God’s Workout?

“A Workout of the Day, or W.O.D., might include 50 kettlebell swings, 3 800-yard dashes in rapid succession and 10 pull-ups. Then repeat. No breaks.”
If you can “dash” 800 yards 3 times, finishing with 10 pull ups would probably be a bit of a let down.
Even though this is a completely fictitious/hypothetical WOD, it sounds pretty ill-conceived. Who wants to try it?
I’m struggling to figure out how to do this one RXed since if the “no breaks” part is followed, wouldn’t that just be a 2400 yard dash?

Today’s workout theme:
You don’t know squat.
Drills, drills, drills. Then squat-centric met-con for the kids, and something like Scott’s Mom for the old hands.
Trust me, your squat needs work. Come on down.

The author is conflicted. My guess is that she generally holds the belief that all cultures (including exercise “cultures”) are equal and that the values of one should be considered to be of no greater or lesser value than those of another.
Her problem is that CF believes (and Coach preaches) the opposite: that not all exercise programs are equal and in fact all others are wrong to varying degrees.
She is beginning to suspect that there may actually be an absolute truth, as it applies to fitness, and CrossFit may be it. This idea is an extremely troubling notion for her. It is the type of thinking she apparently assumes only occurs among the religious, hence her gratuitous insults at religion.

One should remember that Heffernan is a media expert, not a fitness expert. Her comments deal mostly with the CrossFit “vibe”, website, forum, communication style etc. And I find it perfectly understandable that she thinks Pukie worship, Hero workouts and Coach’s “preaching” (as Hari himself says) are worth commenting on.
Most people don’t have a clue as to how or why CrossFit is effective and don’t even stop to wonder if following the WODs is actually the best answer to their individual fitness needs. All they know is that they like the results. Sounds like an act of faith to me.

Hari,
I find the Hero workouts strange and mildly disturbing myself. Honouring and respecting individual fallen soldiers through push-ups? Whatever floats the CF boat, I guess.
So, do you understand this to mean I’m unwilling to “offend terrorists”, and do you think that anybody that has printed or would print the Muhammad cartoons would fall in line behind Coach Glassman on every issue?
There is no need to elevate a fitness program to the status of general philosophy of Life and Truth and Beauty. I can assure you that my pull-up numbers have improved despite my lack of a moral compass.

After rereading that comment about Tommy V and what’s disturbing, I’m wondering if Heffernan thinks that the ‘training exercise’ Tommy V died during was some sort of physical training workout. I don’t know any further details of his death, but I assumed that ‘training exercise’ was something far more dangerous along the lines of practicing with live ammunition or helicopter flying.

Hari,
Here’s where I’m coming from regarding the cartoons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo
Again, they would most likely mock our Hero workouts and disagree with you on what aspects of Western Civilization are worth defending.
Getting back to CrossFit: We can take “Murphy”. Can we take ridicule?
(Jeff, he died in a parachuting accident if I’m not mistaken.)

Ewen,
“We can take ‘Murphy’. Can we take ridicule?”
Yes.
The press is willing to ridicule Christianity, Judaism, and CrossFit. Is willing to ridicule radical Islam?

today’s workout was Scott’s Mom
set 1:
max reps (if the bar touches the floor, you’re done) in this order:
max reps overhead squat, max reps front squat, max reps back squat
set 2:
max reps (same rules as above)
overhead press, push press, push jerk

ewen- sorry- you can read this another time but just to make a quick point to anyone “following” the string – the Sulzbergers are what are commonly referred to as “self hating jews”-u wouldnt have to look too long and hard for any articles ridiculing judaism or christinaity…
in fact their reporting of the slaughtering of eurpean jewry -or shall we say lack of reporting-during world war two is beyong shocking.
from an editorial standpoint the Time’s long time liberal stance has shifted even further to the left and they are often labeled as anti-Bush and thus anti Judeo-Christian values.

Didn’t make it to the Box but you all will be happy to know that I:
Defended Western Civilization. For time.
14:32
PR!
I almost met Pukie but after a few minutes my strength returned and decided to work on a couple of weaknesses. This consisted of alternate L-sits static holds and offending Radical Muslims. I had a tough time finding some honest to Allah radicals so I subbed in some regular ones that live in my neighborhood. They are now interested in signing up for the next cycle of Elements.
I also did 100 burpees for time. 8:07. ugh.
Joseph, have you read the article on Crossfit induced Rhabdo from the Journal? If I remember correctly, the reported cases (at the time of ‘press) overwhelmingly occurred in (experienced) athletes new to Crossfit. Like first/second WOD new. In short, they pushed themselves too hard too soon. Experienced CFers, at the time of the article were who pushed themselves to their perceived limits were not falling out from the condition. Not sure how much this has changed, if at all. I doubt it. Yes, it is important to know what Rhabdo is and what can cause it. This is especially critical to those new to CF who may try to redline it before they even put the key in the ignition. But I am also of the mind that we shouldn’t make it the Boogeyman under the bed that keeps us from stepping up the intensity. Most of us will break through our internally and externally imposed mental barriers that limit our performance long before we’ll break down our muscle tissue and send it into our bloodstream. And the chance to do that is perhaps the most important part of these Crossfit. At least to me. Well, that and the Kool-Aid.
Fret not homie, your question doesn’t make ‘you seem less tough.’ It is exactly the kind of question we wrestle with as we pursue elite fitness and explore our physical/mental limits.
How many of the Crossfit elite (I’m talking the Annies, Nicoles, Evas, Greg A.s, Mary Conovers, Speals, OPTs and Shanes (joke)) have fallen to Rhabdo while pushing their limits day in and day out for years? Have they not as true Crossfitters realized elite fitness without being stricken down by Rhabdo and/or whatever else is out there to get waiting to get us in the Land of High Intensity? It seems they have. Might we mere mortals at the lower levels of this cult/pyramid scheme be able to do the same thing? I think so. Heck, if not I would have taken my sweet time with those burpees.
It’s not about pushing yourself to THE limit. But to YOUR limit. And then just enough beyond it so that progress is made (the esteemed PR) but not so far past that you can’t come back to play another day. Newbies tend to neither know their limits nor that balance and therefore appear more susceptible to meeting things far worse than Pukie. In my mind, the commonly heard calls to ‘leave it all out there!’ and ‘save nothing for the swim home!!’ and my fave ‘don’t worry, you’ll pass out before you die’ are meant to excite and incite not be taken literally.
Remember, Crossfit is defined as “a strength and conditioning program built on a wide variety of functional movements executed at high intensity” not ‘Suicide or bodily harm via some combination of calisthenics, weightlifting, running, rowing in pursuit of feeding your ego and seeming tough.’ Regardless of what the papers might say.

Shane just to clarify things one of the first affiliates to CF, recently had rhabdo and was in the hospital for a week (if I recall him saying correctly). He is a true athlete in the CF world, well respected and pushes himself to the limits. SO to your statement, it can happen to the tough ones too!!
BTW, 100 burpees yeah!!

final post-
So there is no confusion.
my previous post was NOT an actual dig at Sarena. I was in fact just joking about getting set straight posthaste.
ok, no more from me. ever.

As a member of the press, I think we in general try not to gratuitously offend people’s sensitivities, esp. religious sensitivities. Of course there are times when you have to, but I don’t see how printing the cartoons would have added to the story in this instance. And of course those cartoons weren’t just offensive to “radical” Islam but anyone of the Islamic faith.
I actually had the opportunity to talk to some of the Muslims who were demonstrating at the UN when the cartoon thing was in the news. People sometimes have this idea that Islam is this force we should be “standing up” against. It is always interesting to actually meet people and put a face on “the other” — cab drivers, small businessmen, students and a lot of people who are working hard to make it in this unfamiliar country.