The definition of fitness is the capability of the body of distributing inhaled oxygen to muscle tissue during increased physical effort. CrossFit's definition is a little different.
CrossFit's First Fitness Standard
There are ten recognized general physical skills. They are: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. You are as fit as you are competent in each of these skills. A regimen develops fitness to the extent that it improves each of these ten skills.
Importantly, improvements in endurance, stamina, strength, and flexibility come about through training. Training refers to activity that improves performance through a measurable organic change in the body. By contrast improvements in coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy come about through practice. Practice refers to activity that improves performance through changes in the nervous system. Power and speed are adaptations of both training and practice.
CrossFit's Second Fitness Standard
The essence of this model is the view that fitness is about performing well at any and every task imaginable. Picture a hopper loaded with an infinite number of physical challenges where no selective mechanism is operative, and being asked to perform fetes randomly drawn from the hopper. This model suggests that your fitness can be measured by your capacity to perform well at all these tasks in relation to other individuals.
The implication here is that fitness requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even unfamiliar tasks, tasks combined in infinitely varying combinations. In practice this encourages the athlete to disinvest in any set notions of sets, rest periods, reps, exercises, order of exercises, routines, periodization, etc. Nature frequently provides largely unforseeable challenges; train for that by striving to keep the training stimulus broad and constantly varied.
CrossFit's Third Fitness Standard
There are three metabolic pathways that provide the energy for all human action. These "metabolic engines" are known as the phosphagen pathway, the glycolytic pathway, and the oxidative pathway. The first, the phosphagen, dominates the highest powered activities, those that last less than about ten seconds. The second pathway, the glycolytic, dominates moderate powered activities, those that last up to several minutes. The third pathway, the oxidative, dominates low powered activities those that last in excess of several minutes.
Total fitness, the fitness that CrossFit promotes and develops, requires competency and training in each of these three pathways or engines. Balancing the effects of these three pathways largely determines the how and why of the metabolic conditioniong or "cardio" that we do at CrossFit.
Favoring one or two to the exclusion of the others and not recognizing the impact of excessive training in the oxidative pathway are the two most common faults in fitness training.
Common Ground
The motivation for the three standards is simply to ensure the broadest and most general fitness possible. Our first model evaluates our efforts against a full range of general physical adaptations, in the second the focus is on breadth and depth of performance, The third measure is time, power, and consequently energy systems. It should be fairly clear that the fitness that CrossFit advocates and develops is deliberately broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.
Implementation
There is another aspect to the CrossFit brand of fitness that is of great interest and immense value to us. We have observed that nearly every measurable value of health can be placed on a continuum that ranges from sickness to wellness to fitness. Though tougher to measure, we would even add mental health to this observation. Depression is clearly mitigated by proper diet and exercise. Not to mention the confidence and mental toughness CrossFit training provides.
Done right, fitness provides a great margin of protection against the ravages of time and disease. Our fitness, or being "CrossFit" comes through forging men and women that are equal parts gymnast, Olympic weightlifter, and multi-modal sprinter or "sprintathlete." Developing the capacity of a novice 800 meter track athlete, gymnast, or weightlifter.
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