Howdy!

We are going to tackle some common CrossFit myths in this blog.  A little bit about me, my name is Ashley and I am a physical therapist and one of the co-owners of ECCF.  I remember when I first heard of CrossFit, I was at my first clinical rotation in Akron, OH and other clinicians were not painting it in a positive light!  Some words that come to mind: dangerous, puking, injuries.  A doctor in the clinic sent out an email with the cartoon “Pukie the Clown” hooked up to a machine, with its blood and guts hanging out.  That was enough at the time for me to decide wow, this whole Crossfit thing, not safe for me or my clients!    

FLASH FORWARD 11 years later and I co-own a CrossFit gym.  Let me share some things I wish I had known sooner.

 

MYTH #1:  CrossFit is dangerous.

Anything can be dangerous given the context – let me frame starting CrossFit the same as you would start running.  If you wanted to start a routine of running, would you go out and run an entire marathon on day 1?  That is ridiculous and dangerous right?  You would start small, maybe a little walk-jog action, then progress to jogging short distances, and build up slowly over time so your body can acclimate.  Starting CrossFit is exactly the same way!  We call this ‘scaling’ and our coaches are experts in making sure the intensity of the class is dialed to the right level for you.  

MYTH #2: I am going to get injured doing CrossFit!

Every form of physical activity holds a potential risk for injury.  Doing too much, too fast, and doing things way beyond your capacity can cause an injury.  But what does the research say?  Comparing injury rates per hours trained, CrossFit was SAFER than running, tennis, basketball, soccer, and football.  

MYTH #3: I need to be a certain level of fitness before I start CrossFit classes.

One of the principles of CrossFit is ‘relative intensity’ which means working as hard as you can within your own limits.  The intensity you can handle on your first day of CrossFit vs. someone who has been doing it for 10 years looks a lot different!  We all do the same workout in a class, but achieve relative intensity by scaling or modifying the movements, the amount of reps, the weights, the speed of movements, etc.  In short, you do not have to be fit, you just have to start!  We ALL have a first day.    

Thanks for reading.  The one thing that has not changed is that clown cartoon is still SO scary looking!!!!

-Ashley