This was probably the best critique of Crossfit that I've read so far. Personally, I've been doing Crossfit for 2+ years and I've got a lot out of it. In fact, I have been in the best shape of my life because of it. At the same time I've always had issues with some things. For one, the nutrition principles that they advocate, basically the Paleo diet, is quite questionable in my opinion (although not really harmful , since it's basically a low carbm, high protein diet). And, yes, there are lot of practices that predispose to injuries. In fact, I'm currently recovering from an injury that I am pretty sure I got at CF, although it wasn't the type of injury that you can pinpoint to a particular moment. Even though I believe that it was mostly my fault, because of bad form, and because of underestimating the damage for months and making it worse, at the same time it is true that the CF environment is such that it increases the chance of people injuring themselves.

However, this and other articles criticizing CF don't really understand the appeal of CF to most of the people that go there. The criticism is usually coming from serious athletes (and I use the word broadly to include professional athletes, semi-professional, and people that have always been just good at sports). Guess what, most people are not athletes, they do not have the knowledge or the motivation to come up with a proper training program and execute it on their own, and they are easily discouraged when sports do not come naturally easy to them. Most people are like me, they want to show up 3 times a week, do whatever workout has been prepared for them, and have an instructor advise them on what their doing. There is not much out there that comes close to CF. There are two big strengths of CF: Variety and Accessibility. Variety: CF is an all around training program, which might be bad for professional athletes, but it's great for people who just want to be fit. Where else would you go if you wanted to "properly" train on your own? Regular gyms like 24-hour Fitness don't have some of equipment like climbing ropes, GHD sit ups, pull-up bars (they might have one for the whole gym), and they have limited areas for doing things like barbell squats. (There was recent story about a popular gym eliminating the squat frame because it was "intimidating".) Accessibility: CF welcomes _everyone_. The complaint that the WOD is one-size-fits-all is not quite valid. Any exercise can be scaled down appropriately for each member. That means reducing the weight, reducing the reps, exercise substitution (e.g, doing inclined push-ups for beginners, or doing 3 pull-ups & 3 dips instead of 1 muscle-up, etc.), reducing the workout length and so on. That's how everyone gets to do the WOD. This is a big deal when you are a beginner! Even if you can't do a hand-stand or a musle-up, there are other things you can do and actually make progress. An finally one other thing: price. Yes, CF membership is expensive, but it is also several times cheaper than a personal trainer, and if you go to classes that are 5-12 people you basically have a trainer when you need one.

I've tried different things before, but nothing was as easy to follow or as effective as CF. Right now I'm kind of worried about going back to CF after I recover, as I realize that the chance of getting another serious injury is significant. But at the same time I don't see anything else that has all the benefits. I'd be kind of curious to hear if other people have found alternatives. Most of the suggestions so far are a long of the lines what a motivated athlete would do, but they don't work for people who just want to exercise casually for 5 hours a week and get a balanced workout.