Pros and Cons of Cross Training That You Must Know

CrossFit training has rapidly grown in popularity across the world in recent years. In the process, this has led to discussions about the advantages and disadvantages. CrossFit training has been scrutinized by various professions include doctors, fitness experts, personal trainers, professional athletes, and more. This has inspired me to write this blog outlining the Pros and Cons of CrossFit. Most of these points are derived from my own experiences while training at various boxes over the past 2 years. Here are the pros and cons you should be aware of:

PROS:

• It has an awesome community aspect. CrossFit is quite unlike the commercial gym in the essence that you come to know the people at your box. You will find that most of these gyms have outings that many people show up to. Here, you will always get that feeling of teamwork and camaraderie during the workouts.
• There are constant coaching and support–sometimes you have no clue whether you’re doing an exercise right or not in a commercial gym. In as much as it may not be 1:1 training, there is always a coach to guide you through every workout.
• Leveling up – since you can keep track of how much you’re lifting daily, and you also know the number of your daily reps and sets, you will be able to notice a constant improvement. You also get to advance at your own pace, slowly but steadily improving on your workouts.

• It is humbling yet encouraging – in as much as you may end your workout fatigued like never before, you pride in the sense of accomplishment whenever you do a workout faster than the previous times.
• A sense of Competition – the fact that you are surrounded by people cheering you on and competing with you is simply amazing and encouraging. It urges you to push yourself further.
• It is an awesome outlet for former athletes who still love competition. Usually, after playing competitive sports throughout high school and college, many people usually feel that all of a sudden there’s nothing more to compete in. CrossFit provides that platform onto which you can keep going.
• You really get to know your limits. Sometimes the workouts can be frustrating- however, they can also teach you how to push through mental obstacles, you get to build your mental strength.
• It shapes ‘hot’ bodies. Many women out there keep saying they want to have that “toned” and attempt to get it with hours of cardio. What they don’t know is that these bodies are built every day in the gyms. 
• It builds nicely toned muscular endurance general body fitness – your body is going to be prepared for pretty much any athletic situation after doing only a few months of CrossFit.

CONS:

• It is not the best if you are looking forward to specialization – you are going to get better at a lot of things in the gym, however, if you want to go the extra mile of specialization, say a powerlifter or a trained athlete, it’s advisable to find a specific coach for that sport.
• Odd programming – this is quite for the critics. Some may not agree with some workouts involved with CrossFit. For instance, there are some workouts which may call for high reps of snatches. These snatches are regarded as power Olympic moves that require one to be in a perfect form to be able to do them successfully. 

• They are not cheap either– enrolling in these highly intensive gym workouts can be two or three times the monthly cost of a standard commercial gym. However, I always find it is worth it.
• A bad coach can cause problems – this is especially so if you are up for some more advanced moves that may take months of learning to perform them right; with a bad coach, lifting the heavyweights can lead to horrible injuries. It’s always important to have a good coach who knows what he does.

It can lead to addiction- this point can lie either in Pro or Con section depending on one’s perception. I happen to know quite a number of people who started CrossFitting and now all they do, think or talk about is CrossFit. It is easy to get carried away into this and in the process forget about other people’s feelings when all you can talk about is weights and workouts.

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