Fringe Athletes

According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, an athlete is "a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring strength, agility, or stamina."

The CrossFit definition of an athlete is a bit tighter. The CrossFit definition of an athlete is "a person who is trained or skilled in strength, power, balance and agility, flexibility, and endurance." The CrossFit model holds that "fitness", "health', and "athleticism" as strongly overlapping constructs. For most purposes they can be seen as equivalents.

What is the CrossFit method?

The CrossFit method is to establish a hierarchy of effort and concern that builds as follows:
Diet- lays the molecular foundations for fitness and health.
Metabolic conditioning- builds capacity in each of the three metabolic pathways, beginning with aerobic, then lactic acid, then phosphocreatine pathways.
Gymnastics- establishes functional capacity for body body control and range of motion.
Weightlifting and throwing- develop ability to control external objects and produce power.
Sport- applies fitness in a competitive atmosphere with randomized movements and skill mastery.

There is a near universal misconception that long distance athletes are fitter than their short distance counterparts. The triathlete, cyclist, and marathoner are often regarded as among the fittest athletes on earth. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The endurance athlete has trained long past any cardiovascular health benefit and has lost ground in strength, speed, and power, typically does nothing for coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy, and possesses little more than average flexibility.

This is hardly the stuff of elite athleticism. The CrossFit athlete, remember, has practiced and trained for optimal physical competence in all ten physical skills (cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, flexibility, strength, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy).

The excessive aerobic volume of the endurance athlete's training has cost him in speed, power, and strength to the point where his athletic competency has been compromised. No triathlete is in ideal shape to wrestle, pole vault, box, sprint, play any ball sport, fight fires, or do police work.

Each of these requires a fitness level far beyond the needs of the endurance athlete. None of this suggests that being a marathoner, triathlete, or other endurance athlete is a bad thing; just don't believe that training as a long distance athlete gives you the fitness prerequisite to many sports.

CrossFit considers the Sumo wrestler, triathlete, marathoner, and power lifter to be "fringe athletes" in that their fitness demands are so specialized as to be inconsistent with the adaptations that give maximum competency at all physical challenges.

Elite strength and conditioning is a compromise between each of the ten physical adaptations. Endurance athletes do not balance that compromise.

-From the CrossFit Training Guide