Greg: All right, what’s happening, everyone? It is Matt and Greg here from Project Unbroken. As you know, we’re former heroin addicts, drug addicts, went through our share of alcohol abuse. Well, Matt more than me with alcohol, but anyways, we took ourselves from that all the way to successful lives today. We both own businesses, in shape, have healthy relationships.
Greg: Today’s topic is going to be Is Crossfit Dangerous?
Greg: The reason we want to talk about this is because we’re both involved with Crossfit. Matt actually owns a Crossfit gym. Coming out of my addition, that’s actually what I got into first. That was kind of my positive replacement. You know, Matt got me in here, and that got me on the positive life. But a lot of people come to us and they say “well, you guys recommend Crossfit, or some type of physical activity, but I’m interested in Crossfit, but I hear it’s dangerous”.
Greg: So, what would your take be on that?
Matt: Well, we get a lot of that, even just people coming to the gym. They’re really concerned about injury, and you know, my first reaction is…
Matt: Or, my first explanation is of course the further you get away from your couch, the risk of injury goes through the roof. That’s just what it is.
Greg: Yup.
Matt: But, you know, right now, a big part of my mission, outside of Project Unbroken, and more to do with Crossfit, but they’re all related, is to help people find a healthier way of living. So, right now in America, chronic disease is the number one killer. It’s essentially obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and all of that stuff mainly comes from lifestyle choices. So, lack of exercise, poor diet, smoking, drinking, drug abuse, that’s all kind of in that package.
Matt: So, owning a Crossfit gym and trying to help people find a level of health through that platform, has been really effective, at least in my small corner of the world. So, again, doing Crossfit, just like any physical activity, if you’re not careful, if you’re not being coached well, yeah, like you guys have seen the videos on YouTube. YouTube Crossfit fails, and there’s plenty of evidence out there that of course Crossfit can be dangerous, but when you look at the difference between living a sedentary lifestyle or doing something like Crossfit, you’re much safer doing Crossfit.
Greg: Not to mention, I mean you can even get hurt in Crossfit if you’re doing everything right, and you have the right form. Right?
Matt: 100%.
Greg: But, you can also get hurt when you’re playing football, when you’re playing basketball, when you’re fucking skateboarding, you know what I mean? I mean it’s ridiculous to me that there’s a thing going around that Crossfit is so dangerous. It’s just like anything else. It’s a physical activity, of course you can get hurt.
Matt: Well, the rate of injury for Crossfit participants is at the bottom level of every other sport. Running, soccer, baseball, everything else has a higher rate per participant than Crossfit. It’s just that Crossfit is a newer style of workout, it’s difficult, it’s cultish. People tend to talk about Crossfit a lot, and it can be annoying to people who don’t do it.
Matt: So, I think all those things combined, people are looking for some reason to you know, to shit on Crossfit, but again the main focus, and as a business owner, here’s a little secret, if people come in here and get injured, I don’t get paid. It’s not good for business if people get injured.
Matt: So, we do our best to make sure people are moving well, they’re moving safe. We want people to be here for life, like we…
Matt: One of our missions is to have all of our members push off the retirement home for as long as possible. We want people to be healthy into their 80s, 90s, and as long as they can be active. A lot of times when you know, sickness comes about, however you want to describe sickness, basically the opposite of being well or fit, it’s when we stop exercising. It’s a huge part of it, like we lose bone density, we lose our muscular system, we have less protection for our bones. A slip and fall, and breaking a hip, breaking a bone, that’s a lot of times, that’s the last step for people when they’re kind of reaching old age.
Greg: Yeah, I think there’s also two different really, I guess approaches to Crossfit. You have kind of like your normal Crossfitters trying to get in shape, right? They’re not going really hard, then you got people who take it as a sport, which we both do, or have done at least. And in that case does it get more dangerous?
Greg: Of course, but we know that. We’re willing to put our body through that. It’s more sport for us.
Greg: Just like if you’re going in and you’re playing football, well you’re probably practicing twice a day, you’re probably taking more hits, you’re probably lifting more weights where you could strain something, it’s the same thing. We know what we’re doing. We know we’re pushing our bodies to the limit.
Greg: So, I think you also have a lot of people who look at the sport side of it, where people are treating it more as a sport, and they’re like oh, they’re doing all these crazy movements, or they go ridiculously fast, and they’re not even concentrating on form, and it’s a sport as well.
Matt: Yeah, and if that argument ever comes up, there’s a couple things. One if you are competitive and you look at Crossfit as a sport, you are concerned about the movements because it’s a, basically it’s more efficient to move well.
Greg: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt: It’s, yes it’s safer, but you’ll also move more efficiently. You’ll waste less energy.
Greg: What about those stupid sloppy, they’re not even pull-ups. They’re stupid pull-ups.
Matt: Don’t do them.
Greg: Explain them.
Greg: Explain those stupid, those aren’t even pull-ups. No rep.
Greg: No reps.
Matt: Exactly. Oh, dude, you got the internet warriors to. I mean, with that, it’s a gymnastics kip.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: You’re utilizing hips and shoulders to assist you to get over the bar. It’s efficiency.
Greg: That’s like if you’re out in the wild, and you get up on a tree, and you swing yourself-
Matt: I’ll fucking kip it.
Greg: Right?
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: What are you gonna strip, pull yourself, up.
Matt: Or if you’re stuck off the side of a boat, you’re gonna use your hips to get you up on the boat.
Matt: Whatever these are all arguments.
Matt: But, the big picture is, that… the people who look at Crossfit as a sport represents maybe five to ten percent of Crossfitters. Most people are in here for what we call GPP, general physical preparedness. Crossfit, just the day to day classes really will prepare you for anything like will throw your way.
Greg: And there’s really like almost like a middle ground. I see it in our classes here at your gym, where people you know, there’s the workout of the day, and they will compete against each other a little bit, but that also pushes ya.
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: And it’s good to be pushed. So there’s the people who come in and they don’t care what their time is, and they just want to get a workout in. There’s people who kind of compete against each other a little bit, and that’s just their thing, that’s just what kinda pushes them further, and then there’s people who take it as a sport where they’ll do before class, class, after class, and they’ll work on different things.
Matt: Yeah, and it’s whatever you want to do with it. But again, the main idea is just not sitting on the couch, it’s not eating like shit, it’s just trying to improve your life. One hour out of the day you can make a really, really big difference. Even three days a week. Three hours out of a week.
Matt: And I see people make significant changes in their health.
Greg: Like you said, I think a lot of people just kind of bag on it because it’s new-
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: … and there’s like either one side or the other. There’s people that are kind of cultish for it, and there’s people who are like fuck that is so stupid and dangerous, and you know you should be body building. Whatever the case is.
Greg: I know for me, a lot of people told me how gay Crossfit was before I started. When Matt brought me in this gym, I was coming off meth and that was the worst shape of my life. I would say Crossfit is probably one of the biggest things that I credit to getting me on a happy road after addiction.
Matt: Likewise. 100%, and I talk, I did a video actually earlier today, about you know, filling that void. A lot of times with addition we’re just you know, whatever we get stuck in this hole and it’s hard to find something to replace that with that’s positive. And Crossfit, I mean for me, I got off of heroine, but then like the drinking kind of took it’s place for awhile, and I was still just stuck in this shitty cycle. And Crossfit was the first thing to come into my life where I was like, okay this is something that’s positive.
Greg: And it’s filled that void for you.
Matt: It filled this void that I was just trying to, and it could have been anything for all I know. I know Crossfit was the first thing to really… That was the first thing that I was ever passionate about, and it was powerful.
Matt: But, you know in that video I saw you need something that is going to, it’s going to make you work, it’s going to show you the power of you know, what discipline can do. And that will really help in every area of your life.
Matt: And Crossfits done that for you and me.
Greg: Yeah, yeah definitely.
Greg: So, I mean, anything else to add on this?
Matt: Yeah, if you’re hesitant about starting Crossfit because you think it’s dangerous, I would push that to the side. Give it a shot, go to a you know, local Crossfit gym. Just Google one. Call them up. I meant the owner, or the coach should be very opened and willing to have discussion with you, about how they bring people who are new to Crossfit into their gym.
Matt: It should be a you know, a fairly painless experience.
Greg: And I think a lot of Crossfit gyms do have like a, where you’re allowed to drop in. So, I’d recommend if you have multiple gyms close to you, drop in to a few, because different Crossfit gyms have different feels and different atmospheres. So, you know, try a few different ones and see what the feels like for you, and maybe Crossfit is not for you, and then you can go try something else but-
Matt: Yoga, anything.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: Do something.
Greg: But I know a lot of people that have come to Crossfit out of addiction and it’s a big thing for turning it around addiction.
Matt: Absolutely.
Greg: So, hope you all enjoyed this video. If you have any more questions let us know, we want to be doing more videos on workout and diet related stuff. So if you have any questions on any of that, let us know, and we will get back to you. Make sure you subscribe below, we’ll talk to y’all soon.
Matt: See ya guys.
