Fat Loss – Body Transformation – Advanced Nutrition

I have pissed off most of the P90X crew by simply telling them that their baby (P90X) is not a “pretty baby” by evaluating P90X as nothing more than a glorified calisthenic and cardio program that is extremely limited in it’s ability to help individuals make more than meager progress after their initial change. Simply put, the results diminish rapidly after the initial progress.

Most people aren’t looking at fitness programs and fat loss endeavors through scientific eyes, nor they do want to hear that their training program is supposed to be challenging (hence the term WORKING out), the nutrition requires sacrifice and discipline, and that change does not happen overnight. They look for hype and what everyone else is doing and what will require the least amount of agony: the least dedication (only 10 minutes per day!), the least sacrifice, the least muscle pain, the least effort. Not saying that some of these workout programs aren’t challenging, because most of them will cause you to breathe hard and break a sweat, and do provide some utility for many exercisers. However, drastically changing the body requires a unique program designed for the individual, not simply throwing “shit on the wall to see if it sticks”, which is what these one size fits all, designed for the masses programs do. Everyone has different needs and experiences – those needs must be considered when designing the program, and just following the rest of the sheep will just make you one of the crowd – and the crowd that I see when I walk the streets of most cities is a pretty average (at best) crowd. Don’t be a sheep.

Before I go on, I have to bring up the Basic Laws of Training and ask you to read that article. Right off, a simple understanding of those principles will let you see where most programs designed for the masses fall short (they don’t pay attention to Individual Differences, ignore Specific Adaption, Don’t Vary Intensity, etc).

With all of that being said, MOST programs have something to gain from them, and as I’ve stated numerous times, doing ANYTHING is better than DOING NOTHING. Everything works for a time. Some guys/gals train with Strongman Principles. Some with HIT. Some with P90X. All will WORK, at least for a period of time.

Of course, the latest rage in the fitness community is CrossFit. As I am writing this in my studio in North San Antonio, I know that I cannot walk outside and throw a dead cat without hitting a CrossFit studio, as there are several in the immediate area.

For those who aren’t familiar, what is CrossFit? CrossFit describes several affiliate gyms and their types of workouts that are typically high intensity forms of weightlifting, sprinting, kettlebells, ropes, strongman, gymnastics and many other types of training. Affiliates create a “Workout of the Day” and often use a scoring and ranking systems to transform workouts into sport.

Don’t get me wrong: I have an in-depth understanding of the CrossFit Principles and approach to training, and have been using many of the same core exercises, similar principles of cross training, and other similar aspects of CrossFit in training programs to simply provide variety and skill development in many of my clients’ training programs for many years. I am in no way saying that CrossFit cannot be challenging nor intense. It focuses on most every aspect of fitness (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy) and many times, in the same workout.

I mentioned it above: doing anything is better than nothing. Is CrossFit the be all, end all workout program that it’s pundits would like you to believe?

No, I don’t think so… And I understand that the cultists are going to go absolutely berserk and litter me with tons of comments and messages: I know that many people have made great progress from CrossFit (and will write to tell me so), but that does not mean it is the perfect workout program: in my opinion, it is mediocre at best.

First and foremost, you have only one ass – that means you cannot sit on two horses. How is that relative? In changing the body, your results are quite limited when focusing on contrasting goals at one time – focusing on every aspect of fitness will lead to a lot of wasted progress in the long term (Ever known of anyone training for a marathon and a powerlifting meet at the same time? No, because it is IMPOSSIBLE). While CrossFit is very effective at laying a general base level of conditioning, once this is established, progress would be, like P90X, very limited. CrossFit’s promotional materials imply that this type of training addresses all the strength and conditioning needs of an athlete, but the principle of specificity teaches that if you try to excel at everything, you will not reach the highest levels at anything.

Many beginners often complain that they find the programs overzealous, that they’re under-prepared to perform many of the exercises (trust me, cleans, snatches, jerks, dead lifts – these are all exercises of skill the require many hours of coaching to perfect) and that “everyone is different” is pretty much tossed out the window. “You’re a CF’er now, Dammit! Suck it up, cream puff…” I disagree with the “learn by the fire” mentality: without assessing muscular imbalances, there is a high risk of injury in performing any of these exercises. I perform a series of tests to ensure that any client is prepared to perform these exercises. While I’m certain that many people have performed CrossFit for years without injury, the risk is simply too high without proper assessment of beginners without performing corrective exercises to ensure that muscular imbalances have been eliminated before performing high these high skill movements. While I regularly utilize these movements in many of my training protocols, rest assured that I am closely monitoring every inch of the movement, no matter how experienced the trainee is – the slightest relaxation of form can and will lead to injury. And if the client already has an injury history? You’re damn right the program MUST be tailored with these considerations and must be prefaced by corrective exercises before performing these movements.

In many CrossFit WOD’s (workout of the day), it simply looks like someone chose exercises and rep schemes out of a hat and pieced them together with little regard to order of exercises or if some exercises. “Pre-exhaustion” with some exercises inhibits one ability to perform other exercises with optimal form and muscle activation, increasing injury risk and limiting the effectiveness of the exercise (for example, would it make sense for someone who was attempting to set their personal record on bench press to completely burn out on push ups prior to attempting the bench press?), as well as increasing the risk of injury. This is especially true when utilizing Olympic Lifts, which CrossFit uses as a staple.

Many exercises are simply used better for specific objectives. The dead lift is a strength/power exercise and doesn’t lend itself to high reps/muscular endurance – but is routinely performed at high reps in CrossFit workouts. Workouts Grace and Isabel feature 30 rep clean and jerks/snatches – I’m sorry, but I cannot recommend that protocol under any circumstance.

From the viewpoint of a competitive fitness athlete, no competitor who primarily does CrossFit as their training has ever won a major bodybuilding show or power lifting meet: while most people aren’t aspiring for these goals, it’s tough to consider their training as elite of that they prepare individuals to be exceptional at anything beyond CrossFit. Fortunately for CrossFitters, there are “CrossFit Games”, which they can compete in.

The workouts simply do not do enough to increase lean body mass at anything more than a snail’s pace beyond the initial adaption phase that ANY fitness program has (the overcoming of disuse phase). Normal people will read this and think that they don’t want to become huge muscle monsters, and that isn’t what I’m referring to – slight increases in lean body mass are necessary for metabolic increases. If muscle is not growing it is atrophying (or going away). Loss of lean body mass leads to a lower metabolism, higher risk of injury and worsened health.

I routinely have male clients drop their body fat percentages from the mid 20% into the single digits and drastically changing the way they look – along with females with three or more children seeing defined abs for the first time: I assure you that this requires a bit more than body weight work, super-setting with 400 meter sprints, and a random order of exercises.

CrossFit is designed to make a person average at the different aspects of fitness. But what happens when you’re ready to take your body to the next level? To drastically change your appearance or take your performance beyond that of average? You need a more specific solution that isn’t a program for the masses.

Don’t think for a second that nutritional issues can be solved with a one size fits all approach. Every client has different nutritional requirements, and nutrition isn’t going to provide you with a custom nutritional strategy based on your needs and condition.

If you want to belong to a cult that wears cute shirts about “Pukey the Clown” or “WOD KILLA”, and become better at Freeze Tag, Hide and Go Seek and the Monkey Bars? Then by all means, find a CrossFit Gym now. If you want to throw shit on the wall to see if it sticks, follow a workout with no progression, do technically challenging lifts in a state of exhaustion (that should be performed at peak energy levels with constant expert supervision), taught by novice coaches with one to two days of training in these lifts, no program (workout thrown together with no thought of periodization or progression), then CrossFit is just what you’ve been looking for. The workouts are designed with ONE purpose: to be challenging. However, understand a challenging workout doesn’t necessarily mean an effective one. There are many better alternatives for drastically changing your body and increasing your level of fitness.

If you want to obtain rapid results from someone who spent more than a weekend obtaining a Level 1 Certification for $1000, who has real life experience working with people from all walks of life and understand the differences in each person’s condition, injury and exercise history, then find a real fitness expert and stay out of the PE Class that is CrossFit… Yes, you’ll break a sweat. You may lose a little weight and make some friends. But in no way is it an optimal training program for body transformation or specific activity performance. As I did with the P90Xers, I’ll welcome all tactful responses and respond directly to each of them.

Boyd Myers
Personal Trainer in San Antonio
Owner, San Antonio’s Top Personal Training Studio
16613 Huebner Rd (corner of Huebner and Bitters)
210.391.1454