Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, looking approvingly upon "Pukie" the clown on this T-shirt.
This is a question I received months ago, and honestly didn’t want to take the time to answer. CrossFit has become an emerging fitness program that is growing very fast, and it’s a VERY touchy subject with some people. I knew that if I was going to publish my official opinion on CrossFit, it would take some precision, so as not to offend people.
Instead of going over all the aspects of CrossFit as an objective critic, I chose to highlight some of the most important points that I would want everyone to consider before joining a CrossFit gym or trying their workouts out.
At this point, I really don’t care. I’m going to offend some of you. Bring on the hate mail.
QUESTION:john
great info… thank you
my question…
would like to purchase the flowfit series or the body-flow series…
what is the difference ? what would you recommend ?
thank you Continue reading →
It was destined to happen, and I can’t say that I’m surprised. While swinging my clubbell the other day, I was asked the dreaded question of “What muscle does THAT exercise work?”
Now granted, I get asked this question a LOT. It seems that whenever I set foot into a health club, I get more than one person scratching their head while staring at me through a maze of mirrors. I’ll give them some slack, since most of the exercises I do are unheard of.
Sometimes, I respond with a scapegoat answer like, “I’m working abs.” And other times, I give a lengthy analysis of each component of the exercise. It really depends on the person, and how much I interpret their interest. I always liked Charles Staley’s response to the question. When Staley is asked “what muscle group are you working on?” He will often respond “You know when a quarterback throws a football, and you run to go catch it, and while running you turn around in mid-stride, catch the football, and keep running towards the endzone. THAT is the muscle I’m working right now.”
I never could bring myself to explain that to someone, so I’ll usually settle for saying “It’s a full body exercise.”
In this instance, I was doing clubbell mills, which is a sophisticated movement that requires a chain reaction of muscular contraction and relaxation all throughout the body in one swift movement. The clubbell mill feels like poetry in motion - it’s almost dancelike. Essentially, the clubbell mill is an intricate display of the specific application of strength generated from the legs, and channeled up through the arms and out into the clubbell which has become an “extension” of your body. It’s marvelous in its sophistication!
There is really too much happening in the clubbell mill to explain it point by point, and I’m sure I would lose you quickly. You’ll just have to see it. I filmed this video to get some feedback on my technique. I would rate myself at a 9 out of 10, technique-wise based on my own perception and on the feedback I have received. So, this is generally what a clubbell mill should look like.
Clubbell Mills with John Sifferman
I hope that we begin to shift away from the muscle-specific paradigm of strength training, and begin to adopt a more movement-based paradigm. Muscles are only one part of the puzzle - our health and fitness includes a much broader domain than tissue size and strength.
If I could teach you something right now, it’s that our bodies aren’t made up of different “parts.” We’ve given names to different organs and systems to help us identify them. We have mistakenly assumed that our organs work in isolation, independently of one another - when they actually work most harmoniously as a whole. The same is true of the systems that contribute to athleticism and strength activities.
Put simply, compound exercises are more efficient than isolation exercises. There is a never-ending spiral of sophistication that we can apply to our strength training, and with increased sophistication comes movement efficiency. And that is one of the major themes of this blog - movement efficiency through sophistication.
I’m not sure if our culture is ready to move away from it’s muscle-specific ideals yet, but I hope I never get asked that dreaded question again.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
To your health and success,
Fitness Professional and Clubbell Athlete
P.S. If you would like to purchase your own clubbell, visit the RMAX Clubbell Shop.
I have read numerous studies that have concluded that specific weight lifting activities have very little, if any, carry-over to athletic activities. It sounds crazy, I know. Believe me, I was pretty skeptical when I started reading these research abstracts myself. How could getting stronger hinder an athletes performance? Isn’t it the biggest, strongest, fastest athletes that are always the best? These questions were racing through my mind, and I had to ask myself, “how much does my training help me perform?” Continue reading →
That video of you performing the flowfit exercise is intense! I can’t do that haha, anyway i was really hoping you could please help me out choosing my routine. I just bought the dvd and on it it says its a 4 phase program but Scott did not specifically tell you which workouts to do or what routine to follow. On the dvd, there are 7 exercises and 4 flow exercises. For a couch potato such as myself, which exercises do i do and for how long? thank you very much for your help!
-stab
Here’s the video I think Stab is referring to:
FlowFit Circuit Training
ANSWER: Hey Stab,
That’s a good question because Sonnon does leave it a little open-ended as to how to begin with the FlowFit program. Continue reading →
Squats and pushups are what I like to call big bang, or money-maker exercises. Both of these bodyweight exercises cover a large area of the body since they are compound exercises. I like to combine bodyweight exercises like squats and pushups into a circuit, doing one exercise after the other with little to no rest. It offers great strength training benefits, but it also supercharges your metabolism. This is why circuit training is often called “metabolic conditioning.”
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