Scott Panchick, three-time CrossFit Games competitor and 5th-place finisher in 2014, recently posted a video of himself squatting 500 lb, a new PR for him.
When you film a squat from a relatively high angle, looking down at the athlete, it's often difficult to tell if the athlete lowered his/her hips below the top of the knee, as they should. Scott Panchick's squat dropped so low that its below-parallel depth was easy to see even from the relatively high camera angle.
Mr Panchick lists his weight as 190 lb on the CrossFit Games website. A 263% body weight back squat is an impressive accomplishment, but the reason I posted this here is that I think this example - along with many others - contradicts some criticisms commonly leveled at CrossFit as a training regimen.
The most obvious is that CrossFit keeps people weak. Clearly, Scott Panchick and all other CrossFit Games athletes are far from weak. Yes, they are elite athletes, and therefore not representative of all people who train using CrossFit. However, their programming demonstrates how pretty much anyone can train with CrossFit and get a whole lot stronger. Mr Panchick's training sessions, like those of most CrossFit Games athletes, typically start with a weightlifting movement, followed by some high intensity conditioning. Obviously, few of us would want to employ the level of volume or intensity they do, but if a person scales that kind of program to his/her ability level and progressively increases the load over time, that person could continue to improve for years, just as all CrossFit Games athletes have.
That brings me to the second criticism often leveled at CrossFit. Critics often claim CrossFit only helps novices improve, and that improvement ceases after a few weeks or months of training. Mr Panchick and other CrossFit Games athletes are clearly far from novices, and yet they continue to improve year after year, just as ordinary athletes of all ages in CrossFit gyms all over the world continue to improve year after year. That wouldn't be possible if CrossFit only worked for novices and only for a few weeks or months.
Finally, I'll address one criticism that is accurate, but misses the point. Many who see Mr Panchick's squat will comment that if he focused exclusively on strength training, he'd be even stronger. That is undoubtedly true. It is also true that if a decathlete focused exclusively on the 100 m sprint, or the long jump, or the shot put, or the pole vault, or the 1500 m run, he'd be much better at sprinting, jumping, shot putting, pole vaulting or running 1500 m. But then he could never hope to earn the title of "World's Greatest Athlete".
Likewise, the CrossFit Games does not claim to find the strongest on Earth, but "the fittest on Earth". Fitness is a combination of ten components of which strength is only one. It's the most important one, but it's still only one. Were Mr Panchick to focus exclusively on strength, his competence in the other nine components would decrease. That's fine for a power lifter who is chasing absolute strength exclusively, but not for an athlete who wishes to maximize fitness as a whole.
Mr Panchick comments on his Instagram video that he is also chasing a five minute mile. Think about that. Many people can run a five minute mile. Many can squat 500 lb. How many can do both?
As Rich Froning said upon winning his fourth straight CrossFit Games, "This stuff works".
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