CrossFit East Bay Rest Day 03-31-08: Third Sign Of The Apocalypse!

Go, Mathew! It's your birthday! Go, Mathew! It's your birthday!
Damn, that is impressive!!!

Really, a very fine muscle-up. Nice work!

"Muscle and Fitness" the magazine most responsible for the deplorable state of physical training in gyms across America and the world"

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Wow, that's a bit harsh, don't you think? After you guys actually read the article, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Hopefully, you'll realize that -- aside from the ads, which we don't control -- we've made a lot of changes over the last few years and are doing more to address the "fitness" part of our masthead. I look forward to the feedback.

Greg Glassman seems pretty happy with what we did, so we can't be THAT evil, right?

Sincerely,
Eric Velazquez
Senior Editor - M&F

Mr Velazquez,

While I sincerely hope your incredibly influential magazine is going to move in a new direction, I have just perused your website. If it is any indication of what the actual magazine looks like, then no, I don't think it is particularly harsh.

Your "Photo Gallery" is filled with obvious (and to my eye grotesque) steroid abusers obsessed with non-functional sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. This narrow-focused idealization of people who are not only not fit but are obvious drug abusers is a travesty to be labeled "fitness".

The training methods in your articles, with few exceptions, are guaranteed to place the acquisition of bloated non-functional muscle above all else. You are recommending training protocols that (mostly) will lead to reasonable levels of strength, and a major lack of power, endurance, stamina, cardio, balance, coordination, accuracy and agility.

On the plus side, sort, of, is a CrossFit style workout or two, credit given to Coach, inferior programming and pictures of really "buff" guys doing the lift wrong.

Example:

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/training/139

21-15-9

DL 235#
Dumbell Split Jerk 35#x2

The fact that your online editor took 13:59 to do this workout, points to a massive lack of metabolic capacity. I'm only a mediocre CrossFitter and I'm quite positive I could knock this out in under 5:00.

Also on the plus side your nutritional advice seems reasonably sound.

-Max Lewin

Owner, CrossFit East Bay

Rough stuff, but don't forget that Crossfit and Bodybuilding are apples and oranges. I've never seen M&F claim that hypertrophy and athletic fitness were the same things. Quite the opposite usually.

And who has been bringing the fitness movement to the general public anyway? Crossfit style gyms have been the standard for some time, but it has been the introduction of machines by the bodybuilding community that brought working out to the masses. We all know that the general public catches on to things slowly and poorly, and bodybuilding was one way there. I agree, that many people who are looking to improve their health and fitness have been misled for some time about the best way to go about it. Myself included. But M&F does bring real knowledge about some great ways to build muscle mass, which also clearly shows health and of course aesthetic benefits. A lot of guys will openly admit that all they're after in the gym is muscle, not fitness. Frankly, the Crossfit prescription cannot satisfy that demand.

As for the steroids. Yeah, that stuff has to go. There's really no excuse for it. If guys want to kill themselves for their profession its one thing, but advertising it to the public as a fitness standard is a huge disservice.

Hey, i agree that Crossfit is clearly a step up on the food chain from bodybuilding. You won't catch me doing that stuff anymore. However, even the salty old dogs of Crossfit have been doing this for only a few years, M&F has been doing a lot more of the pioneering. A lot of us wouldn't even be thinking about fitness if the bodybuilding community hadn't got this thing started.

Are we on the up and up? Yes. Are they on the decline? Yeah, and they should be. But when the dust settles on this thing M&F is still going to be there because bodybuilding and Crossfit and two different sports. There's no getting around it.

Anyway, can we wait to burn bridges until after we have gotten some use out of this free publicity?

Reasonable comments by Chris, too. Here was my reply to Max, which I e-mailed him last night. Where my message overlaps with what Chris is saying is that some guys are just after bigger arms or chests or whatever -- it's not wrong. Just different. Apples and oranges. The part where they intersect is the use of weights. BUT...M&F is giving more love to the fitness side of the masthead in recent years. People who haven't read us in sometime probably don't realize that. My message to Max:

Hey Max,
Just saw your comments on your website in response to mine. So instead of waiting for your message board approval, I thought I'd take the time to reply direct to you here. All good points you make and I love the discussion.

1. Couldn't agree more with you about our awful, outdated gallery. We have a website redesign that's about 10 years overdue, slated for launch in May. This gallery will be doing away almost completely with the the "grotesque" guys you mention. Like I said, it really is our goal to get away from guys like that and I meant it. That type of physique is only an "idealization" of a very narrow percentage of the population that actually strives to compete at that level of bodybuilding and we get that.

2. You mention of "bloated non-functional muscle" is really the only part I disagree with you on. I think a great deal of M&F-type lifters get a bad rap and are dismissed as poor athletes and that they have limited, if any, functional capacity. I think you know that is probably an unfair assumption and that many of these guys are probably ex-athletes, weekend warriors or just pretty athletic and/or flexible anyways. Having said that, here's the biggest thing I think people miss -- not everyone wants to be better in 10 different domains of fitness. It's amazing, but true. Some guys actually just want bigger biceps or a wider back. Should they train for more total athleticism, endurance, explosiveness, agility, etc.? Of course -- everyone should. But I think it's perhaps a bit narrow-minded to suggest that their training goal is wrong -- even if it is limited compared to how many different things CrossFitters train for. CrossFit, as Andy Petranek said, is for the fitness generalist. Many of our workouts are, admittedly, for the guy who has a particular goal in mind -- it's the physique addressed one bodypart at a time. It's not wrong -- it's just different. I do CrossFit, I box, I run, I lift weights M&F-style, I do home bodyweight workouts, I play baseball.

3. You say we recommend protocols that will (mostly) lead to lack of power, endurance, stamina, etc. See above for why we target certain bodyparts strictly for hypertrophy BUT also realize that we offer programs each month that address cardio, power-building, Olympic lifts and non-traditional workout regimens like CrossFit, Army Combatives training, boxing training, Terrell Owens' band workout, Jason Zuback (Golfzilla) and his power-based program, etc. I know a lot of people don't realize that we actually include these things each month because we've been long since written off by people who were turned off by M&F's late 80s turn to freakshow guys. But it's changing and I would ask for people to read us a bit more to see how it's changed in the last few years under our new editor-in-chief. He's awesome and I'm proud to work for him.

4. You mean to say that the guy in the pic doing the deadlift was doing it wrong?

5. Our online editor's time. No excuse for that guy, but he'd also just done the usual warm-up and his six-week baseline workout. But "massive lack of metabolic capacity"? Ouch. Hey Max, if you can do it in five minutes at the poundage I had going on the deadlift, I tip my cap. I never claimed to be a great or even mediocre CrossFitter. On the bright side, if that time is really that awful, guys who try it are going to end up feeling pretty good about themselves, huh?

I love and appreciate all the comments. I saw the string of M&F-bashing on the boards the other day at crossfit.com. Funny part is, almost none of those people actually read our article. If they can muster to set aside their grudge against M&F for a few minutes, I hope they find that I did CrossFit some justice and that I completely respect what you guys do everyday! It's definitely the sport of fitness.

Sincerely,
Eric Velazquez
Senior Editor/Online Editor

Hi Eric,

I actually picked up your magazine today and read it cover to cover. I was pleasantly surprised and will be doing an extensive post on what I found later today. I could not get the CrossFit issue yet, I look forward to it.

To briefly address your points.

Is it wrong to point to steroid-fueled monsters as role models? Yes. Is there something wrong with wanting to be huge and slow? Well perhaps not wrong but it seems to point to massive insecurity and neurosis.

As for the "bad rap" for the M&F type lifters, I have seen enough of them to know that they cannot stand up to CF workouts: their huge muscles are not particularly functional. However, it does help to already be strong when starting CF. As to the flexibility issue, you seem to have missed that I do give bodybuilders credit for being flexible. They are only lacking in speed, power, endurance, stamina, agility, accuracy balance and coordination.

The deadlift: yes, the guy is doing it wrong. Is the guy you? I realize now that you are the online editor, oops! I see the following fault in all of the pictures of the DL in your magazine. The shoulders need to be ahead of the bar, not over it. Power transfer is from the scapula. I think if you tried this your DL times would go down on the metcon workouts. See Coach Rippetoe's analysis:

http://www.crossfit.com/journal/2006/11/a_new_rather_long_analysis_of.html

Hey Max,
It's all good.

I love the "monsters" comment and to a degree, I agree with you. But again, MOST of the guys we use now are not of the "monster" variety. Compare to an issue 5-6 years ago and you'll see what I mean. Obviously, we're in a positive transition phase in that department. Please be patient with us and I promise we'll continue to exceed expectations. Personally, I don't have any of those massive neuroses or insecurities of which you speak.

And again -- you seem to be ignoring the fact that a lot of guys really don't care about having all 10 areas of fitness. Are CFers better athletes -- usually, yes. But regular lifters will have advantages in some cases too. It all goes to preference. If a guy wants to train just for bigger shoulders to fill out a few shirts, is that wrong? No. Limited, perhaps, but not wrong. Would you rather they not workout at all? Fact is, we've been doing this for a long long time -- almost 70 years -- and millions of people have gotten healthier and fitter as a result. We're the well for this type of info on the newsstand, which is why I'm glad to have CrossFit in there -- one additional dimension we are encouraging other people to explore.

I think both universes can peacefully coexist, if not co-mingle, on the national fitness scene. So long as people are working out, I'm happy!

And no, I'm not the guy in the deadlift photo. Just the guy with the sorry time on that other workout!

Sorry you can't find the issue yet. It'll be out to all bookstores soon. But be on the lookout. Read that one cover to cover and let me know what you think. I'd like to hear your thoughts on how we actually did with the CrossFit feature. The excerpt is now posted at muscleandfitness.com.

Eric Velazquez
Muscle & Fitness
Senior Editor
Online Editor