Crossfit certification course held in Oakland, California. Greg Glassman, who I had the pleasure of meeting, is the founder of CrossFit, an exciting training protocol and way of life that is gaining a lot of popularity in a wide variety of sports.

The most amazing thing about the Crossfit program is that it is designed as a one-size-fits-all workout, regardless of the needs of the individual.

Coach Glassman's observation is that people's needs differ by degree not kind. Olympic athletes and our grandparents both need to fulfill their potentials for cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination, accuracy, balance, and agility. One is looking for functional dominance the other for functional competence.

And since competence and dominance are developed and achieved through identical physiological mechanisms Crossfit practioners are trained to simply scale their program by altering rest, load, intensity, etc. while utilizing the same exercises for everyone whenever possible.

According to Coach Glassman being "Fit" is being competent in the ten recognized elements of performance. As listed above, they are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. You are as fit as you are competent in each of these ten skills. An exercise program develops fitness to the extent that it improves each of these ten skills.

There is a universal misconception that long distance athletes are fitter than their short distance counterparts. The triathlete, cyclist, and marathoner are often regarded as among the fittest athletes on earth. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

The essence of the Crossfit model is the view that fitness is about performing well at any and every task imaginable. The model suggests that your fitness can be measured by your capacity to perform well at all ten physical skills in relation to other individuals.

The endurance athlete has far exceeded any cardiovascular health benefit, and has sacrificed strength, speed, and power, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy, and flexibility. This is hardly the stuff of elite athleticism. No triathlete is in ideal shape to wrestle, box, pole-vault, sprint, play any ball sport, fight fires, or do police work. Each of these requires a fitness level far beyond the needs of the endurance athlete. None of this suggests that being a marathoner, triathlete or other endurance athlete is less than admirable; just don't believe that training as a long distance athlete gives you the fitness that is prerequisite to many sports.

CrossFit considers the Sumo Wrestler, triathlete, marathoner, and power lifter to be "fringe athletes" in that their fitness demands are so specialized as to be inconsistent with the adaptations that give maximum competency at all physical challenges. Elite strength and conditioning is a compromise between each of the ten physical adaptations.

For many individuals like myself training has become our sport, a sport where the aims are simply to become as fit as possible.

On a scale of 1 to 10, ask yourself how fit do you think you are? Are you neglecting versatility? Are you challenging yourself or are you just a "Treadmill chump?" Are you fit enough to do the things you want to do and THEN some?

Fitness is about performing well at any and every task imaginable, even unfamiliar task, and tasks combined in various combinations. Life often presents unforeseeable challenges, which impose physical and metabolic demands that most of us are not prepared for.

Getting fit is awesome and fun if you're healthy, but essential if you're not and if you put any value on the quality of your life, the time you spend exercising becomes an absolute bargain.

Stop looking for the quick fix, switch the channel when you see or hear an advertisement that has nothing to do with real success. Ignore all of the talk you hear or read about in the magazines that you only need to exercise 3 or 4 days a week, 30 minutes a day. Ignore it! That's minimal, old school, and simply a desperate attempt by the FDA to get your ass off the couch. Be more enduring, do more and push a little further.

Besides, the real benefits of exercise come with months and years of sustained steadily growth, short term gains are fun but misleading.

Physical conditioning is integral to your life, and you need to begin now, sooner then later, at any age. Coach glassman made a great observation when he asked us to look around the gym and notice how most women do aerobic training more so than they do strength training.

If you think that strength isn't important than consider how important strength loss is as you get older and find yourself in a compromised postion to avoid bein injured.

Aerobic exercise saves your life; strength training makes it worth living.