CrossFit compared to the American College of Sports Medicine (*Masters Thesis)

This is a very cool survey study performed at Northern Michigan University, by Bryanne N. Bellovary in pursuitof a Masters Degree.  We like to dig into literature from different postgraduate excercise departments across the country (what, just us?), because it’s often on the cutting edge of the field, produced by those who still have  chalk on their hands from a bar, and not a blackboard.   Normally, a Masters Thesis will involve a study of some sort, and a defense of that study to a board of review. Often, we see these papers cleaned up a bit, and published in peer-reviewed journals. So the rigorous nature of the study, just because it’s not being done by a bunch of PhDs, should not be in question. These are very worthy efforts being put out by the next generation of sports scientists.

For this survey, a total of 322 people responded to the author’s questionnaire, with 203 participants finishing it.Out of those who finished it, 157 respondents were categorized into either CrossFit® (101) or American College of Sports Medicine groups (56), based on what kind of eercise program they had been following. To make sure the Crossfitters were legit as were the ACSM group, they sent the survey out to email addresses found on the CF.com website under “Affiliate Finder” and the ACSM group was found through their internal trainer directory.

Not exactly shocking, right?

Rating of Percieved Exertion (RPE) was significantly higher (7.29 versus 5.52 average). CrossFitters also performed more hard days per week (3.99 vs. 3.55). CrossFit adherants also reported more soreness and fatigue (seems logical when you’re working harder, more frequently).

Two ASCM members required an overnight stay in the hospital versus one in the CF group, and a similar amount of respondents in the ASCM group had been forced to seek medical attention after training, compared to the CF group. Obviously that’s interesting, because the CF group is working significantly harder than the ACSM one, but isn’t causing more frequent instances that require medical attention. A single CrossFitter reported exertional rhabdomyolysis, but “reports of the individuals in this paper do not represent an immediate causal relation ship between their signs and symptoms observed and the development of ER…” – which means 1/101 hasn’t got any statistical power to determine whether we are seeing a fluke or if we had looked at 1,100 CF’ers, we’d have seen 10 cases (we’re also told about a single case study of a guy who did P90X (ha ha) and gave himself rhabdo within two sessions – obviously these kinds of things are interesting, but don’t have a high statistical power). The author concludes:

“One occurrence of ER was reported out of 101 CrossFit® participants. Therefore, the overall risk of developing ER may be minimal, especially if a participant understands their body’s limitations in regard to the intensity of CrossFit®.”

The study at hand also references a prior thesis (“CrossFit effectiveness on fitness levels and demonstration of successful program objectives.” 2012. Jeffery, Christine.) where ACSM practicioners were compared to CrossFitters, on a battery of tests: The Margaria Kalamen Power test, the Anaerobic Step test, and the Cooper 1.5 mile run. The author notes that

“The CrossFit® group tended to score higher on all tests as compared to the ACSM group…”

Compared to traditional anaerobic resistance (liftin’ stuff and puttin’ it down), another thesis/study (in the references of the first one we told you about) tells us that CF participants outperform the average weight room jockey in 5/7 fitness domains (selected by the paper’s author):

So what does all this sciencey-stuff tell us? It tells us that compared to the established (traditional) forms of training that are out there, CrossFit is harder and produces better results, without being more dangerous.

*Statements made on www.3fu3l.com do not represent affiliation or endorsement by or with CrossFit.