111519 Kids, weightlifting, and other sports: efficacy and safety

Heavy Day//

Sumo Box Squat

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Understandably so, there is a stigma against CrossFit. As a global community, we’ve been battling the notion that CrossFit is specifically dangerous compared to other athletic endeavors. It largely stems from a study known as “The Ohio Study” that published false injury data collected at a single CrossFit affiliate in 2012. Outside Magazine and other outlets took that bunk data and ran with it, thus causing and then inflating a public fear of CrossFit. Yes, some fear comes from other old dogmas about strength training and weightlifting. And even though the NSCA (national college of sports medicine) who published the study are in a world of legal hurt because of it (to the tune of millions of dollars in winfalls for CrossFit as well as other fines for perjury etc.), have been proven to have intentionally published it as a smear against a direct industry competitor (CrossFit), we still battle that stigma on a regular basis. I could write blog after blog about their scientific perjury, but I have a job, and am only going to live to be about 100 or so if I’m lucky. Just know that someone’s fear or criticism of CrossFit always in some form is re-traced to the Ohio Study.

So obviously that stigma is amplified when it comes to teenagers or kids participating in CrossFit, competitively or not. There’s a good chance that you’ve received some criticism for enrolling your child in our kids or teens program. First of all, be encouraged to know that your kids are your own. You set their boundaries (or not) and you are the one who deals with most the repercussions or reaps most of the benefits of whatever parenting you are doing. Secondly, we’re all critical of other people’s parenting. Case in point, when I go to the grocery store and see peoples’ carts, I think to myself, “do you even love your children?” That’s harsh. So whatever I outline below, know that when you catch some blow-back about your teens in CrossFit, know that it’s only scratching the surface of what they’re truly thinking and that its really just completely natural and it has more to do with wanting to protect children than with any sort of rational or educated thinking. Their opinion, irrational and uneducated, really doesn’t matter so there’s no need to tear into them like I’m going to for the rest of this blog!

3.1 per 1,000 hours of participation. That is the injury rate for CrossFit. It’s on par with general weightlifting void of the intensity prescribed by CrossFit. We do experience injuries, that’s full and complete transparency. That 3.1 number is consistent across all age groups and interestingly enough it’s likely the most accurate number to be collected among all the other sports I’ll discuss because there isn’t another sport where the participation age spans so well across the entirety of participants. Sure there are really old dudes who still play pick up basketball, but the number of basketball participants drops dramatically after youth basketball and nearly disappears after high school. So while the CrossFit number is true across age groups, the injury rates of these other sports are condensed largely to youth participation (not to say that they wouldn’t be true across age groups, just that this data is largely youth). Is there that transparency of injury data when a coach is trying to convince you that your kid needs to play soccer year round to be good?

And so when you’re being criticized for your Kids doing CrossFit or even doing it competitively, you’re left bare with your legs wide and they can just kick you square in the nuts because you don’t hold the same criticisms about the other sports your kids or their kids engage in (even though those criticisms would be much more rational and educated).

Before I continue, know that I will champion all forms of sport in terms of their benefits to your child and believe that all children, if they are compelled, should participate in team or individual sports. Any and all of them. And I believe that aside from the the safety, quality of coaching, or the care their supervisors take or don’t take for the movement of their athletes. My only requirement being that coaches love their athletes, do the best of their knowledge and abilities, and don’t exploit or abuse their athletes. Otherwise, if the coach is some dad who volunteered and knows nothing about volleyball?, whatever, I don’t want to coach it, go for it! Actually, what we offer through CrossFit to our kids and teens athletes is very robust and effective armor against the injuries they might incur in their team sports. There’s not a sane sports coach in the universe that wouldn’t agree that a fitter athlete is a safer one. Why else would they prescribe conditioning drills in their practices?

The injury rates for sports are periodically reviewed to update numbers but all the data you can find needs to be interpreted individually per study because some of the numbers are per 1k hours or 100 hours, or maybe they’re not a ratio but just a total collected from emergency room data and furthermore there is a great discrepancy between actual injuries and reported injuries, with many actual injuries not being reported and as high as 5 to 1— not reported to reported. But generally the rankings remain the same: (in order of most to least) !. Basketball 2. Baseball/softball 3. Bicycling 4. Football 5.Soccer. Why sports like volleyball, running, and wrestling aren’t included as often, I’m unsure, but whenever they do pop up, they’re still higher rates than weightlifting (CrossFit being consistently the same rate as in weight lifting). I only listed 5 sports, and CrossFit is even further down the list, the space filled with other sports you might not think about as being inherently dangerous— tennis, hiking, yoga, distance running. Honestly, the data should be compelling argument enough for people to realize that CrossFit is relatively much safer than other sports their children play, but I’ll continue to break it down.

For the uneducated, what is CrossFit kids and teens? and in the quickest relevant-to-the-subject terms: It is a general physical preparedness program that is closely monitored and developmentally-appropriately programmed by coaches who are intimately close to the safety and efficacy of the workouts they’re prescribing. We teach the movements that we ourselves have done and carefully craft workouts with very specific stimuli (that we also experience daily) in mind and due to the nature of CrossFit, they are efficient to increase the fitness of all participants. The risk of catastrophic injury is nearly 0, because it is individual— almost no chance of one athlete causing another athlete injury.

Lets just compare that to youth sports like basketball, soccer, baseball etc.: Organized sports focused on scoring more often than the opponent and preventing the opponent from scoring, by way of imposing your will on opponents to gain an advantage. Supervised by a wide range of coaches with varying interpretations as to best practices. Some coaches may themselves be very fit and intimately connected to the physical demands or limitations of their athletes, but many more are very far removed from any idea of what their athletes need or are capable of.

If we’re comparing the safety of CrossFit to other competitive sports, it should really be a no-brainer. Which sounds safer to you? Workouts with specific stimuli including exercise selection, loads, time domains, exercise combinations, and developmental appropriateness for all participants? Or 10 developing bodies at only similar stages of development and fitness levels running, jumping, throwing, and shooting with very limited predictability all trying to defend and impose upon their opponents. eeeehhhh…. yah CrossFit is the dangerous choice? No helmet, shin guard, or all the ankle tape your trainer has can protect your 10 year old son from Phil, a 160lb 12 year old who throws 70 from the little league mound and gets a little wild from time to time. Even if you’re Phil’s parents, nothing is protecting him from Shaun, who is 4’5” but wears size 13’s already and just undercut Phil when he was going up for a rebound. Oh but they’re just “learning a lesson about alertness.” And you’re worried about deadlifts?!?! Good grief (say it like Charley Brown).

“oh I don’t have a problem with CrossFit at the gym, I’m worried about the competitions” Well this last competition, The Gobbler Gauntlet, was programmed by a good friend of mine. Dave Plotts is a middle school teacher who has far more hours coaching CrossFit teens than me, and I’ll personally vouch for the quality of movement he teaches. I spent lots of days Substitute teaching in his Advanced PE class (CrossFit). He cares very deeply for children, and as an experienced CrossFitter and gym owner himself, he truly understands the demands and capabilities of young athletes. He errors on the side of caution, adjusting the reps, loads, and movements at these competitions, even in instances where I told him our athletes were perfectly capable as well as prepared. His advanced PE classes are literally the Crown Jewel of Waldo Middle school, with a wait-list that would necessitate adding two more classes to his schedule. You simply cannot build that kind of success on injured children.

“oh dear god! those young girls are doing dead-lifts?!?!” everybody freaks out. “lets load up the van and head to the tournament this weekend and play 5 full games against God-knows-who.” and nobody bats an eye.

Safety debate—squashed! But just because I’m passionate, we’ll continue to efficacy.

Go to a CrossFit class. There isn’t a workout that we would ask a teen to do that we ourselves don’t fully understand the benefits, stimulus, or risks of that workout that has been carefully prescribed. Go to a youth sports practice at any level and watch their conditioning. “Alright it’s time for conditioning! We’re running 10 light poles.” First of all, what would it look like if coach were to do them? And I’m not talking about old coach Smith who runs a couple just to show the kids he’s still got it. Like do you even know what 10 light poles feels like other than the 30 years ago when you last did them? And how did they come up with 10? Is there something especially thoughtful about 10? Certainly not, it’s a good even number, they got it from their own coach 30 years ago, it’s fair, everyone does the same.

But lets consider the varying fitness level of all those kids and put them on a bell curve. 10 light poles was perfect for 1 maybe 2 athletes. Every deviation away from that sweet spot is either detrimental or ineffective the further away from the apex of that curve. Everyone fitter than the peak of the bell gets less and less benefit from the drill. Cory beats everyone on every sprint and is barely breathing hard and didn’t get any better, little Devin ran hard once, is on the verge of tears and is jog/walking every what-is-supposed to be a sprint and didn’t get any better. Cory is bored and didn’t come close to maxing out his potential improvement. Devin is likely to not even turn out for the team next season— even though he loves the sport— because he can’t hang in conditioning drills. And honestly probably grows up hating exercise and running, his best defense against chronic disease and obesity….. But everyone “ran” 10 and didn’t die.

In CrossFit, the time domain is set or the volume is set and done for time. The loads and versions of the movements are prescribed individually. Little Cory and Devin do 10 minutes of 5 Pull-ups 10 Push-ups and 15 squats. Cory does beautiful strict pull-ups and push-ups with his full bodyweight and lightening fast squats, Devin has to do pull-ups with his feet on the floor, push-ups from his knees and stops to shake his legs out every 5 squats. Cory finishes 10 and a half rounds, Devin does 6 rounds. Same stimulus, both got better. Both are learning to value the solution to the world’s most vexing problem, chronic disease.

Sports are awesome and fun. Injuries are a reality. CrossFit is not only safe, but it’s actually the single best preventative measure that can be taken against every type of injury, over-use and catastrophic in the sports we and our children love. I fully get it, CrossFit looks extreme, its new and a lot of people don’t understand what’s going on, but we encourage our children to play sports that are far more dangerous, which is something I fully endorse. We can wrap them in bubble wrap, sit them in front of their tablet and they’ll be safe as long as we let them live with us. Or we can give them strong, fast, flexible, coordinated, enduring, agile, accurate, stable, robust, bomb-proof bodies.