The CrossFit Methodology

This was a post I made concerning my thoughts on CrossFit.

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CF has been growing stateside quite a bit lately, and it becomes pertinent when they attempt to spread into the world of Parkour and also indoctrinate Parkour into their system and set of beliefs. I wouldn't mind hearing what people think about CrossFit, because I know there are bound to be hundreds of viewpoints going every which way. I think some who are outright against it, some who are all for it, and others don't care so much or have no opinion whatsoever.

When assessing any fitness methodology, we have to be very diligent in our own research and be well aware of what we ourselves believe at the core. Parkour is a deeply personal thing, and when something like this becomes affiliated with Parkour corporations (APK) and then begin to seed into local Parkour communities, teaching Parkour with little to no experience, we start to have some serious issues. And we need to decide, for ourselves, whether this is the right way to go or not. Danno used to harp on to us about Methode Naturelle, stating, "MN isn't going to be the saviour that everyone seems to want it to be." In a lot of ways, that's going to apply to CF, as well. But it is up to you to decide.

In my own mind, CF presents both positives and negatives to Parkour... But whereas the positives can be accessed by another means or through another system, the negatives reside elsewhere. Strictly in its methodology, CF provides no immediate or long-term damage to its practitioners. It does, in fact, prevent them due to such strict conditioning. However, a large problem arises when CF-certified coaches go out to one or two meets or Parkour classes, and then believe themselves certified to coach Parkour based on their gymnastics experience. This presented itself as a problem when a CrossFit "Parkour instruction" video showed up on their website last year... It displayed an extremely unsafe manner to roll that would almost certainly ensure a snapped clavicle when performed outdoors at height. In addition to this, they only appeared to be hybridizing gymnastics and martial arts rolls, with no consideration of landing. The problem of CF-certified coachings believing they are qualified at coaching Parkour has already erupted across the US.

But as far as the training methodology itself goes, I believe the end result is ultimately the same as any other.. Strong, powerful levels of fitness and improved endurance. However, this "mix and match" ideology seems counter-intuitive, and in a lot of ways just reminds me of MMA. You might walk away with the FUNCTIONAL aspects of this or that, but you are removing its heart and its soul to do so. Ultimately, when CrossFit indoctrinates Parkour, it will care about only one thing, and that one thing is exactly what CrossFit's mission statement is: finding functional manners of fitness. The idea of being useful, of reclaiming human movement, of reclaiming the urban environment, and of every minutia of Parkour's philosophy and Parkour's spirit.. will die with CrossFit. We can already see it happening where CrossFit and Parkour are being hybridized.

In addition to this, the manner of conditioning that occurs in Parkour lacks in human movement. While CF strives to avoid isolation, it also lacks the dynamism of conventional "Parkour" conditioning (not that there is necessarily a tradition there). X reps of Y sets is a methodology that was sought to be eliminated by Parkour... And CrossFit, as well, because it didn't serve as being functional. However, what resulted was that CrossFit kept this manner of counting and measuring, and simply combined multiple exercises together to avoid "isolation." In the end, what you have is a series of full-bodied exercises that link togetehr chains of muscles, yet still lacks the dynamic quality of pure human movement. The numbers game is effective and useful, but only so far. Movement is what matters, and while I'm not suggesting that we all go out and practice Parkour every day (thus damaging our bodies in the long run), but find ways of conditioning that are made up of movement and continually asks the brain and the body to work together to navigate different terrain in different manners. But even when CrossFit assimilates this methodology, as well, it will still forego the mental aspects of Parkour in favour of being purely minded upon fitness.