... this kinda of thing seems to be their bag.
I had no intention of writing another "xfit needs to check itself" blog, but my cousin, the proud owner and trainer of a xfit box, had a client post a video on her fb wall. First and foremost, I am very proud of my cousin for her accomplishments, her business is booming. Other than the part where I wish she had chosen just about anything else other than xfit, I am ever willing to acknowledge her incredible work ethic and capacity to push herself; she has always been just a little crazy ;-) as well as inspiring.
That being said, the video was a very muscular woman boasting her new PR (personal record) for a clean. The clean is an Olympic lift done in power lifting; it is complex, with many muscle groups activated in a particular sequence under intense load (weight). What caught my eye was the lack of anything resembling form. The woman posting the video even commented that her form was lacking, but she had done worse.
REALLY!?!
She had done worse?
First, if she can't lift the weight with proper form, SHE CAN'T LIFT THE WEIGHT!!!
Second, where are her coaches? I can't fathom how anyone with 1/2 of an education would let their clients do that!!! The very point of you, coaches, is to train your clients to lift better, with proper form and a manageable weight, NOT to celebrate ghastly lifts in order to feed ego. You are suppose to build them, and educate them, into greater weights and new PRs.
Unfortunately, this type of video can be seem all over the internet. Most xfit videos are of people about to hurt themselves, it's absurd!
Yet, xfit continues to defend itself as having "strict safety measures", even though we can plainly see that safety is taking a quiet back seat to PR. Recently, an elite xfitter snapped his spine at a competition in California doing an Olympic lift. The spokesman for xfit was quick to claim this as "an unfortunate accident," and that they would have "to pay even closer attention to our already strict safety measures." Would it stand to reason that had better safety measures been adhered to, many injuries could have been avoided? What if proper form was part of the safety measures? I let you in on a little secret: it is.
Here's a large part of the problem; xfit is an affiliate structured business. It is not the "head and appendages" of a franchise structured business. Meaning it is more like an asteroid belt of a solar system, where the asteroids are held in a loose orbit around a sun but they can do what ever they want, including breaking free of said solar system. What does this mean? Well frankly, it means that the corporate office can make all the blanket statements it wants about regulation and safety, but the asteroids are not held accountable. Xfit has grown too large for its mouthpieces, speaking on behalf of its brand, to even know what the affiliates are doing.
A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research claimed that 73.5% of xfitters sustain injuries related to training. I will be the first one to tell you that the study is flawed. They only sampled 132 respondents and used online questionnaires, which are inaccurate and messy as far as data collection is concerned. Also, as high as 73.5% is, it is approximate to the percent of Olympic lifting, power-lifting and gymnastics injuries. They also made that statement that there is an average of 3.1 injuries per 1000 hours of training, that is similar to the previous sports mentioned, depending on sources.
So why mention the study? Because even though it is flawed, the research indicates an interesting trend: If you do xfit you will get hurt. They rebut that if you do any sort of sport, you will increase your chances of injury. I agree. However, xfit does Olympic lifts, power lifts and gymnastics, which are all inherently dangerous; then it pushes those exercises to extremes, either through weight or time. Form, ie safety, is constantly being sacrificed for PR, just watch YouTube. Xfit also promotes itself as a sport and as a sport, poses a risk. The majority of xfitters are not in it for the sport, however, they are in it for the fitness. So let's give that 73% another look and scale that number down to 51%. If the chances of injury doing xfit is 51%, then statistically, you are more likely to get injured than you are to get fit. That is the opposite of why any of us do what we do.
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Here's my point:
I argue that it is the very foundation of coaching to make sure that your clients are not "breaking their spines". Is that too much to ask? According to xfit it is. In an environment where they extol the PR at all costs and pushing yourself is the only thing that matters, it would seem that this kind of thing is their bag, baby.
"I swear it's not mine, really. That kinda things not my bag."
Thanks for reading,
docBdc
