10 Pillars of Fitness

The CrossFit Journal is an interesting publication. As far as I can tell, it's a monthly compendium of articles submitted by self-proclaimed experts and athletes in the world of fitness who expound on the benefits of CrossFit via empirical and/or experimental evidence-based writing. Though the submissions are claimed to go through "rigorous review", I see no evidence that this journal is peer-reviewed by a committee of recognized fitness coaches and experts.

It's not to say I have a problem with that, but I figured I'd first admit to the source's wonkiness before gushing about it.

This article grabs my attention because it describes a lot of the muddied thoughts I've been having about fitness. I've had them parked in the back of my head for years, but never bothered to actually do anything about it. I guess it's true that hard work is never popular.

Anyway, the article is definitely of the tl;dr variety, so I'll try to summarize below:

"Fitness" has been insufficiently defined in the past, so CrossFit has taken it upon themselves to define it. The definition of fitness disaggregates into 3 standards:

FIRST, there are 10 skills by which physical aptitude can be measured. You are only as fit as you are competent in each one. They are:

- cardiovascular/respiratory endurance

- stamina

- strength

- flexibility

- power

- speed

- coordination

- agility

- balance

- accuracy

SECOND, true fitness requires the ability to perform any physical task well, including and especially unfamiliar and unforeseen challenges. Dispense with what you think you know about sets, routines, periodization, and the like.

THIRD, true fitness requires balanced development and competency in the three major metabolic pathways: phosphogen, glycolytic, and oxidative. That's a little bit gobbledygooky, but basically this standard states that you should optimize all three ways in which your body mobilizes energy to exert itself. That might be a short, explosive exertion such as a high vertical jump (phosphogen), a moderately powered activity such as an intense tennis rally (glycolytic), or an endurance activity such as running a 10K (oxidative).

So basically, CrossFit aims to prepare you for anything and everything and suggests that if you are simultaneously competent in 800-meter track events, gymnastics, and olympic weightlifting, you would be phenomenally more fit than the vast majority of amateur athletes.

Dave, one my CrossFit coaches, shared the following saying with me. It's intended to be a hypothetical retort of a CrossFit athlete to a specialized athlete of any variety:

"I can do what you do almost as well. You can't do what I do at all. And what we both can't do, I can do it better than you."

Cheers to that! Let's see what happens.