First of all, I would like to present this new sport modality that has become fashionable in our times.

5 advantages and 5 disadvantages of ‘Crossfit’

The “Crossfit”, although it seems to be a new and revolutionary practice, has been trained in this way for decades in individual sports of high demand such as athletics or also in contact sports such as boxing.

The Crossfit is a high intensity activity with reduced resting times , which allows us to work the anaerobic alactic system , when our ATP, the most basic and fastest energy obtaining system, is working, has been exhausted we start working with glucose through the anaerobic lactic system and oxidizing the body’s glucose, and at the end of the workout there is a great activation of the aerobic system with fat oxidation. It should be noted that these systems are always active only at certain times work in large ranges.

The 5 advantages of Crossfit

1. Work of the cardiorespiratory system

Even though it is an activity of great force impact, we force the cardiorespiratory system to work at its limit with the consequent modification in our physiological system.

Increased production of erythropoietin , which is responsible for the production of red blood cells and these carry the oxygen, therefore greater transport of oxygen to our muscles and organs.

Growth of the heart’s chambers and a hypertrophy of its walls, with this we achieve that in each beat more blood moves, since the heart can pump more blood in each beat and that the blood circulates with more force. With this we can notice that our resting pulses have decreased and when we start practicing sports they rise faster.

The alveoli that are in charge of capturing the oxygen we breathe work more efficiently and therefore capture a higher percentage than sedentary people.

The exchange zone works most effectively, this zone is the one that exchanges the substances in this case oxygen and carbon dioxide between the veins with the pulmonary system.

2. Resistance to muscle fatigue

Not only do we achieve resistance to physiological fatigue, but also to muscle fatigue. By working on a muscular level repeatedly and with short or no breaks we get our muscles used to high intensity work maintained over time, bearing in mind that the higher the intensity the shorter the time we can maintain the effort.

3. Muscle hypertrophy

For people who may be interested, with the Crossfit we achieve a slight sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and a moderate sarcomeric hypertrophy so that we will have a rather rocky hypertrophy as it contains many myofibrils per muscle fibre.

4. Fat burner

By performing this type of training we will achieve that after training the body is burning more calories in the form of fat, up to 72 hours later.

5. Full Motivation

A sport that allows us to measure and improve ourselves in each session, will keep us motivated and fulfilled, with this we will release even more endorphins than doing another type of sport and will allow us to maintain a more stable psychological state.

The 5 disadvantages of Crossfit

1. Injuries

Some of the exercises proposed can be highly harmful to our joints and even to our tendons.

2. Special material

Not all the gyms are adapted for crossfit work, depending on the city it will be difficult to find a gym that allows us to train this modality. So, if your objective is to train crossfit, you should go to a center that allows you to develop your routines with total guarantee.

3. Unskilled assistants

In many centres, the basic weight-lifting exercises such as clean & jerk are not practiced, and when they are performed incorrectly they can be highly damaging to the spine, so try to put yourself in the hands of a good professional.

4. Overtraining

If we don’t keep an eye on our workloads, or if those who lead us don’t take them into account, it’s easy to fall into overtraining: that is, we have exceeded the limit of exercise load that our organism can assimilate. If we notice headaches, loss of appetite or insomnia, I recommend taking a week of total rest to restore strength and avoid injuries or health problems.

5. Wear and tear

By pushing the body to the limit, in the last minutes of training our intramuscular and intermuscular coordination will be impaired, this leads to a poor execution of movements and exercises, therefore a danger to our back, muscles and joints. Try to put the exercises of great loads at the beginning of the training to avoid this inconvenience.