High intensity exercise: what to know before you go

You may have caught Olympic style games on TV, or driven past a group of people carrying tires and wondered what’s that about?

CrossFit is all the rage, and has been since it picked up popularity in the early 2000s.

“People think think they’re going to come in and do the things they see on television,” Meaghan Gonzalez, owner of Shifted Fitness and Performance, said.

Gonzalez says competing, which is what many people think of when they think of crossfit, is very different than day-to-day at the gym. “We’re not athletes in here training for the crossfit games. We’re average people in here trying to get healthy,” she said.

Yet some people do get hurt. We spoke to one such man who went to a different gym. He didn’t want to show his face.

“I worked out, had intense workouts for two days straight, leg workouts, and they were so intense my muscle tissue tore so much that it caused muscle tissue to go into the blood stream and major muscle pain my legs and clog up my kidneys,” he said.

That’s actually one of the rare worst-case-scenarios according to Dr. Matthew Diltz, who specializes in sports medicine at Eisenhower Desert Orthopedic Center. Let’s start with some injuries doctors do see. The Department of Health at the UK’s University of Bath just released a study of crossfit last month.

They took 117 people doing crossfit and followed them for 12 weeks.

“The injury profile was similar to gymnastics and power lifting but lower than some contact sports like football,” Dr. Diltz said.

He added that the study shows crossfit injuries usually fall into one of two categories, “The ones starting out and that’s technique, and then the ones that are competing, and that’s overuse.”

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program, mainly of a mix of aerobic exercise, calisthenics, and Olympic style weightlifting.

According to CrossFit.com, “CrossFit is constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. All CrossFit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements reflect the best aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing and more.” You can read more about becoming a certified trainer and what that takes here (https://certifications.crossfit.com).

In her five years in CrossFit, Gonzalez says she has seen most injuries with her fellow competing athletes not her day-to-day clients.

We reached out to CrossFit Incorporated about the study for this story and got a reply from Russell Berger that read in part: “The authors calculated an injury rate for CrossFit of ‘2.1 per 1000 training hours.’ This makes it as safe, or safer, than any other form of adult exercise.”

Dr. Diltz agrees that CrossFit isn’t inherently dangerous, it’s just important to approach it, or any workout, the right way.

Here are three tips to stay safe when doing high intensity workouts.

First – make sure your coach is committed to easing you in slowly. Talk to them about that. Also, know that you’re only competing against yourself, not the class. Lastly, if you have an injury, tell your coach, don’t push through it.

The injured man we spoke with says he wished he had more instruction at the gym he went to.

“It was pretty much just sign up, sign your name, and join the class along with everyone who’s been there for a year,” he said.

He admits he should have known his own limits, though.

“My competitive nature, trying to keep up, I guess I pushed myself too much and did too much too soon,” he said.

After back-to-back days of squats, he got hurt and was later diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis.

“That leads to when the muscle dies releasing toxins that can be bad for the kidneys,” Dr. Diltz said.

Again, that’s a rare CrossFit injury, but it happened to him.

Bottom line – these kinds of workouts are fast-paced, and classes are intense.

“You have to progress gradually on your time and get there at your speed,” Gonzalez said.

CrossFit.com provides a directory to verify a trainer’s credentials. You can find that here. (http://trainerdirectory.crossfit.com/). You can also view a list of Frequently Asked Questions. (https://www.crossfit.com/cf/faq)