I have been injured at this same crossfit. Actually the injury caused me not to continue with this program at this location. The level of instruction is poor. I have known individuals who have been injured during their two week training sessions due to poor instruction. I have witness proper instruction at other locations in the region where they focus on form and technique. I suggest for anyone who is interested in becoming a crossfitter that you observed the box that you intend to join and make sure they are stretching, warming up, and cooling down as a mandatory part of the program. If you are are interested in this program I suggest trying a smaller box with more one one one instruction. Try coming across the river or visiting the box located downtown Albany on Broadway.

That video has thousands of dislikes, what people don't realize is that those dislikes are from Crossfitters. Whoever was the coach that day should be fired and should have to resit the Crossfit course. Note to critics : Don't knock it til you've tried it! Crossfit changes lives!

Yeah Jerry, because no one plays competitive sports "for fun" how silly of me...

Ummm...did the person above me actually read the article? The coach said they were doing this "for fun". This was not a video of a competition like you stated. Horrible and dangerous form filmed for the whole world to see.

Katherine, I think you did a pretty good job presenting both sides of this issue, and overall I enjoyed your article. There is, however, one key piece of information that everyone seems to forget or intentionally ignore about the Revival Strongman video- It was video of a competition. This means that the lifting being performed in that video (the same lifting that most of the critics in this article use as a judgement of CrossFit), was being done by individuals who signed up to push themselves to the limit, outside of the regular CrossFit environment. Calling what the participants in this competition were doing "risky" is like watching any other competitive sport and calling it risky... a claim that should be met with a resounding "duh". Interpreting the Revival Strongman video as a representation of the training done at a regular CrossFit Affiliate is simply foolish given a complete picture of why and when those athletes were lifting the way they were. What's funny about the critics in this article is that they clearly haven't taken the time to do even the limited research that Katherine has for the article. She walks into her first affiliate to find a Coach making specific form corrections, and training a 65-70 year old client... not something you would find if our critics were correct in their interpretations.