This is one of the big criticisms of CrossFit. That we sacrifice all semblance of form and technique for the sake of intensity. When asked if I want good reps or heavy/fast/intense reps, I will say, “yes” because I want both.

You see you can’t have one without the other. We require our athletes to take a sort of “basic training” or “foundations” course before they can join classes. This is for a couple reasons. The first reason is to make sure that everyone has the same standards for form on all the movements and lifts that we do. They need to be able to do them properly, safely and with full range of motion. Next we build up the intensity. We ramp that up slowly so that people don’t get hurt.

See how that works? Form first, intensity second. If your trainer is not on your case making sure that every rep is done properly then he isn’t doing his job.

People think that as one increases, the other must decrease, stress perfect form and intensity suffers, push the intensity and form has to break down. Take the thruster for instance. It is a front squat followed immediately by a push press. We have a workout which involves doing thrusters followed by pullups. You will find that people tend to short the ROM on their thrusters in order to get a faster time on the workout. They won’t get below parallel on their squat, they won’t lock out the push press fully overhead, they won’t get full pull-ups… all for the sake of a faster time. They don’t want to get a slower time by ensuring proper form. What they fail to realize is that they will improve much faster by cleaning up the form/ROM. Sure there will be an initial hit to their times/scores, but before they know it they will be back to their previous best times, and well beyond.

There are other movements where proper form is a must for safety, like the deadlift. There are some movements where form is a must for efficiency in being able to actually complete it, such as the clean and jerk. Proper form and full range of motion is not a variable. The only variable is intensity. Remember that. There is no compromising form.

Chris Walls is a Personal Trainer at the Crossfit Kelowna training centre.  For more information on Crossfit, please visit http://www.crossfitkelowna.com