Crossfit? Lifting? Questions!

[BeauJangles]

Hello all,

Since January, I've been doing Starting Strength. I have had impressive gains and I feel stronger / better than I've ever felt in my life. The past month has been rough, I had a few injuries which have kept me out of the gym for most days and when I've gone, my workouts have been light.

I want to get back into Starting Strength, however, I realized that I also want to focus on my overall fitness. A friend of mine did some of the crossfit exercises for a while and he swears by them.

Here are my questions:

1. Can I (should I) do a combined Crossfit and Starting Strength routine?
2. If I do begin Crossfit, how should I start and what is the best way to learn some of the exercises I've never done?
3. Is Crossfit the right program to turn me into an all-around athlete? I know that military personnel use it and love it, but my concern is that I was just getting into Starting Strength and I feel I had a lot more muscle and bulk to gain (right now I'm 6 feet / 173 lbs).

Thanks guys!

 

[EvilYoda]

I suggest you spend some time on the crossfit forums and subscribe to the newsletter. The videos posted on the main crossfit page can be pretty good and the forums will be very helpful in answering any questions you might have (you can also post videos of you working out so they can help with your form, but attending a CF gym at least for the intro lessons would probably be a better idea). Depending on your level of ability, you might have to water down a WOD before you can do it at RXed (you'll learn what these acronyms mean on the site ). As for combining it with SS, it also depends on your ability - if you can recover properly to do a SS routine later in the day or something, go ahead. I definitely wouldn't be doing anything immediately after a WOD.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
I suggest you spend some time on the crossfit forums and subscribe to the newsletter. The videos posted on the main crossfit page can be pretty good and the forums will be very helpful in answering any questions you might have (you can also post videos of you working out so they can help with your form, but attending a CF gym at least for the intro lessons would probably be a better idea). Depending on your level of ability, you might have to water down a WOD before you can do it at RXed (you'll learn what these acronyms mean on the site ). As for combining it with SS, it also depends on your ability - if you can recover properly to do a SS routine later in the day or something, go ahead. I definitely wouldn't be doing anything immediately after a WOD.

Hmmm... I took a look at the Crossfit page and I saw the lessons they offer. I guess I'll sign up and see what happens. In terms of ability, my strength is good, but my muscle and cardio endurance are not. I can run with good times (sub 21 minute 3 mile, sub 7 min mile), but the minute I start doing sprints or mountainclimbers or bodybuilders or any combination of those, my heartrate goes nuts and I feel like crap.

I'll head over the the Crossfit forums and inquire about their ability to kick my ass.

 

[brikis98]

Due to injury, I recently switched form an SS-style routine to a CF routine and I absolutely love it. If you're interested, you can read about it my journal. So far, CF definitely seems like an incredible way to increase your fitness for just about any activity. They combine power lifting, olympic lifting, gymnastics, plyometrics, running and a whole bunch more into extremely challenging workouts that will push you to your limits. You should take some time to read their webpage, FAQ and forum.

As for mixing CF with SS, many people do it. It's a good compromise between adding the maximum amount of strength and mass (pure SS) and building your overall fitness (CF). I would worry a bit about overtraining, but if you work your way into it gradually, your may body may adapt well. There are a number of ways of doing it and you may want to search their forums for MEBB (max effort black box) as well as a CF/SS hybrid routine posted, IIRC, by a guy named Greg. Most of the approaches use the CF "3 on, 1 off" schedule and do:

Day 1: CF
Day 2: SS
Day 3: CF
Day 4: Rest

Stronglifts also has an article on mixing their 5x5 routine with CF.

 

[BeauJangles]

brikis thanks for the tips, I'll check out your journal. I just registered over at the Crossfit forums and, evidently, my name-change request went through here. Sorry for the confusion!

edit: Just to throw another wrench into my plans, I also wanted to start doing some boxing or Krav Maga -- most likely the latter. How does that or should that impact my overall training?

Like I said before, I'm a pretty decent athlete and I think that as long as I take it slowly, I can ramp up into any program. I'm just worried about achieving balance.

Thanks,

Beau

(formerly BlinderBomber)

 

[gramboh]

Check out my log, I've taken the first 2 orientation classes at my local Crossfit gym (OPT, very well regarded in the training world from what I've read). Loving it so far. One interesting thing the coach told me was that he thinks a very high percentage of people doing CrossFit have done enough strength training to the point where they should be doing ONLY CF. He thinks most people would benefit from doing pure strength work as well (obviously the elite CF athletes are not part of this group as they are lifting huge weight in addition to being amazingly fit).

My plan is to do a hybrid of CF/SL 5x5, with more of a focus on strength until I get 2X BW DL, 2X BW Squat (low bar), 5rep BW bench, 150 press etc (personal benchmarks I want). Then I will taper off strength and focus more on CF/oly lifting. From what I've seen, CF WILL increase your strength, just not as fast as strength training will.