Save me from my workout
Converts to CrossFit, the extreme exercise craze, swear it’s life-changing and take pride in their self-inflicted injuries. I was a true believer—until one punishing session landed me in the ER with a shattered leg and a dislocated ankle. I still couldn’t wait to go back
In early fall 2013, my husband, Andrew, and I joined a popular CrossFit gym in the city’s east end. Our first class consisted of an intensive hour of non-stop sit-ups, push-ups and squats. It left me riding an adrenalin high—I could practically feel my biceps moulding into hard nuggets. Andrew, however, threw up as soon as we got home. As he staggered out of the washroom, I danced around him, bouncing on the balls of my feet. He had barely finished telling me he felt a little better before I said, “We’re still going back, though, right?”
Like thousands of others in the city, I was hooked. Toronto is a trend-obsessed place: we gravitate toward the new and cool, tend to exhaust it into ubiquity and then move on to the next thing—be it Canada Goose parkas or gluten-free cookies. In recent years, the Instagramming generation latched onto the CrossFit motto “Strong is the new skinny,” incessantly posting workout details and close-up photos of impressive new chiselled quads and six-packs. As we encourage ourselves to live longer and stronger, CrossFit has become king of the “fitspiration” movement. Of all the trendy workouts, from booty boot camps to hot yoga, CrossFit is the one that fulfils extreme get-fit dreams best—not a slow progression toward moderate health and average bodies, but a breakneck pace to the exceptional. Joining CrossFit is like making it into the A-list world of fitness.
To an outsider, a CrossFit workout can look nuts. Participants heave 60-pound kettlebells high over their heads in repetitions of 50, slam medicine balls at a 10-foot-high target on the wall, pull themselves in a swinging arc above the bar of the CrossFit rig—a metal structure that resembles a jungle gym on steroids. Then there are the Olympic-style weightlifting movements, like the snatch (lifting a weighted barbell, up to 300 pounds, from ground to overhead in one explosive motion), the clean-and-jerk (raising a barbell to shoulder height, then overhead as legs spring forward into a lunge) and the dead lift (fast and controlled, hoisting barbell from floor to hips and back). Oh, and the intervals of intense running. CrossFitters pride themselves not on a singular expertise, like, say, mastering a marathon or becoming a rep-level hockey player, but on general physical preparedness. The regimen is designed to make everything your body does better, from stamina to strength to flexibility. If there is ever a zombie apocalypse, CrossFitters will be the ones who survive.
Andrew and I reorganized our lives around CrossFit. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 6:50 a.m., we’d arrive at our rough, utilitarian CrossFit gym, or “box” in CrossFit parlance, swathed in layers of sweats and spandex. (It was winter, and the gym managers rarely turned the heat on.) The hour’s agenda would be scrawled on a whiteboard near a set of rowing machines. It always included, in order: a warm-up, stretching and skills improvement, then the Workout of the Day, or WOD, ending with a cool-down and the posting of your numbers (times, weights, reps) on another board. Guided by the coach, everyone followed the same workout—whether you were a 250-pound tank, like one intimidating class member, or a 165-pound, five-foot-eight woman (me).
As a newbie, I wasn’t strong or skilled enough to do everything the agenda prescribed. What the strongest man or woman in the box could lift got posted too—so you could see how far you had to go.
As a teen, I’d competed in kick-boxing fights but had slowed down after I’d popped ligaments in my left knee. I was wary of reinjuring that same knee in CrossFit and had to remember not to push myself too hard. For upper body exercises, I didn’t have any such excuse. Our workout almost always included at least 30 pull-ups (the chin-up’s slightly tougher cousin) but more often double or triple that number, which turned my arms and shoulders to jelly. When it came to weights, I fell even further behind.
Some coaches were great; others seemed unsure of how much weight I should be lifting. At times, the workouts made no sense to me, more a random testament to machismo than a targeted program. People occasionally complained when a WOD felt particularly cruel—like the time we had to run 800 metres, then do 30 kettlebell swings, followed by 30 pull-ups, five times in a row—but not very loudly and usually with a tacked-on chuckle. As long as we were killing it, most of us didn’t care. There was a cultish groupthink at work: I was caught in a flux of being cheered on and trying to beat the person next to me so I wouldn’t finish last in a timed WOD. After class, we’d all collapse on the black rubber floor, sweating and utterly spent.
My love affair with CrossFit ended abruptly on January 6. That day, we had one minute to do 12 burpees, hitting the bar of the CrossFit rig. Next came 12 box jumps—launching yourself onto a wooden box from a two-footed stance, no running starts allowed—also in one minute. We had to do both over and over again, a dozen times. I’d waffled over what size box to use, and was unhelpfully instructed to try “whatever felt comfortable.” I chose a two-foot box—slightly smaller than everyone else’s. Midway into the workout, my left knee began to feel wobbly every time I landed on top of the box. When I told the instructor, he swapped it out for another that was four inches lower. I should have stopped—but stopping was unthinkable. Two sloppy jumps later, my left knee gave out and I fell. I could hear my leg bones shattering—it sounded like gunfire.
CrossFit, like other fitness fads, seemed to come out of nowhere. But a former teenage gymnast named Greg Glassman had been developing and testing the workout as a gym trainer for years. He officially incorporated CrossFit in 2000, and opened his first affiliate gym in Seattle. It took five years for the company to hit 13 affiliates—then suddenly, its popularity exploded. In 2010, Reebok signed on as the lead sponsor for the CrossFit Games, which were founded in relative obscurity in 2007; the 10-year deal is rumoured to be worth $10 million and has led to a lucrative Reebok CrossFit apparel line. In 2011, ESPN further legitimized the sport when it began airing the finals of the newly rebranded Reebok CrossFit Games. This year, more than 200,000 people signed up for the qualifying rounds, eventually moving up through the ranks of regional competitions, all fighting for the “Fittest on Earth” title this month in Carson, California.
It’s surprisingly easy to become a CrossFit-affiliate gym. Potential owners must first pass a two-day CrossFit Level 1 certification course, then fill out a short application form, including an essay on why they want to affiliate, what they hope to achieve and what CrossFit means to them. If approved, the new affiliate pays an annual $3,000 licensing fee to use the name. That’s it. Good CrossFit gyms won’t let their coaches stop at Level 1, but there’s also nothing to stop people from teaching at a gym the day after they receive their certification.
CrossFit Toronto, the city’s first affiliate, opened in 2006 in Leslieville. In 2008, one of its participants branched out and opened Toronto’s second box, Academy of Lions CrossFit, on Ossington. Now, there are 67 CrossFit-affiliate gyms in the GTA and dozens of other gyms incorporating CrossFit-type workouts.
High-intensity fitness regimes seem like a natural fit for people who are already ripped, but they also appeal to those of us who spend our days in front of a computer—and feel guilty about it. My CrossFit box had your expected heavily muscled, zero-fat dudes; plus a couple of elderly men and women, their shorts hiked high and grey hair dripping sweat; hipsters with thick-rimmed glasses and full-sleeve tattoos; and even a blind man whose guide dog often sat by our gym cubbies, tail wagging. There were tall and squat women, skinny men, and more than a few balding heads. A lot of us, including me, were former competitive athletes who wanted to regain our peak fitness. CrossFit promises to turn people into an ideal version of themselves, so long as they’re willing to work really, really hard.
This transformation is often so intense, CrossFitters can’t shut up about it. We’re like the Jehovah’s Witnesses of the fitness world—like we’ve found the best thing ever and genuinely believe you’ll be saved if you find it, too. The CrossFit community made me ecstatic about what my body could do.
But as much as CrossFit has created a legion of healthier, stronger people, its ranks have also suffered numerous injuries and ER visits. CrossFit’s safety first came into question in earnest in December 2005, when the New York Times ran an article headlined “Getting Fit, Even if It Kills You.” The story described the ordeal of a 38-year-old former army ranger named Brian Anderson who ended up in the emergency room after his first CrossFit class. Anderson was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition in which your muscle fibre breaks down, is released into the bloodstream and then poisons your kidneys—sometimes resulting in the need for dialysis and occasionally causing permanent damage. He spent six days in intensive care, even longer in physiotherapy, and then returned to CrossFit.
At the time his case made the news, it was one of six reported incidents of CrossFit-induced rhabdomyolysis. The uptick caused panic in the fitness industry: doctors were more accustomed to seeing the deadly condition in serious burn victims and people with crushed limbs. That same year, a former U.S. navy technician named Makimba Mimms won a $300,000 lawsuit against a Virginia gym when he developed rhabdomyolysis after having participated in CrossFit-type training.
In 2011, the American College of Sports Medicine released a research paper noting a “potential emerging problem of disproportionate musculoskeletal injury risk” in extreme conditioning programs such as CrossFit, especially among newbies. It concluded that such workouts can encourage participants to push themselves too far, too fast. The group atmosphere, it added, fosters a potentially dangerous “keep up” attitude: participants abandon sensible pacing and progression because they don’t want to appear weak. A 2013 study conducted by Ohio State University and published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research largely endorsed CrossFit’s exercise methods, though it also reported losing 16 per cent of its research subjects to injury. The Journal published a second article showing the results of an anonymous online survey of British CrossFit participants, in which 73.5 per cent of survey respondents reported injuries, seven per cent of them requiring surgery. The article concluded that CrossFit injury rates—3.1 per 1,000 hours trained—were similar to sports such as Olympic weightlifting, power-lifting and gymnastics.
The debate over the safety of CrossFit got louder last January, around the time of my injury, when Kevin Ogar, one of the top CrossFit competitors in the world, dropped a bar weighted with 240 pounds on his spine in a snatch gone bad. He’s now a paraplegic. The safety debate has been fuelled by CrossFit headquarters itself, particularly by Glassman, who considers injuries a badge of honour. When the Times asked him to comment on the sport’s safety for the 2005 article, he responded that CrossFit “can kill you. I’ve always been completely honest about that…. If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don’t want you in our ranks.” A year later, he wrote on the company’s online message board, “We have a therapy for injuries at CrossFit called STFU.” (Translation: shut the fuck up.) As for Mimms, the man who won the rhabdomyolysis lawsuit? Some gyms renamed the workout that injured him the Makimba and then re-categorized it as a workout for kids—so, like, STFU, ya baby. We’re elite; you are not.
The CrossFit company lashed out at the Ohio State academics who raised concern over the injury rate, publicly accusing them of fabricating data. And the Ohio gym where the study was conducted sued the academics for damages and a retraction. (The case is still before the courts.) CrossFit has spun the criticisms into positive PR by branding the naysayers as weaklings, which, so far, has only increased the ranks of true believers. CrossFit participants proudly wear T-shirts depicting a mascot they call Pukie. Another shirt features Uncle Rhabdo, a clown with his bloody guts falling out.
I can understand why CrossFitters resent academics scrutinizing their injury rates. Injuries, even serious ones, are not uncommon in sports. Couch potato–ism endangers a person’s overall health, too. For this story, I spoke to physiotherapists and athletic therapists, professional sports trainers, the chair of the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology’s gold standard certification, and McMaster University’s Martin Gibala, one of the world’s leading experts in high-intensity interval training. They all agreed the principles of CrossFit and CrossFit-style workouts were sound: varied, full-body targeted movement, all done at high-intensity intervals. As the CSEP chair Bart Arnold told me, “There’s no such thing as a bad exercise.” But a workout culture that obsessively charts personal records and constantly encourages you to one-up yourself quickly erodes your judgment, morphing it into a constant refrain of “just one more.” We push ourselves beyond our natural limits, because we want to believe we have none. And we tell ourselves that we can trust our coach to save us from ourselves, because we want to believe that, too. This is where extreme fitness is on shaky ground.
The moment I fell down, both Andrew and our coach dashed to my side. I remember grasping for Andrew’s hand, meekly telling him I thought I’d broken my leg. I started shaking as my body went into shock in response to the searing pain. Andrew tried to calm me by suggesting it was “maybe a sprain.” But I couldn’t move my foot, which lay eerily parallel to the ground. The class formed a semicircle around me. One of my fellow CrossFitters suggested we forgo the ambulance and instead lift me up into our car. The coach, eyes pinballing from my foot to my face, called 911, then went out into the street to flag down the ambulance.
As I was carted out on the stretcher, I saw everyone resume the WOD. I felt bad for interrupting them.
The parts between my fall and the hospital are fuzzy to me. I’d gone into full shock, my body a cold, vibrating container of adrenalin and pain. I remember being grateful that the paramedics didn’t have to cut off my new neon pink Reebok shoe. I wasn’t able to correctly recall my address or home phone number. If you asked me now what the inside of the ambulance looked like, I couldn’t tell you. At the hospital, the adrenalin disappeared and was replaced by a ferocious raging agony that I would rate an 11 on a scale of one to 10.
Initial X-rays revealed my lower tibia and fibula bones were broken, but it was hard to tell how badly: my ankle had dislocated, obscuring the break lines. The ankle also accounted for the incredible vise-like feeling in my leg, as though it were being squashed between two concrete slabs. I kept telling myself not to scream, stuffing the hospital blanket into my mouth as a DIY gag.
Because they had to keep me conscious to set my dislocated ankle, the doctors were holding back on the morphine. I hadn’t had any when Andrew arrived at the hospital. By that point, I’d also taken off my glasses to stop from staring at the way my foot was starting to tilt backward. To see Andrew at all, I had to put my face very close to his. I tried to distract myself by counting the various shades of blue flecks in his irises. Barely 15 minutes had passed before I pleaded with him to find a nurse who would give me something, anything for the pain.
Eventually, my doctors decided I needed surgery—a simple set and cast would not do the trick. My bones were broken into multiple pieces near the ankle; one fracture line ran up my shinbone. I went into surgery that night and came out three hours later with a metal plate, and 18 screws and pins holding me together on the inside. The hardware, which will never come out of my leg, is meant to keep my bone together as it regenerates and knits itself back into place. My break was both bad and intricate—in med-speak, a spiral fracture. Think of it as wringing a wet towel, like someone had grabbed my foot and knee, then twisted them hard and fast in opposite directions.
The next afternoon, I went home with a 120-pill bottle of Percocet. And so began the two-month period I came to call Broken Leg Life. In the early days, I could barely move at all; I needed help getting out of bed, help to sit on the toilet, help to get off the toilet, help to wipe my ass. The moment I became aware of my inability to perform that last task I broke down into big, hiccupping sobs. Honestly, crying became a more regular part of my life than it had ever been. I cried before I had to go to the hospital, a week after surgery, to get my temporary cast opened and my 36 staples and four stitches yanked out. I cried the first time Andrew and I cleaned my leg. Even the slightest touch was agony. My own helplessness was worse. I would put off cleaning it for hours on shower days, all so I’d never have to see the mess it had become.
I took a short leave from my day job editing This Magazine, and Andrew did everything around the house while I stayed in bed with my leg elevated. After a week, I started working from home during the day and marathoning Dr. Who after dinner. Friends visited on Thursdays and family on the weekends to give Andrew a break. Once a week, we removed the cast and Andrew washed my leg. With my glasses off, it looked like I was wearing a knee sock of bruises. (I put them on once and fainted after becoming convinced that the inside of my ankle had moved to the front of my leg; it was just the swelling.) And yet, whenever people asked me how I broke my leg, I’d minimize it, casually saying “Oh, I’m clumsy” or “I fell off a box and somehow exploded my leg”—like it was an unsolvable mystery. In reality, a physiotherapist later told me, even falling a foot or two can be like launching off a roof for people with prior knee injuries.
I was utterly in denial. I would pester Andrew to go to CrossFit. He was reluctant, but I was determined he had to continue training. I wanted to go back, too. Entirely delusional about the length of my recovery period, I’d fantasize about doing modified workouts. Andrew started going to the box again, and I’d ask him to report back on the workouts.
At night, the pain became worse. I’d down foul-smelling valerian pills to help me sleep but still lie awake for hours, my mind replaying my fall again and again in a macabre loop. The sound of my bones breaking haunted me the most. Thinking about it still makes my stomach lurch.
I spent months like this—failing to confront too deeply how I broke my leg, what role I played in it, what role CrossFit played in it. Even now, I can’t lay the blame in any one place—I genuinely liked my coach that day, a nice guy I believe simply didn’t know how far to push me, especially when I wanted to be pushed, and especially when the goal is to be pushed. I didn’t want either of us, or the larger CrossFit movement, to have to accept blame. Rather, I wanted to believe it was some freak accident. Like a true devotee, I wanted to power through it.
I stayed in this irrational state until March 11, when I went to the hospital for a checkup, and the doctor told me I’d need three months of physical therapy just to relearn how to walk. Trying to digest this news on the way home from the hospital, I confessed out loud to Andrew for the first time: “You know, I knew something bad was going to happen.” And then in a whisper: “But I jumped anyway.”
On my first day of physiotherapy, on March 13, I had trouble breathing. I’d worn my favourite workout clothes, the same outfit, I realized too late, that I’d worn when I fell off the box. After more than two months of barely moving, I’d lost most of my muscle mass. It was especially noticeable in my broken leg, where my thigh tapered into a shocking, twig-like girth below my knee.
Learning to walk again has been both excruciatingly slow and just plain excruciating. I’ve spent a lot of time on the parallel bars, trying to take real steps. In the beginning, I could barely put my foot down. My tendons were so tight, and my muscles so small, I couldn’t even make the heel-to-toe motion, tending instead to slap my foot flat on the ground, then quickly launch off it in a jerky, straight-legged motion. I practised on a wobble board, a circular wood platform that, as the name suggests, wobbles, forcing your foot out of its tight right angle. After each workout, my leg, ankle and foot were iced. Then, manual therapy: a 10-minute massage during which my physiotherapist would try to break up the scar tissue and “glide” my joint back into movement.
For the first month, the swelling refused to leave my foot and ankle. Andrew nicknamed my foot Sideshow Bob after the Simpsons character, because it was cartoonishly unreal. My physiotherapist told me to massage the swelling out each night, like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. The nerve damage in my foot was strangest to me. It formed a narrow Bermuda Triangle, with points at my big toe and either side of my ankle, where all feeling was lost. More problematically, it stopped me from being able to bend my toes. It could take a year or two for the nerves to heal. I’m supposed to float a tissue on my foot for 20 minutes each day, trying to coax the nerves into reawakening.
As I began to leave my house more, I kept encountering people who had their own CrossFit cautionary tales. One night, I called a concert venue to ask if there was anywhere I’d be able to sit, and the doorperson told me how she ripped her Achilles tendon at CrossFit and will never go again. My friends ask me if I’ll go back, expecting a firm no. Yet, even now, there is a small, persistent part of me that doesn’t want to give up the thrill of a session at the box.
This is the strange alchemy of CrossFit. If you get all the elements right—good coaching, proper skill progression and the iron will to abstain from the pressure to go too hard—it can be golden. Yet, if any of them are missing, like they were for me that day in January, well…I’d already exploded one leg.
As I write this in mid-May, I’ve only just begun to walk without crutches. I have a drunken-pirate limp. To help get rid of it, my physiotherapist has me doing lines of “dynamic lunges” up and down the office’s small gym space. It’s a movement I first learned at CrossFit, and each time I do one I can’t help thinking of the way my knee used to dip much lower—to the floor, smooth and strong as I completed 15, 20, 30 lunges in a row. Suddenly, I’m back there again, the movie reel winding up in my head. But there’s something else, too: an urge to push my knee further down each time, past the flare of pain, just a little bit, just to see if I can.
Tl;dr: I was overweight and deconditioned, I got all hyped up on intense exercise, I ignored an old injury and consequently hurt myself. That was bad! However, by writing an article that implies CrossFit was to blame, instead of my own poor judgment, I got published! And that’s good! So I guess I’ve managed to make lemonade out of lemons after all.
Great read. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. Cross fit is a unique cat, but not so different from other high risk sports. As a downhill mountain biker and marathon runner I’ve had a legion of injuries from the worst impact, car crash breaks to stress fractures. It’s simply a part of going over your handle bars or running 90 km weeks.
What is different about Cross Fit is the weird trash talking and one-up man ship. In biking now one belittles you into hitting a jump you aren’t comfortable with. Rarely do I see mocking someone for dropping out of a 30 km run because their IT band is flaring. The reality is that we are all trying to keep doing these high risk activities while actively trying to avoid injury.
I get the intensity. If you are an endurance athlete you understand interval, hill work etc. Same with martial arts (try kendo some time). Cross fit has nailed a fantastic point in the exercise continuum, perhaps the attitude will mature as well.
One upmanship? Belittling? I can’t imagine a more opposite description of what goes on in the average CrossFit gym. Have you ever actually stepped foot in one? If you have, and witnessed firsthand what you’re describing, I assure you that’s a far, far outlier. Even at the highest level of competition, when there is serious cash on the line, CF competitors cheer each other on.
It’s the HTFU, posted WOD, us versus them culture thing. It’s not unheard of in road racing or other sports, it’s just a bit more front and center with cross fit it seems. I’ve watched the qualifying run-up to the games and past events, so yeah I get the team and personal support.
The point of the article is that possibly, just possibly the culture of pressure is a contributing factor to the higher than necessary injury rates. I’m saying I don’t see it in other high risk sports. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps it’s just a part of the game.
If I had an infinite amount of time, cross fit would be on the list of to do activities.
I am also learning how to walk again after a similar “Clumsy” accident in my boxing class.
I broke my ankle and ended up being on crutches for well over 2 months. It has been a long and steady recovery and I don’t wish these accident’s on anyone. Not having the ability to cook or clean or get around the city to do errands was very frustrating as a single person living on their own.
I believe that the trainers of the classes should have more of a safety discussion as to how to know when you’ve pushed yourself too hard and when to take it easy.
Good luck with your physio! No Pain No Gain!
TL;DR: I am a wuss.
This story reminds me of an injury I recently suffered falling off my couch. Like the author I can’t wait to get back on my couch.
Crossfit. It’s like normal exercise, but crazy, because it’s designed to appeal to people with no patience for natural progression and who don’t understand that fitness is a process. Exercising until you’re depleted is way less effective than just getting a reasonable amount of exercise followed by recovery + repeat consistently.
I’m curious to know if Lauren is taking proton pump inhibitors for acid reflux/GERD. I’ve heard they can cause a calcium deficiency and, after years of use, vulnerability to bone injuries like the one she experienced at a surprisingly young age.
TL:DR I’m an a**hole.
Great article. I’m prone to punishing myself and overdoing it with exercise… having sustained my fair share of injuries over the years I’m starting to ease up. For me it’s a matter of patience and how little I often have.
I hope your recovery helps you find magic where you couldn’t see it before. Sometimes being humbled by our own mortality is a blessing. Maybe you could learn a new instrument? The concertina would go well with your drunken-pirate limp.
Sending kind thoughts to you!
Thanks for sharing your story.
It looks like you experienced a syndrome named “the female athlete triad”.
http://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/the-female-athlete-triad.pdf
I wish you all the best for a rapid recovery.
Really…fool. There are so many ways/so many classes to stay in great shape. Why risk further injury that can come back to haunt you. Don’t get it!
You said it Jeff!
I’m a Fitness Instructor and I wouldn’t even jump into that kind of workout. My shoulder isn’t the strongest right now and there is NO way that I would pick up a 50lb Kettlebell…!
I’m trying to start up an outdoor Bootcamp for ALL levels regardless off their fitness level. Not “Kid Gloves” but not throwing an exercise at someone who clearly isn’t ready for it (yet). In other words, safe progression. <<Key Words..! <<
This injury sounds like a horrible thing to experience, and to rehab. Really sorry to read this.
I did wonder in reading this piece why there wasn’t more discussion of whether the injury at CrossFit could have been related to the author’s years competing in kick-boxing, which caused her to pop ligaments in the exact same knee/leg.
Would someone who hadn’t previously participated in competitive kick-boxing and injured that same knee have had a different experience? Is it possible the kick-boxing injury and the box jumps injury are connected?
People should absolutely be aware they can be injured at CrossFit, but having someone shatter a leg on box jumps seems pretty remarkable.
Just to speak from personal experience, I did a bit of boxing before taking up CrossFit. I hurt my left elbow in a fight and certainly had to make an effort to be aware of that when dealing with relevant CF exercises. It is tempting to push too far.
So, yes, I CrossFit and find it works for me. But people should be warned about the need to scale their workouts, and to be aware of possible injury. I’ve been to different CF boxes in different countries and the coaching and warm ups vary. So be aware of that, too. (But I find a really big improvement now from 5 yrs ago. Way more training and coaching and requiring people to learn the movements correctly.)
All that being said, it just seemed really strange to not do more in the piece to explain if the knee injury and the leg injury might be connected.
While I am very sorry about your injury and wish you a complete recovery, I am a little disappointed in the finger pointing of most of the comments. First, like any broad categorization, saying CrossFit is to blame or that it is inherently dangerous is a little ridiculous. I once saw a seasoned triathlete drop dead in the middle of an event. Is the sport to blame or was it just something that happened?
I have been through my own injury (knee related) while wake boarding and was not able to walk for nearly 2 months. While not nearly as bad as the authors experience, it was a long road to recovery. Was the sport to blame or was it me? It was me.
I do have to agree with author when she says “If you get all the elements right—good coaching, proper skill
progression and the iron will to abstain from the pressure to go too
hard—it can be golden” I have been a member at 3 different CF boxes. The first was a little too macho for me and were more interested in putting up big numbers than the correct form. The second box I was at had quality coaching, were concerned with safe workouts, but the culture was off (too many college kids and no community). The third, and my current box, has quality coaching (some of the coaches have advanced degrees in exercise sciences, chiropractic medicine, etc.), and puts safety over big numbers every single day. Just last week we were doing a WOD of jump rope double-under, box jumps, and 400 meter runs. 5 rounds for time. The first thing the coach said was if you feel unstable or are not confident at all do not jump on the box but do controlled step ups. This is how all potentially risky movements are addressed at my box.
Like most things in life, it is your personal responsibility to put in the effort, control your ego, and ensure your own safety. CrossFit can be intense, many would say too intense, but it does offer results that are hard to find any place else. I have spent most of my life participating in sports or working out and it is impossible to make gains in anything without breaking through what you perceive to be your limits. CrossFit helps many find those limits and exceed them.
How can you break your leg from doing… box jumps? Must have had a pre-existing condition.
Why is this woman wearing a shoe in her aircast?
Tough to read. That’s a gruesome fracture. Anyone who’s an a debilitating injury knows how this young woman feels.
To the author: there are many ways to get fit – to get really fit. Crossfit does not have a monopoly on getting in shape, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
People break their legs skiing. Most of them don’t just give up on skiing. Why would you just give up on Crossfit?
Until you do a Crossfit workout and understand more than this one sided piece there is not much to talk about. Maybe you have and it’s not your cup of tea but I really would like to see the numbers on the injury numbers in comparison to Running , football and even Dancing.
I’m a physical therapist and almost all of my clients now are due to (A) really fat people deciding to take up running and injuring their knees and ankles and (B) crossfit. The main problem as I see it is the foolish focus on speed and time and not proper form.
The whole “no pain, no gain” is a common misconception. Sure you’ll be sore after a hard workout but you should never be in pain. If you’re in pain while working out (excluding the very temporary burn from lactic acid build up) then you’re doing something very wrong.
What ever gets people off the couch right? Why does everyone have to take sides and argue over what works and doesn’t. The only thing that works is consistency, crossfit, walking, olympic lifts etc, keep doing it and change will happen. If you crossfit, good for you, but you’re no better than anyone else, same goes for the bro split guys. Now don’t get me started on the paleotards ;).
This is a pretty common story in the crossfit community. A person, who had too much ego and who thought they were fit (usually a former military person or competitive athlete with a long standing previous injury–her knee in the author’s case), joins a crossfit gym and goes too hard, too fast, and gets injured.
My concern with this article is the lack of personal responsibility by the author. She seemec to lack common sense. If I had a bad knee, I would modify the workout to choose an exercise that would put less stress on my knee or modify the rep scheme (for example doing step ups instead of box jumps or fewer box jumps). Crossfit is an infinitely scalable workout. Every WOD lead by an instructor that I have attended begins with the instructor asking if anyone has any injuries or questions about scaling (i.e. modifying the workout). Scaling a workout is widely done and not frowned upon. This author let her ego run rampant and she got injured as a result. I do not think that crossfit should be demonized as a result.
I’ve doing cross fit for 4 years and, like most things worth doing, crossfit takes multiple years to learn the movements and to build up the necessary strength to do many of the movements. Even after 4 years, there are still days that I will scale a workout if I need to. This is just common sense.
Each crossfit session is a challenging mentally and physical effort–this is why crossfit is appealing. I get bored in a regular gym doing arm curls, bench press, rack squats and running on a treadmill. I like competing and I like having a place where I can feel part of a community. That is what most crossfit gyms offer and what they foster. Like any sport or training endeavor, there are risks. But if you approach the WOD in a reasonable way, the risk are minimal.
The best crossfit gym have a 2-3 month intro program where the class are separate so new athletes can spend more time learning how to do the workout movements and so athletes can spend some time building up strength.
My advice to anyone would be to drop in and watch a WOD at a crossfit gym before pre-judging the sport as a whole. If it is something that you might want to do, find a gym with a beginners class (even if you are fit) and spend a few months getting comfortable with the movements and building up your strength. Most “fit” people in regular globo gyms do not do full range of motion multi-muscle movements at high intensity intermixed with skill exercises.
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Agreed with Ronan. Any WOD can be modified – so what if you can’t snatch 300lbs right now? The point is that you’re snatching. You’ll get to 300lbs eventually with PROPER technique. I think that’s the key to CrossFit: proper technique/form.
Yes, you’re heaving a weighted barbell over your head but no one gets to 300lbs overnight. If you don’t even know how to properly do a movement with your own body weight, then don’t even consider doing it with weights until you’ve learnt how to do it properly first or risk injuring yourself. I’m not saying you won’t get injured with good form, but at least you minimize the risk of (God forbid) breaking your leg like the author. With proper form, you’ll know the signs of when you should just stop/put it down/dropping it – there’s no shame in that. I just saw a competition and even the “pros” had to drop the bar after only 5 power cleans (with 5 more to go), or get down from the bar after only 3 power ups (out of 10).
What I personally believe is the greatest thing about CrossFit is this: you keep going, albeit if you have to stop and catch your breath OR have to drop the bar for whatever reason, you find the strength to keep going (whether right away or at your own pace) against all odds.
…and to those that say that there’s a “one up man-ship” to CrossFit, sure there is. Let’s be honest here. But it’s like that for ANY sport…men or women. Look at the Olympics. Look at tennis. But what’s great about most boxes is that people cheer you on – they encourage you to keep going. You know why? Because they know how tough it is to finish whatever it is you’re doing – we all need encouraging. Whether it’s from people cheering you on or from being inspired by someone being able to do a WOD in less time than you.
Obviously she just wasn’t EXTREME. Crossfit, it’s a WAY OF LIFE. RAAAWRR!!!
For a person who is an athlete and has a good base for working out, these extreme workouts would be OK *WITH proper form* But for the average Joe it is NOT.
The philosophy (something like) “Get done no matter what it takes is ridiculous. Fitness should NEVER put you in the hospital. It shouldn’t make you sick or injure you either.
This piece does appear to be a little one-sided but, that’s very normal given that this is the story of one person’s experience with the cross-fit workout. When I entered the realm of the cross-fit workout in Nov. 2013, it was because I was purposely looking for THIS type of work-out. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I did my research and I tested the work-out AND the instructor before I joined. Among the many things that really sold me on this particular gym was that safety was paramount. The work-out groups are kept very small (between 2 and 6 people in a 1 hour session). The instructors are very experienced and very observant. They are always checking form, appropriate weight and breathing. We are NEVER pressured to lift what we obviously not ready to lift. We are however, encouraged to achieve our personal best and ignore what the others are doing. In other words, we are encouraged to go at our own pace. In my own personal experience, joining this gym is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. As a runner, it has enormously improved the strength of my legs as well as my overall running form. I can FEEL it every time I go for a run. If you are thinking about getting into cross-fit, I strongly encourage you to do your research. Get to know the instructor(s). Find out what his/her philosophy’s are when it comes to expectations of the work-out. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions and DO A TRIAL WORK-OUT before you join. RF
Hmmmm, perhaps I joined a much different crossfit gym. I am by no means close to athletic condition, I’m pretty out of shape and recently joined a fantastic crossfit gym. My coach has put me on a “path” to crossfit. I go to the box and do the wods but the coach has different wods for every fitness level. He groups us in our athletic ability and we work together. There is no pressure of “you have to do it or you look like a failure” it’s actually the opposite, the coach makes it very clear from the beginning, “don’t watch other athletes, focus on yourself”. Now of course we encourage each other because we are like family now, but we always congratulate each other, and motivate each other even if you couldn’t accomplish everything in that “WOD”, just being there is an accomplishment.
Your coach should know your limits and only push you slightly above that each time, it’s how you get stronger and better, but it’s no different than a traditional personal trainer at the local gym who by the way is always on their phone texting while their supposed to be training you. the coach at the box really cares for you, wants the best for you, motivates you, calls you when you don’t come to class, well, at least my coach does.
I understand crossfit exercises are quite tough as compared to the normal exercises. But you can avoid injuries if you use a proper crossfit appreal and gloves.
http://glovereview.com/
I had similar happen to me and ended up with a Fulkerson Surgery….3 years later I’m still not 100% close but not fully. My dr told me two weeks later another crossfitter came in with same exact injury as mine
To whom it may concern, ( opinion piece )
Disclosure: I Lloyd
Shaw have no, or ever had any financial ties or dealing with Russell
Greene and Russell Berger. My dealings with them was purely based on
promoting ethics / consumer protection work founded on common beliefs.
As a Mortician and Fitness Industry leader I take my fight against
dishonesty in our industry very seriously. It is my belief only a
combination of full disclosure, passionate people and good safe exercise
options can help our population regain its health.
My warning……..
After having personal contact and working on a project with both
Russell Greene and Russell Berger. It is my honest opinion their lack of
discipline, personal standards and lack of accountability is the root
cause of CrossFit’s reputation of unsafe practices.
Their almost psychopathic ability
to deny any wrongdoing is a dangerous thing to have in the Fitness
Industry. I believe their current mindset would allow them to cover up
any incident of uneducated dangerous trainers, accidents or even death,
that would interfere with their profit margin / marketing and justify
it. Without remorse.
Their willingness to use academics who
claim expertise outside their actual experience or qualifications to
influence or misdirect the consumer is disturbing.
Universal truths are usually simple, and one that I have learnt is…….
” If the rot is at the top, the rest will surely follow ” Lloyd Shaw
It is my opinion it is only a matter of time before a tragedy occurs
and regulation will be forced on this industry. It is my hope the
regulation comes before the tragedy.
Kind regards Lloyd Shaw NZ
Specialist Mortician
Founder / designer of Commercial VT….
Crossfit is a HIIT regime that lasts too long, let me rephrase it’s a HIGH volume HIIT. All you need to do is reduce the volume. Obviously most crossidiots don’t get the idea of reducing the volume or the intensity. The best supplement for crossfitters are actually steroids.
“It sounded like gunfire” LOL what a drama queen
So, how’s your Rhabdo doing?
ME = 6′ 2″ ; 220lbs
Just started running and I am doing fine at 5k per run. I also am ex-military and I do proper stretching before and after. I also have quit smoking and drinking.
I let my health go because I got lazy, now I am paying for it. I accept my pain and the consequences and work toward a steady goal of becoming fit and healthy, the proper way.
I think that if you are looking to get into shape, proper diet and exercise are key. Crossfit is NOT proper exercise. It is pain and injury wrapped in kipping movements and joe blow fitness instructors with poor form.
Okay so I got into Crossfit in February 2015. What is missing from this piece is the fact that there are standards for all the exercises That certainly does not mean that everyone is expected to meet the standards. That is why trainers would normally scale the exercises to the suit the individual. You try to do a box jump and miss then fall and hurt yourself who is the idiot? Yes it is intense even scaled and you need to be at a reasonable level of fitness to even start. I am 70years old and it is the best decision I ever made. Injuries, fell and ruptured my quad running, got run of the road by a car and crashed my bike and got banged up pretty good. Injured skiing, injured at the Goodlife and the Y at various times, got a variety of running injuries of the years. If you don’t want to risk some kind of injury being active stay in bed all day. This whole piece seems to be an attempt to appear like a victim.
There is very good reason why there are 11,000 or more Crossfit boxes in every corner of this planet. Bring it on!! I love it!!
Exactly, the crossfit boxes are full of people encouraging others, nobody, NOBODY encourages anyone to do more than they are capable of in a box. Just critism of something peole don’t understand and are jealous of others accomplishments.
Excellent description
my experinence exactly, I am 70 years old and had very patient coaching and constant advice on proper form.