I will bet you cash dollars that the instant Armstrong decided to return to pro cycling, if not sooner, he stopped doing everything you showed him doing. None of what he was doing in those photos made him a better cyclist; I'd argue that it probably made him worse. You think he did any of that crap on top of the 30+ hours a week he was riding himself back into shape?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I agree. I used to be an internationally competitive whitewater kayak slalom racer - and had weight training forced on me to improve. It didn't do anything but make me look better. I could maybe pull more water for a short amount of time, but got fatigued just as quickly.

It wasn't until I joined a better team that was coached by an olympic gold medalist (who trained the old fashioned way of base building, tapering, etc) that I actually got worlds faster.

I'm living proof this stuff is hyped garbage, as are probably countless journal articles. Lifting weights in a very intense manner, even when geared very specifically to the sport, did not help one ounce with speed over a race course. It is simply not transferable, it is too general to be of use. Only incorporating speed work and strength endurance work "in the boat" helped - and of course, far before that I laid down a large base of endurance the "old fashioned way."

Enough said.

To post what? What warunner posted or what he responded to?

 
Nahh, I just hit the reply button, wasnt in response to that post(er).

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persequetur vestra metas furiose

x3

I have tried to avoid joining in the discussion here, but your post just made my day!

I keep wondering what are these other life things I should be able to do that I would only be able to do if I did crossfit.

It would be interesting to pit a number of athletes against each other, who starting with the same base fitness, trained with Crossfit or traditional training programs (LSD).

Ken, my response was partly in jest to the kettle bell quote. Obviously by looking at him now he is not doing a whole lot of CF like training. When exactly he made the determination to cease, I guess only he knows. Maybe it was just some dis-information campaign to get his competitors to bulk up.

You obviously have some intimate knowledge of his training schedule and protocols, I just find it strange that you have never been mentioned in multitude of profiles/books/articles about the man. I guess you are more modest than your posts suggest. Please share more of what you know...

Crossfit can help your triathlon performance --but only if you do the workouts while wearing ghey compression socks.

So have any fitness professionals chimed in yet? Or will I be the first? I'm not a fan of CF - simply because it seems to involve alot of complex movements that are often done improperly by lay populations. I've been through a few workouts, and it is a definite butt kicker. The big reason resistance training programs should be utilized by athletes, no matter what the sport, is simply due to the scientifically proven role it has in injury prevention. As triathletes, most of our movement is linear, so - we train in one plane (sometimes 2), day in day out. Our bodies adapt, and muscles start misbehaving, eventually leading to overuse symptoms, and even worse, injury. With this in mind, we can also argue that if you're able to train injury free for longer periods of time, overall performance improves. A comprehensive program put together by a certified professional that understands the demands of the sport is crucial.

The exercises Lance was pictured doing earlier are mostly strength or power based exercises; and, most likely only a snippet of his comprehensive program. Just because he's pictured doing these exercises, doesn't mean they're all he does. Do these exercises make him a faster cyclist? In the long run, they do. Outside of having phenomenal genes - the man did break his collarbone, yet is already back on his bike. If he didn't do any kind of resistance training prior to his injury - his post surgical recovery would be taking much longer.




FYI I have BS in Athletic Training and Sports Medicine - and am certified and hold advanced specializations with the National Athletic Trainers' Association, National Academy of Sports Medicine, and National Strength and Conditioning Association.

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"Pain is relative...You'll pass out before you die"

Was this post, too, party in jest? It's hard for me to tell. You might try the pink font that seems popular in The Lavender Room.

Lance Armstrong knows what it takes to win a Grand Tour: extra muscle and explosive strength aren't part of what it takes. One does not need intimate knowledge of his training to know, with certainty, that he does no training that might add upper body mass.

Those photos were taken during a phase of his life in which W/kg didn't matter to him. That phase has passed, for now.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

So just because of your one experience and your saying, "enough said" means that it's fact, no more discussion...whatever. Maybe your first coach was terrible. I knew a guy at my gym that also raced kayaks on the international level who attributed his success partially to his "weight training".

I am not for a minute saying that CF or any other HIIT protocols are substitutes for training specificity and think any who would say as much is distorting what CF is about. 30 mile rucks, marathons, or what have you, require some (ok, a lot) very specific adaptations that are not duplicated in the gym.

Personally, I like CF/Gym Jones/Ross Training styles. Do I think they make me a better cyclist? Depends on the definition. Cyclist as a person - yes. Cyclist with a podium spot - maybe not. Is it for you or anyone else? Maybe, maybe not, but I can say that because I have nothing to sell or drive traffic to.

I'll try the pink font next time ;-)

"Long oxidative training comes at a price. It just so happens that I don't feel swim/bike/run long is enough. It is all going to come at a cost, and that cost will show up between the ages of 40-50yrs. You cannot overtrain your entire career without consequences. Some of these consequences from overtraining oxidatively: In humans, oxidative stress is involved in many diseases, such as atherosclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Heart Failure, Myocardial Infarction, Alzheimer's disease and chronic fatigue syndrome, but it may also be important in prevention of aging by induction of a process named mitohormesis. Reactive oxygen species can be beneficial, as they are used by the immune system as a way to attack and kill pathogens. Reactive oxygen species are also used in cell signaling. This is dubbed redox signaling. CF and CFE is not only about good all around fitness there are alot more very valuable health benefits in addition to race performance. You don't have the negative effects of overtraining in the oxidative pathway which comes at a price."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please, explain. What makes CFE so special that its somehow a preventive cure for Parkinson's disease, but running 15 miles causes Parkinson's disease? Seriously? It looks to us like you're drinking some pretty powerful kool-aid.

I'm not asking for a response based on what someone selling CFE is telling you, I'm asking for a response based on objective data from controlled studies in a peer-reviewed journal. Until you can provide that, your arguments will continue to be met with skepticism and will likely be dismissed as just another fad started by someone looking to make a quick dollar.

Also, you have to remember, most people on here DO recognize the value of cross-training and resistance training. Much of the negative backlash is due to the personality of Brian, and his seemingly arrogant, and self-promoting claims.

Judging by your background, you should have no problem providing such scientific proof for your injury prevention claim.

Funny how those exercises, which you claim will make him a faster cyclist, aren't done by any current pro cyclist.

Finally, your claim that it's the resistance training that enabled him to resume his training quickly indicates that you don't know much about collarbone injuries and pro cyclists. The scrawniest and weakest pros come back from such (common) injuries with lightning speed. For instance, Rebecca Twigg broke her collarbone in 1995. 11 days later, she won the 3000m pursuit world championships and set a world record in the process. Of course, she only had seven screws, not a dozen.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Apparently you missed the part where I concurred that CF and/or CFE has merit in the training regimen of someone looking to be well-rounded in fitness and health. But we're not talking about general fitness. In your title of the thread you capture the general tone of the article...that we don't know how to train (and by inferrence, this guy does).

The angle we're addressing is that the implication from the article is that a dedicated professional (or otherwise) triathlete should add CFE to "improve" their performances. The article further references Chris McCormack, an athlete who is one of the top few triathletes at his chosen game, and who has been so at ITU distances through IM.

All we're saying is that he'd better come with more evidence before he starts implying that he could improve Chris McCormack or any other of us. The article is unconvincing to anyone capable of asking even second-order questions.

Come with real data. Until then...I'm unconvinced.

To the defenders of the "tried & true": It has been said, but I think it is worth repeating...CrossFit focuses on GPP (General Physical Preparedness). The basic idea is to improve work capacity across the 10 domains of fitness (Cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, agility and balance) as much as possible. To specialize in one domain means that you sacrifice performance in another. I think we can all agree to that right? Anyway, the idea is that on any given day, given any specific physical demand, a well trained crossfitter should be able to perform reasonably well. What's reasonably well? Well if the physical demand is an endurance event, the CFer will do better than a powerlifting specialist. If it's a weightlifting event the same CFer will do better than an endurance specialist. If you averaged out the CFer's performance across a broad spectrum of physical demands his/her performance would be better than the average performance of any one domain specialist.

CrossFit Endurance basically says, now that your overall fitness (work capacity) is improved you can translate that into improved endurance performance with just a little bit of endurance supplementation. I know some people within the community have gotten a bit over zealous with claims of what CFE is capable of, but at it's core it is still CrossFit. I don't know any CFer's worth a grain of salt that don't understand that to be the best in the world in any given event you have to be a specialist. You have to make the decision (consciously or unconsciously) to sacrifice performance in one domain of fitness to be the best at another domain. This is why you will never see someone who has a 3x bodyweight Deadlift run a sub-4 minute mile and you'll never see a sub 2:10 marathoner snatch 100Kilos. The funny thing is this, CFE has attracted a good following. Many are experienced endurance athletes and many are doing well. How you define well, is up to you, but if people are consistently setting PR's in my book that's doing well. Even if that person is finishing DFL, if they are doing it faster than they did before, that's success! So, there is no "peer reviewed", "placebo controlled" studies on CFE, but there is mounting empirical evidence. I'm hoping to add to that body of growing evidence. I invite you to sit back and watch and let's see if we all can't learn something.

To the CF/CFE Defenders: If you have been to a Level 1 certification or if you have ever had the pleasure of hearing Coach Glassman speak I am sure you have heard this before. Coach G has always said that he isn't saying that CF is absolutely the best program ever, it's just the best thing he has come up with so far. If anybody else out there can do what we (CrossFitters) do better on a different program then come show us and we will adopt that program. Essentially that is what the Slowtwitch crowd is saying. You say that your program is superior to the traditional program...well prove it. It's now up to us to either prove that CFE is better or at least comparable.

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Dan Hollingsworth

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." - Douglas MacArthur

There's obviously not going to be any convincing here on either side, everybody likes their own training techniques especially if it's worked for them so far. But I'll jump in and at least give my two cents on Crossfit and CF Endurance since there's a huge misunderstanding of it among the ST crowd. I am not a triathlete, just a measly runner, but the concept applies to multi-sport as well.

CF/CFE has plenty of running (or, the sport of your choice) in it. In training for an endurance run, a week of run-specific training will typically have 3 days of hard running. This is not dissimilar to the traditional training methods. For the most part, we just cut out the 'easy'/'recovery' runs, and push harder on the quality runs. There are typically 2 interval workouts and one tempo or time trial a week. The interval workouts on average range from a mile up to, i dunno, say 4 miles, plus a short warmup and cooldown. The tempo/TT for someone training for distance will be anywhere from as little as 30ish minutes (~4miles.. that being a very very short one) up to a 13.1 (that being a very long one, and that distance rarely done), with something in the 50-60min range I'll say is average if you look at it over a few months. Add that up and there's plenty of quality running in a week. We don't do more because a) we run these 3 workouts extremely hard and the muscles are drained (fast twitch baby!) and need a day or more of recovery and b) there will be other workouts required that are not running specific.

But running is not it. We also do 4-6 crossfit workouts a week too. Any traditional training program I've seen has a day or two of 'crosstraining' in it, we just take that portion of the training cycle very seriously and consider it the core of the program. They'll have lifts, conditioning, gymnastics, everything.. it's whole body, varied, and random so your body will never adapt to the same training. Several of these will include run intervals as well (pulling something out of my ass here.. a workout may be, say, 4 rounds of 400m run + 20 pushups + 20 pullups + 20 squats).

It's not uncommon to have 20 mile or more weeks. We just don't do the 60, 80, 100, etc mile weeks that a lot of long distance runners put in, the logic behind that being the aerobic/oxidative pathways get sufficient-to-maximum training at significantly shorter distances.

CF isn't in any way training people to run IMs simply by swinging kettlebells. It's training people to do anything they want to do by kicking them in the face so hard that anything else feels like a cakewalk. Not trying to sell anybody on anything, just want to add some clarity. If you don't like it, so be it. The training is far more than swinging kettlebells to get in 'general shape'. If you're interested (which i dont expect) or at least intrigued, just go to crossfit and check it out, it's free. (and nobody i know works out in gay compression socks.. most of us are barefoot on gravel while chewing razor blades holding shards of broken glass).

Good luck with whatever training you're doing, the best thing is that you're doing it.

  
World class athletes??
Some may say, "a 450 DL isn't going to get me a Kona win". Then if what you want is to be the #1 triathelete your going to be weak in other areas, though less weak then someone who wants to be the fastest marathoner. That is why I personally chose the olympic distance triathlons as something I want to dabble in. I personally don't care to be racing more than 3 hours.

You're right, I should have said "World Class Triathlete," but I'm pretty sure you know what I meant. As far as super fit people go, you should maybe go check out the performers in cirque de soleil. Those folks are completely amazing athletes, full of power, grace, endurance, and injury resistance. They effortlessly put on something like 8 shows a week, for weeks at a time. Whatever they're doing is probably even better for general fitness than your CF program, so maybe the next fad you guys can jump on is joining the circus. ;)

If we're talking about weakness, I believe your CF program makes you a weaker triathlete, so we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Why do you CF fans keep jumping in to defend your position? We all agree, CF probably makes you very strong and allows you to complete these endurance events, but to say that triathletes don't know how to train to excel in our given field is a little offensive.

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Ignorance is bliss until they take your bliss away.

Ken,

I don't advocate CFE or CF, so don't go thinking I'm on that side of the issue, but I have to correct you on something here:

Those photos were taken on 10/20/2008, after Lance announced his comeback.

http://www.livestrong.com/...4-a965-ff0471b7d711/

I agree with what your saying - but my post was a commentary of the article where the guy comes across as THE endurance expert essentially claiming that I am wasting my life away with sports specific training. Really? He's asking for it if you ask me...

I'm not here to defend my past or my accomplishments - I'm simply saying that there is a place for both strength and endurance training - but to say that squatting and deadlifting heavy weights the "fran" way is going to make you a better marathoner is a bit out of reach UNLESS you also encourage some form of specific endurance training. And yes, I am saying that training specificity trumps old fashioned fitness routines, or crossfit, or Gym Jones, etc when it comes to peak performance for world class events. There is no way you can show up for olympic trials having just lifted some tremendous amount of weight and expect to win. Believe me.

If, on the other hand you are simply talking about general fitness - and sports that reward the most successful generalists, then I may concede that crossfit may be the gateway to success for those events. For example, MMA fighters would probably become world class if they subscribed to what this man is saying...but for sports that reward the specialists, something more is needed...

Crossfit, Gym Jones, etc. will make you the best possible ball of clay to then mold through specific athletic training - but muddling peaking cycles with these programs that are more geared toward achieving general fitness through interval and power work is not going to improve the end result for the specialists. The place for crossfit is in the base foundation cycle if you're seriously competitive and gearing to step onto the podium. On the other hand, if you're trying just to stay fit and perhaps do a few races for your own personal benefit - then yes, crossfit is a very good thing to throw into the mix to keep you in excellent shape.

BUT, this guy is telling the endurance pros that they are fools... C'mon now... Marketing hype, or whatever you want to call it, is interesting to read - but coming across as the champion of fitness and all that is healthy is a bit preposterous.

I agree that if CF does not improve a soldiers performance on the field then they need to stop wasting time with it.

Coach Glassman from CF is a smart/shrewd fellow who would not push this on the military if he thought it would fail. As a matter of fact I think I recall him throwing out a cash challenge to any other training protocol in the GPP realm.

Also I'll see if I can dig up a link to a talk he gave about using a CF group and a regular PT in the Canadian Forces as a study. Supposedly the CF group did better on the PT exam than the group that trained specifically for it.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Exactly my point!! A soldier needs to be the quintessential generalist and this CFE program makes perfect sense for them. On the other hand, for a specialist athlete, already on the peaking cycle, CFE would probably detract from the performance more than it would help.

CFE ideally, has a place during the first 3 "rest/base" months of a triathletes year. The following 3 base months should be geared more toward specifics, and then the following 6 should be for peaking for the race. Any CFE besides the first 3 months is probably bad for the elite specialist.

Again, for an MMA fighter or a guy who needs to be 100% in shape all the time CFE I would bet is THE single best way to go if you could only pick one training method.