But they then demo’d the next generation of exergames, which cost a bloody fortune and are an egregiously ridiculous example people of assuming tech makes everything better in the fitness world.

An elementary school had invested in an entire gym filled with flat screens and networked interfaces designed to get kids moving. Like an entire bank of stationary bikes where the kids could race each other on the screens.

At a presumed cost of tens of thousands. 

A cheaper idea? Have a gym teacher do some running classes, then pit the kids against each other in some quick sprints. At a cost of zero dollars.

The school had also installed a touch-sensitive disco floor, on which the kids could slide around and play virtual soccer. I don’t see how such a thing could cost less than a school bus.

A real soccer ball? Fifteen bucks.

A doctor proudly explained that the games were getting kids to run 3 or 4 miles every hour.

The long, slow, distance myth of fitness. Fantastic.

A CrossFit Kids certified gym teacher? Currently a one time fee of a thousand dollars for the seminar, and a thousand for the affiliate fee. The kids then turn into actual athletes, and not just little people desperately trying to burn off their breakfast.

AskMen.com has an article up about Andy Roddick’s offseason training program. I’m a big Roddick fan — caught a match of his live at the US Open last year — but I’m disheartened that he appears to be spending a lot of time training with sport-specific, unproven, inefficient methods based on incorrect conventional wisdom.  

Roddick says, as a tennis player, it’s important to not have too much upper body mass.

“Anything you put on (at least as far as a pro) up top, you’re going to have to carry around [on the tennis court] for potentially four or five hours.”

This only makes sense if the additional muscle added doesn’t increase your stamina to make up for the added weight of the muscle. If the added muscle is “pulling it’s weight”, then being afraid of adding upper body fitness doesn’t make sense. And if you’re training for GPP, then that added muscle is going to be a help, not a hindrance.

Look at NFL halfbacks, or boxers. Powerful upper bodies, tremendous stamina, and some of the most agile athletes who’ve ever lived. NFL halfbacks also tend to weigh more than average — the typical body is 5′9″, 200 lbs. 

Basketball and Rugby players have great agility and stamina, and great upper bodies, as well. 

More fitness is more fitness. Roddick is not running ultra-marathons, he’s playing a power-based sport — where a weak upper body is just a weak upper body, and not a benefit.

Roddick then talks about his “core” training:

“He typically uses a 10-pound ball and does 10 to 15 sets, working out for an hour to an hour and a half. Not one to sit for five minutes before doing another set, Roddick also incorporates “10 to 15 switch exercises to keep it going for a four or five minute circuit.”

An hour and a half of medicine ball training? Swinging around a little ten pound ball, at a low enough intensity to maintain a five minute “circuit”? 

My wife gets in the gym and tosses around a 14 lb. ball for wall ball. She does GHD situps, hip and back extensions, overhead squats, and L-holds at high intensity. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could blow away Andy at any core exercise — she’d even let Andy choose the exercise for the challenge.

An hour and a half with a 10 lb. ball gives Roddick less core fitness than a few high-intensity minutes of these movements. That’s time he could use for tennis skill practice.

The author then talks about Roddick’s quickness and agility training:

“Andy Roddick’s method for improving these qualities is surprisingly simple and basically consists of one-legged hops (“bunny hops as opposed to bounds”) that they call “rudiment training.” These bunny hops involve Roddick holding “a medicine ball on one hip and hopping on one foot for 60 meters there and back [with] most of the focus on the heel.”

Eh?

Then, the most irritating passage, regarding “training the legs”:

“While at some point you may want to hit the gym to build on your maximal strength with squats and leg presses (2-3 sets; 4-8 reps), early on it’s not necessary, if it ever is. For Roddick, with regards to training the legs, “most of it’s done on the track,” which would include the bunny hops, running drills, “a bunch of lunges, a bunch of squat jumps, [and] stuff like that.

The reason for avoiding the gym and weights when training the legs is true for a lot of guys (not just Roddick); we tend to bulk up pretty quick, which isn’t a good thing in tennis since you want to remain light, strong and fast. Roddick “isn’t one for maxing out on the weights in the gym [because it] makes for a blockier muscle as opposed to a lean and agile muscle.”

Are you telling me that maxing out on a clean and jerk, or a deadlift, isn’t going to help him on the court? Having a 40-inch vertical, or a blazing fast ten-meter dash out of the blocks is not a benefit? The absolute best training for strength and explosiveness isn’t going to help?

Tennis is all about explosive movement, along with tremendous skill acquisition. Never maxing out means he’s doing way too many reps at too light of a weight to increase strength and power — he is instead doing an inefficient, low-intensity stamina workout.

A total waste of time.

Andy, if you’re out there, give us a call.

Prospective clients? I promise I will never, ever have you do that.

If you don’t have the stomach to click the article, here’s a quick summary –

“Work out really hard, but not too hard, for a week or two, then don’t do anything for four to seven days, but don’t attempt this at all if you haven’t been exercising for nine months yet, and only try it once or twice a year. For muscle size, use higher reps and lower weight, but use higher weight and lower reps for strength, and do lots of passive(!) stretching to avoid injury. Focus on eating extra carbs.” 

Seriously. These folks need to speak to my clients.

Now? Virtually every time I go, I either spot a fellow CFer, or get spotted myself. Usually, it’s the kipping that gets noticed. 

Seems to me that one of the toughest markets to crack so far, likely because of real estate prices and New York gym goers expectation of “amenities”, is starting to come around.

It’s just a matter of time until we’ve got this whole city increasing its power output.

“It’s not that talent is irrelevant. Truly talented athletes can be better without training than many average people can be with training.”

Athletic “talent”, or innate ability, is not just irrelevant — it doesn’t appear to exist. Talented athletes tend to be the ones who spent the most time practicing properly throughout their lives. 

“And no matter how good the coaching or the training program, injuries are all but inevitable.

‘The moment I say I want to put a number on my chest, that’s when I start saying I accept the risk of injury,’ Dr. Foster said. ‘It’s a decision people make and I think it’s a good one. But you’ve got to accept it. Training is not totally innocuous.’”

Injuries are all but inevitable during sporting competition, but NOT during training. And injuries are definitely NOT inevitable if the sport is a monostructural activity — running, cycling, rowing, etc. Proper physiological technique results in a lower incidence of injury. And general physical preparedness, rather than only sport specialization, appears to lower the incidence still.

“You can cross-train — do other sports that get your heart rate up — to regulate how your heart pumps. But to improve your muscles’ ability to use that blood, you have to train by doing that sport.

“If you are training to run, you need to run,” Dr. Roberts said. “If you are training to inline skate, you need to inline skate.”

Dr. Roberts needs to talk to CrossFitter Greg Amundson, who ran 80 miles in 24 hours earlier this year, having run two miles — combined — in the previous thirty days.

We’ll be doing some odd object lifting — Poland Spring bottles, grocery bags, furniture, spouses, whatever we got. We will also, as always, spend twenty minutes in deliberate practice of technique.

“CrossFit combines gymnastics, weight lifting and metabolic conditioning in a short workout”, Kennebec Journal

Beyond ridiculous.

Humans generally don’t evolve much over the course of twelve months. Fitness is fitness is fitness — our needs, and how to achieve them, will always be the same, until we happen to grow an extra limb. So don’t bother with the silly survey.

Also check out our $99.00 promotion, through Yelp, for your first two sessions!