The PROGRAM - Part 2 (Recovery Day)

Until recently I had always viewed CrossFit as either a complete program for the enthusiast/fitness junky or as cross training or a means of supplementing a sport specific training regimen. While CrossFit was awesome I always assumed that a marathoner or Ironman distance triathlete would still want to train "cardio" with a program that relied on LSD (long, slow, distance) workouts. This has been endurance dogma forever. Makes sense, right? Well, not necessarily.


Welcome to CrossFit Endurance! CrossFit Endurance (CFE) advocates that the same principles utilized by CrossFit's main strength and conditioning program should be incorporated into any endurance specific training. CFE advocates that LSD training is inefficient, makes athletes more prone to injury and cripples an athlete power and speed. Following along with the principles of CrossFit, interval and tempo work (anerobic training) is more efficient, just as effective at developing the cardiovascular system, also develops speed and power, is less dangerous to the athlete (if done properly) and requires less time.

According to the CFE website an endurance athlete should follow the prescribed CrossFit Workout of the Day and supplement with just two to three CFE workouts for a single discipline endurance athlete and three to five workouts for triathletes. It continues by saying that with this approach even ultra marathon athletes should need no more than six to eight hours of training per week to get even better results than the traditional LSD based workouts.

For anyone that is an endurance enthusiast this is radical in its implication, blasphemous, almost earth shattering. This flies in the face of everything I was taught about endurance training for twenty years. For most, this concept will be beyond acceptance. Considering the growing swell of CrossFit popularity, in the near future we might witness the mainstream concepts of endurance challenged openly in the classrooms, gyms and even on the podiums of elite international competitions.

As for me, I will try this less travelled route. Maybe it will pay off...every experience I have had with CrossFit has exceded expectations so far; hopefully this will be no different. Maybe on October 25th I'll cross the finish line in 3 hours and 45 minutes right after deadlifting 360 lbs and busting out 35 pull-up...yeah, and maybe I'll become a Chinese fighter pilot...