Doing starting strength to get to crossfit seems a bit...backwards...to me.
It's also a bit ironic that starting strength will teach him the proper mechanics for most compound lifts, and then Crossfit will turn around and teach him how to work as quickly as possible with an often times alarming disregard for form. If anything, I'd look into barbell complexes as a way to prepare for Crossfit. http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_trai... Check out the Cosgrove Evil 8, it's o…
In my experience, Crossfit trainers are good at coaching form. Their top priority is getting you to do the movement and get a good workout, but when somebody has bad form, they coach them a lot and make sure they use light weights or no weights at all until their form is good enough to lift safely. I always had terrible deadlift form and wasn't able to correct it until I got some coaching at Crossfit. They fixed me up quickly, got on my ass when I got sloppy, and within two months of starting, I was lifting more than my previous deadlift PR -- 45 times in a single workout. (Granted, my deadlift form was atrocious. I was squatting 40% more than I deadlifted and had basically given up on it before I went to Crossfit.)
The better your form, the more you can safely lift, and the more you can lift, the higher the work rate you can achieve. That's the logic that drives the Crossfit trainers I've worked with. Crossfit isn't consistent from location to location, though, so what you say may be true.
I tell practically everyone I know to try Crossfit. There are two basic difficulties with any exercise regimen, and Crossfit nails both: 1. Figuring out what to do. 2. Actually doing it, consistently, over the long haul. Crossfit will teach you how to do the old-school, badass basics of fitness--stuff that will get you in great shape and is actually fun to do. No gimmicks, no miracles, just stuff that will kick your…
Crossfit seems to be for people who are already pretty strong athletes. Is it really something you can just jump on board with if you're fairly out of shape? I've spent the last few months following the "Starting Strength" plan ( http://startingstrength.com/ ) with the idea of getting in good enough shape to do crossfit.
You absolutely can go to Crossfit if you're out of shape. It requires a certain disregard for your social instincts, because you will feel out of place. While I was taking on-ramp classes (intro classes with more intense instruction and slightly easier workouts) I saw several extremely overweight people join up. I didn't see any of them more than a few times, but they were welcome and could have kept with it if they wanted to.
It's easy to feel self-conscious and unwelcome. Half the people in my on-ramp classes were in stellar shape already, and at least two of them were professional personal trainers who were interested in eventually becoming instructors. There were times when I was sure nobody else wanted me there, and I kept going just out of sheer bloody-mindedness, with a kind of "fuck 'em, I don't care, I'm going anyway" attitude. In retrospect, it was all in my mind. I never minded any of the people who were in worse shape than me. You won't be in anybody's way. And I would have said all that to someone who hadn't been doing "Starting Strength" for a few months, so it goes triple for you.
I like Crossfit-style WODs (Workout Of the Day) because each workout has measurement built in, and you work to perform as well as possible against that measurement, which means motivation is built in, too. They're suitable for "startup" fitness because you can do the workouts by yourself or in a small group, and because you can adapt them to whatever equipment and facilities you have available. For example, a circuit…
I regret sounding like that guy , but Crossfit didn't invent "scaling" or measuring your workouts. I know you're not making that claim explicitly, but the way you framed "Crossfit includes measurement!" can be misread. The concepts of record keeping and adjusting volume/intensity/exercise selection to the trainee are older than dirt. I'd be surprised if there aren't clay tablets with rep counts on them in a museum so…
Working out that way is synonymous with Crossfit for most people the same way desktop computing is synonymous with Windows and OSX for most people. They didn't invent it, but they deserve a lot of credit for making it convenient for people to just sign up for a class and do it. Most of the people griping about Crossfit getting too much credit weren't doing anything to make it accessible and convenient for people until Crossfit came along and proved there was a market for it. If I wanted to train that way before Crossfit, I would have had to: find a suitable place to work out, buy or construct some of the equipment, schedule sessions with a personal trainer to make sure I was doing the exercises correctly, recruit friends to work out with me, and so on. And there certainly would have been compromises. Most gyms aren't set up to allow you to do a set of cleans, drop your weights, and then run 400 meters without dodging cars or pedestrians. (Hell, most don't let you drop weights, period. As far as I am aware, there are only two commercial gyms in my city that have bumper plates, not including the four (at least) Crossfit locations, and one of them is a specialized Oly training facility that costs more than Crossfit.) With Crossfit, I just show up, pay attention, work hard, and have fun. It's a great service.