The needs for people involved in sport to condition themselves should be understood by everyone. Since you don’t get fit by playing sports, but rather get fit in order to play sports, the question really becomes how best to prepare ourselves for performance in sport. Fitness has ten physical components: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, strength, stamina, coordination, agility, flexibility, balance, accuracy and power. It is also the ability to do a wide range or tasks and also the utilization of the body’s three energy pathways.
Some sports (predominantly team sports) are quite broad in their range of physical abilities. For example, rugby, Gaelic games, soccer, MMA, boxing, and the decathlon could be considered broad modal sports.
It’s easy to see how a deficiency in any of the ten components listed above could lose a match for you. A lack of stamina or power could quite easily cost you an early try or knockout. A shortage of endurance will cost you later in the race or game for certain. Also, poor agility, flexibility or coordination can cost you injury wise.
Considering you need to build yourself up in all areas of physical capability, you need to train in the most efficient manner as possible, that doesn’t leave you too fatigued for skill training sessions and matches.
A Crossfit style program, which is designed around working these physical skills at as intense a level to provide the greatest return (most effective and efficient), allows you to train in this manner. It also forces you to work on your weak areas, which will develop your overall game.
In Sport, historically the generalist is rewarded and the specialist, punished. A player who has the physical ability and skill to tackle, pass, place kick, kick in open play, defend, attack, dummy and block will be more valuable than one who can only take free kicks. Similarly, a MMA fighter or boxer who is proficient in different styles stands a better chance not only of winning individual matches, but doing better overall in competitions and in their career, when compared to the specialist. So the player who is strong, powerful, agile, coordinated and has stamina will perform better than the competitor who is just super strong or has great coordination.
A fringe athlete, or specialist athlete, is one who competes in a sport that is dominated by one time and/or modal domain. Running, cycling, archery, the long jump, and swimming are all examples of specialist sports.
We have found that training with a Crossfit regime has aided top level athletes. Skiers have been given Pull ups for the first time and improved their performance, cyclists have been given dead lifts and instead of gearing down and standing up on those tough hills, they’re gearing up and remaining seated.
Again the point seems to be is if we train the entire body as one workable system, it’s better able to apply itself in any one chosen domain. This is likely due to the fact that your main muscles (e.g. quadriceps in cycling) are better supported by the muscles around it (the hamstrings, glutes, lower back – i.e. those used in the deadlift). Also, there are hormonal benefits that can only come about by training your body in an intense manner across a wide variety of movements that will garnish your performance in any one area.
As athletes, we also need to think of our lives after competition (I know you don’t want to), but having a balanced regime aids in your health, both during your competitive career and afterwards.
As we specialize (think Olympic athletes) we need to specialize to an extremely high degree. We make our bodies capable of performing one specific task to the detriment of all the others. But unfortunately life won’t always call on you to do just one thing. So outside the competitive arena you need to be able to perform. If you are a long distance runner do you really want to put your back out lifting your child or car keys, because you’ve no experience with the Clean?
Most of us are not Olympic level athletes, so the benefits of adding in Crossfit style workouts that do not negatively impact on your sports performance, are obvious.
For an example of a high level athlete who uses Crossfit, please see Eva T’s blog. She’s a 2 time Olympian in Alpine skiing. You don’t get further removed from day to day life than skiing, yet Eva employs a Crossfit paradigm in her training.
