Post: #1

A lot to be learned from this story. This guy is paralyzed now from the waist down and had no insurance (I guess he could sign up now under the Affordable Care Act). Let's train hard and make sure to train smart!

http://www.ksdk.com/videos/news/2014/01/15/4502881/

Post: #2

So what went wrong?





Things I've noticed:
- Not wearing flat shoes for a heavy lift = caused poor distribution of weight?
- Use of strappings and belt = possibly compensating for weak core?
- He appears to have not activated his abdominal muscles, was arching his back immediately after a jump, which meant his lower back had to take the entire weight of the barbells.

I don't do this kind of lift, can any forum member comment on the form?

Possibly the guy had an undiagnosed back condition that made him susceptible to injury.

Post: #3

A few things I noticed:
- He starts with a pigeon toed stance
- He starts with his back rounded and his hips way above his knees.
- He momentarily sinks his hips maybe down to about knee level but it's dynamic. He doesn't pause and setup the lift.
- He splays his feet out much wider than his initial stance and lands on his toes, he only rocks back onto his heels once he's injured.

What I think happened is he didn't sink his hips low enough for the pull and lifted too much with his back. Then he caught the weight on the balls of his feet and further loaded his back in an awkward way.

Here's how the lift should look:




About 4 minutes in there is a guy who power snatches but even there his sinks his hips lower than this guy does.

Post: #4

I knew what crossfit was about when I saw those kipping pullups. This cemented my opinion about it.

Post: #5

I think I figured out what went wrong...
He was doing Crossfit.

(01-16-2014 08:56 AM)funkyzeit Wrote:  I knew what crossfit was about when I saw those kipping pullups. This cemented my opinion about it.

Post: #6

All types of awkward shit in his stance. I have no sympathy. Dude was worried about ego, a camera, looking cool, etc, over trying to lift smart. What is that useless coach doing also? I would of screamed for him to stop when the pigeon toes came out before he was able to swing up that weight. That split second is all you need.

Crossfit is fucked. I never trust any trend that loads of women gravitate towards. Period. Women prefer Crossfit over tradtional compound routines, that's suspect to me. Traditional compound routines keep your ego in check, you don't have momentum and shit form to help you cheat, your more in tune with the weight, and the reality of fuking your shit up is more real.

Post: #7

When you combine timed obstacle and olympic lifting together, you're just asking for it.

...and why is he doing crossfit at a high level without insurance?

Post: #8

that lift didn't look like the technique or the lack thereof was the culprit.

i'm guessing there was an undiagnosed condition prior to that

thats only 185 lbs on the bar too, its not like its a crazy ass amount

Post: #9

I basically only use hammer strength machines and some dumb bells. Rarely dead lift. No squats, no cleans, no snatches.

Look around at an elite gym with old timers. Men in their 50s and 60s who still look great. You don't see them doing ego lifts like power cleans.

Leave that shit for football players and MMA fighters.

I'll do my training over by the pussy machines, thank you.

Post: #10

The first rule of CrossFit, you have to tell everyone that you do CrossFit.
The second rule of CrossFit, you have to tell EVERYONE that you do CrossFit.

Post: #11

It seems like it was just a freak accident. He failed on the lift and dumped the bar, then fell back due to exhaustion. The bar took an awkward bounce off the plates behind him and hit him in the back, presumably crushing his vertebrae and damaging the spinal cord.

That same lift has been performed literally millions of times across the world, and I've never heard of anyone becoming paralyzed from performing the actual lift itself, even with bad form. The damage was from the bar bouncing up and crushing part of his spine. It's just one of those one in a million freak injuries, same as when a football player takes a routine hit and gets paralyzed.

Crossfit's retarded emphasis on exhaustive training (causing form breakdown) is partially to blame for this. It results in a ton of injuries, although this is definitely the worst I've seen. I feel very sorry for the guy. Even if Crossfit is a stupid, cultish fad, no one deserves to be paralyzed for doing it. I hope he is able to make a full recovery.

Post: #12

Wonder what his vitamin d level was.

Never liked that lift. I prefer clean and press or dead lift or press.

When in nature do you have to pick something up raise it above your head and then squat down all in the same motion? Never. That's not a natural move that's why it results in stuff like this.

That's a shame. I hope he can regain back movement.

Post: #13

No sympathy. Crossfit is a complete joke.

It's funny, when I try to go too fast on any lifts I get sloppy and 'lo and behold i injure myself.

Post: #14

(01-16-2014 10:59 AM)kosko Wrote:  Crossfit is fucked. I never trust any trend that loads of women gravitate towards. Period. Women prefer Crossfit over tradtional compound routines, that's suspect to me. Traditional compound routines keep your ego in check, you don't have momentum and shit form to help you cheat, your more in tune with the weight, and the reality of fuking your shit up is more real.

100%. It facilitates attention-whoring and making a big "look at me, I'm so hardcore" scene. Recklessness is required; patience, discipline, and good form are not.

Post: #15

Regardless of how gay Crossfit has become this is a rare freak injury and I wouldn't wish this upon on any normal guy just trying to lift some weights.

He defintely had his weight to forward.

Post: #16

(01-16-2014 01:02 PM)frenchie Wrote:  No sympathy. Crossfit is a complete joke.

Really? None at all? Not even a smidgen?

I'm a hard ass, but man, hearing about a guy getting paralyzed from a lifting accident really doesn't move your dial at all?

Post: #17

While I do feel bad for the guy, there is another angle to this thing.
Apparently this dude was a CrossFit coach...

How many hapless skinny dudes and fat chicks did he encourage to overtrain nearly to the point of rhabdomyolysis, or push them to nearly snap their own spines doing sets of cleans with shitty form?
It's no secret that CrossFit has some pretty high injury rates, it's kind of ironic that something like this ended up happening to a coach and not to some some bambi in their third training session.

Post: #18

am I missing something?

didn't he get hurt from a single snatch?

I don't know many if any of the "named" crossfit work outs that use 185 lbs snatches.

someone fill me in here?

Post: #19

How many guys have actually spent time at a Crossfit gym? I've never been to a Crossfit box so I can't pass judgment. I have friends and family members who do it (obsessively) and I must admit the results are damn impressive. Whether it's worth paying $200/month is another matter and a personal question. Hard to say what the long-term health implications are on a broad level as it hasn't been around that long. I think where people may go wrong is getting caught up in the competition of it all. When you're consciously competing with the advanced athlete next to you and overstepping your boundaries, that's probably where the problems begin.

Post: #20

the problems lie with the coaches and the wide variability in their qualifications and perspectives.

we've been through this a number of times on this board.

my crossfit gym (i quit going about a year ago to focus just on strength) had impeccable coaches who were form nazis. you could not go up in weight unless your form was perfect and safe. many frustrating days snatching 95 lbs for until my form was perfected (now 200 lbs PR).

every rep was predetermined by the coaches, every rep watched and coached. no choice in the weights, everything scaled.

other gyms will let members set their own weight, don't pay attention and just push people harder.

i guess its no surprise that our (my old) gym produces a top ten finisher at the games every year.

the money is well spent if the attention is personalized enough.

basically, like in life, idiots are idiots and you gotta watch out for them

Post: #21

I am not sure those qualifications are any better than those that you get to be a yoga instructor. There seem to be schools that will certify you to be anything you want.

Very sorry to see someone injured. I hope he recovers, though the initial info is a bit saddening.

Post: #22

Just found out his pr snatch was 265, crazy. So 185 shouldn't have been anything for him.

I first started crossfit around 2005 when I was playing ball at a ju co. My buddy came back from Iraq and showed me a wod where it was 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats and 20 sit ups in a 20 minute met con. To see how many rounds you could do. I think I got 7 rounds maybe. I did it with him though and I was sold. Partly because I thought it was cool I was doing the workouts that soldiers were doing over sees at war. It was different back then though. I would go on the website everyday and pick a workout I liked. I was doing them at a local community center and just adjusting them to my liking while keeping the core concepts.

Things like the box jumps, jumping rope, pull ups and dips are really what I was lacking in my workouts prior. Those all can be done with out being a 'crossfiter' though.

I increased my speed and vertical within a month and I was looking better than ever.

Once I saw Crossfits opening up everywhere and soccer moms doing it I knew it couldn't be good.

It's like most things... It's cool when not a lot of people know about it but when it blows up it just gets ruined.

Post: #23

There's a thread on t-nation. Sounds like the programming for the competition was ridiculous and he was probably fatigued:

http://tnation.t-nation.com/free_online_...ry#5915395

Post: #24

(01-16-2014 02:30 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  How many guys have actually spent time at a Crossfit gym? I've never been to a Crossfit box so I can't pass judgment. I have friends and family members who do it (obsessively) and I must admit the results are damn impressive. Whether it's worth paying $200/month is another matter and a personal question. Hard to say what the long-term health implications are on a broad level as it hasn't been around that long. I think where people may go wrong is getting caught up in the competition of it all. When you're consciously competing with the advanced athlete next to you and overstepping your boundaries, that's probably where the problems begin.

This is a great point. I have never been to a CF gym, but I know how to do just about all of the movements and work routines into my own programming. Competing with the stopwatch/my previous times on workouts still causes me to push myself, but not having that other guy(s) there probably keeps me from killing myself.

Post: #25

(01-16-2014 02:25 PM)reaper23 Wrote:  am I missing something?

didn't he get hurt from a single snatch?

I don't know many if any of the "named" crossfit work outs that use 185 lbs snatches.

someone fill me in here?

A lot of times you will do a wod (workout of the day) which can be over in as little as 5 minutes depending on your level or what the workout is, which then leaves time after the wod to do some strength work. (heavy lifts) This is if you are going and taking an hour class.

I put some buddies onto it back in the day when they would see me doing workouts in our local center. I started to shy away from it and they went the extra mile and got certs and all that. My boy even owns his own box now so I've been around it a lot. I go their to hangout and get some lifting in. Even hop in a class once in a while. But I would never pay the insane amounts people pay to go raise their cortisol levels. It's insane to me.

He has very good coaches who do not push people and focus on safety and no injuries first. Even one of his coaches does not do any crossfit style workouts. Which goes to show you how stupid it can be.