For too long, mainstream exercise has been characterised by low variation. Similar or identical exercises are completed multiple times a week, if not every day.
Not only does this create an overly narrow physical response (an adaptation to the familiar requires an unfamiliar stimulus to continue), but the constant repetition predisposes the exerciser to a raft of chronic overuse injuries.
It is not intensity that accounts for these injuries, but repetition. Ironically, the high intensity of CrossFit programming is what protects its advocates from overuse. With an inverse relationship between intensity and duration, the shorter duration of exercise leads to less repetitions – thus less overuse. The constantly varied nature of CrossFit adds to this protection.
The highest injury rates in sport and exercise are not seen in high intensity sports such as CrossFit, nor are they seen in ballistic based contact sports. The higher injury rates are seen in long duration, low intensity, high repetition activities such as running. We know intensity is the single most important variable in maximising the effect of exercise of our health, seems it also protects us from damage and dysfunction.
Higher intensity = lower injury rates. Who’d have thought.
