Hey Athletes! Want to know what the difference is between Concurrent training and Crossfit? Listen to this week’s Ask Me Anything!
Episode 09 of Ask Me Anything is Up!
Concurrent training vs. Crossfit
On this week’s episode of Ask Me Anything we have a question from Jaime: what is the difference between Concurrent Training and CrossFit? Jerred gives the definition of both and then dives in deeper to explain each one further.
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Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
- What is CrossFit? 10 Signs That You May Just be a CrossFitter
- Concurrent Training: Three Steps to Becoming a Dangerously-effective Athlete
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Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
AMA 09: Concurrent training vs. Crossfit
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: Welcome to garage gym athlete. Ask me anything. It’s pretty simple. I’ll be answering questions from the thousands of athletes that follow our daily programming. If you have a question or topic you want submitted, go to garage dot com slash AMA let’s get started.
All right, ladies and Joan, welcome to this week’s ask me anything this week we have a question from Jamie saying, what is the difference between CrossFit training and concurrent training? we talk a lot about concurrent training, but you know, what’s the real difference? And so that was kind of the paraphrased version of the question.
and so I kind of broke it down there for you guys. Really, what is the difference? What is the difference between concurrent training and what is, you know, CrossFit? And I think that we have to start with a definition of each one of those things. So CrossFit do does have a definition. It’s constantly varied.
[00:01:00] Functional movement performed at high intensity. That is the definition of CrossFit. Greg Glassman, the founder and CEO, came up with that definition, so he created CrossFit and he defined it in, that is the definition of CrossFit. I didn’t make it up. so that is, that is what it is. and I like to be very clear on the definition of CrossFit because when something has a definition, there’s less ambiguity when you’re talking about other forms or styles of training.
So what is concurrent training. Well concurrent training, really is when you’re combining two different modalities of training and doing them at the same time or concurrently. So something like strength training with aerobic conditioning. And you could say that CrossFit. Is or can be concurrent training, but concurrent training would be the broader brush there.
And then CrossFit would be, you know, underneath concurrent training. So to look at it this way, a lot, these days, a lot of CrossFit programming [00:02:00] will have some sort of strength training component to it. And then after the strength training component, there will be the quote unquote conditioning or CrossFit metabolic conditioning.
Which is more cross training style. And so that would be, that would be known. That could be known as concurrent training. Just because you’re doing, you’re not purely a strength athlete. You’re not only doing CrossFit at the goal of getting better at CrossFit, you have a strength training component and some other modality.
So, but really what the definition, maybe more from a research standpoint and what a lot of the research looks at. There are very few studies that are looking at the combination of strength training with something like CrossFit. Most of the research in the concurrent training world is looking at how does strength training like either actually getting stronger or hypertrophy, like muscle growth.
How does that. you know, interfere with, or, you know, even make better or something like, aerobic conditioning from cycling, from running and things of that [00:03:00] nature. So more mono structural in nature. So that can be rowing, that can be running, you know, one modality, over and over again. And there’s a lot more research on the that side of things, so that that really would be the difference.
You could call CrossFit concurrent training. It’s just really, how are you doing the conditioning that makes it different. CrossFits doing more metabolic conditioning, a lot of high intensity stuff, and that’s not necessarily the case with concurrent training they’re doing. It could be cycling, it could be rowing.
Or running, but within a lot of different parameters and putting those programs together. so that, I would say the biggest difference in execution would be that intensity piece, because you can do high intensity interval training on a bike, but you can also go really low intensity, like zone two training.
We’ve talked a lot about for longer periods of time and see how these different styles of intensity or different levels of intensity affect your strength training. And there’s a lot of research on that, and a CrossFit [00:04:00] is more really would be looking at, if you had to break it down from a broader perspective, if you’re doing strength training and CrossFit, it’s how does extremely high intensity and strength training, what kind of results will those produce?
And I’ve looked at a lot of the different concurrent training research. And you know, there’s very little that has to do, like I said, with the CrossFit style, but on the using, cycling and on all those other things we’ve covered in depth in the garage, the athlete podcasts have go back. We have a concurrent training, deep dive.
we talked about how cycling might be better than other modalities, to not hurt your strength gains. And that is pretty much the biggest difference in, in execution I would say. What is your goal? What are you looking to achieve on? Like why you would pick one over the other? I think, you know, what CrossFit is trying to do is there’s a skills element to their definition of fitness.
So they, not only are you doing high intensity training that there’s also, you know, handstand walks and rope [00:05:00] climbs and all that stuff is cool, but it’s not necessarily increasing your quota like VO two max or strength. So how much time do you have. To train because if you only have a limited amount of time, I would want to knock out strength training.
I’d want to do something that’s going to increase my VO two max, or just overall oxidative aerobic conditioning. I’d want to beef that up that up as much as possible. And then after that, if I had additional time, I might want to work on some skills, those skills, Y. While they can be helpful and, and you know, a lot of arguments for them aren’t.
You know, in line with some of the biggest research out there about the biggest bang you could get for your buck, you know, in drink. So that would be the, the main difference between concurrent train and CrossFit kind of is concurrent training. It’s just a different modality for conditioning. and I think if you’re limited on time, I would focus on let’s get that aerobic endurance up.
Let’s get the strength up. but concurrent training’s probably the best method out there for really being good at a lot of different things. And that’s kinda my take on fitness. I want to be. A Jack of all trades, [00:06:00] but not to the CrossFit style where like, you’re just kind of good at like 15 or 30 different things.
I personally like to cycle a lot, and then I also like strength training and, and I would love to be really good at those two things specifically. And not, you know. Walking on my hands, or, you know, all these other things because I just don’t feel like they’re as helpful or impactful on my actual fitness, my ability to live longer and things like that.
So that’s the difference, between concurrent training and CrossFit. Hopefully that was helpful. If you guys have any questions about that. Let me know. If you’re liking these episodes, please go to garage gym, athlete.com/ama and ask some more questions and you will get involved in everything that we’re doing here.
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Jerred Moon: I hope you enjoy [00:07:00] today’s ask me anything episode. So one more time. If you want to submit a question, topic or idea, you can do so at garage gym, athlete.com/ama and Hey, while you’re there, if you haven’t already, sign up for garage gym athlete membership. We are the best community and programming on the internet.
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