Crossfit vs calisthenics
In this video, you can observe a group of young 8 - 14 year old gymnasts, beating out a crossfit group in a fitness contest through sheer functional fitness and technique perfection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5LiHYe5WkA#t=237
Function > Reps
This video highlights a problem I've had with crossfit ever since i first heard of it and it started gaining popularity, as well as notoriety.
I have always been a firm believer in Form and Function over Weight and Reps.
Functional strength, and control of your body is unbelievably more important than how much weight you can lift, or how many times you can do a pullup.
Crossfit as a movement has developed a bad reputation - injuries and shortcuts being chief among them.
At its core, mos very basic principle i like the concept of crossfit, high intensity workouts, mostly full body functional strength exercises.
Unfortunately the competitive nature of the movement has made the amount you can lift, and the amunt of times you can do it more of a focus than lifting safely, and with control.
I see video after video of deadlifters with dangerously bent backs humping a weight they obviously cant handle, and squatters turning purple and passing out, or in the case of the 2013 games promotional material - wetting themselves.
If you train so hard, that you vomit regularly, or wet yourself - youre doing it wrong, there's no two ways about it.
Those are physical signals from your body that you are pushing it WELL past its safe boundaries; and doing long term, possibly permanent damage to it.
I often also see in the case of muscle ups and pullups, as shown in this video, crossfit practitioners flailing about like a beached salmon in order to achieve high amounts of reps; then congratulatiing themselves and each other on a 50 rep or higher set of pullups.
Unfortunately, "Kipping" gives you a VERY false sense of achievement, it uses the momentum of swinging to launch the body into the movement; rather than your own functional strength.
You will often find that someone that can achieve a 30-rep set of kipping pullups, will struggle to achieve 10 -15 strict form, controlled movements of the same, as those muscles havent been properly conditioned as a result.
I do, and always will believe - if you cannot achieve it without kipping, then you cannot achieve it, and need to focus on strengthening the required muscles first and come back to the movement later.
Having tried crossfit myself with a local gym (who will go unnamed) and finding myself with a sore back afterwards, and at least 10 people at the event receiving medical attention for back injuries from the INCREDIBLY dangerous activities they were pushing participants to do, and many participants point blank refusing to do it; my opinion stems from someone who has given it a try, and not just an outside observer.
this is not to say that ALL crossfitters train dangerously, or deserve the bad reputation it has earned, but unfortunately the majority is much louder than they.
For all intents and purposes from my outside observation, CrossFit has become the Zumba/Tae Bo of functional fitness.
