When it comes to health and fitness, there are few absolutes. Nothing is black and white; it’s all gray. The ONLY certainties: you MUST be in a caloric deficit to lose weight (and vice versa), and you MUST exercise to remain healthy. How you go about achieving a caloric deficit is up to you. How you choose to exercise is up to you.
As much as we would like simple answers to everything, there are always confounding variables, so the answer to your health and fitness questions should always be “it depends.” This will be followed up with more questions to achieve clarification.
For example, is a low carb or a low fat diet better for weight loss? It depends! Better for whom? What kind of activities do they do? Do they have any underlying health conditions like diabetes? What are their dietary preferences? Both types of diets work. Which one will work best for you depends on you.
Similarly, when it comes to specific movements, you may hear that movements like the farmers’ carry are the best thing since sliced bread, because they target grip strength, structural strength, core strength, and have a cardiovascular effect all at once. This is all true. However, it is also true that the farmers’ carry does not train any of these modalities particularly well. Heavy deadlifts can better target grip strength. Direct core training is more effective for developing core musculature. Doing ACTUAL cardio would have a greater impact on your cardiovascular fitness than farmers’ carries. Given these facts, are farmers’ carries useless?
Once again, IT DEPENDS. When it comes to programming – specifically, setting up your training template and exercise selection, the two biggest factors will be YOUR goals, and TIME. If you have all the time in the world to train, you will have specific lifting sessions, and separate cardio sessions. This will likely render the farmers’ carry redundant, other than from a novelty/interest perspective.
However, if your time is limited, using movements that target several modalities and capacities simultaneously is not a bad idea. In this case, you WANT to optimize your training and recovery to make the most progress in the most areas as possible. And this idea is what makes CrossFit so effective, especially for beginners.
Since we don’t target one modality at the expense of others (e.g. maximal strength, ignoring stamina), we may not achieve the highest level of any given modality of which we are genetically capable. But we can make significant progress across all domains, and reap the associated health benefits of each. I’ve talked about optimization previously, and ultimately, that’s what we’re chasing. What is optimal for YOU, given YOUR goals and time constraints?
It can be tempting to give into click bait headlines. Things like “TOP 3 FITNESS MOVEMENTS YOU SHOULD AVOID,” and “MEAT IS TOXIC, GO VEGAN.” The shock and fear these headlines generate drives traffic to the corresponding articles, and the writers get paid by click. So, when you see these kinds of headlines, take a moment to calm down, and remember that NOTHING is black and white. Let’s apply some critical thinking and look at the nuances of the issue. And most importantly, think about how, if at all, it applies to you.
If you need help sorting through the interminable dross, or if you’re not really sure whether something is pertinent to you, sit down with a coach to chat! That’s what we’re here for, to help you parse the information you need, so that you can achieve what’s important to you. Nothing else matters. See you in the gym!