elev8 wellness
  • Elev8 Wellness
    • About
    • Meet the team
    • Classes >
      • Women's Wellness Series
      • Elev8 Yoga
      • Elev8 Dance
      • Elev8 Kids Programs >
        • Elev8kids Summer Camp
        • Toddler Classes
    • Our Studios >
      • Rent Our Studio
    • Elev8 Recipes
  • WellBlog
    • Elev8 Weekly Thoughts
  • Services
  • Virtual Coaching
  • Contact
    • Take a Tour

wellblog

Crossfit's Most Authoritative Expert Demoted to Bro Science Peddler?

12/28/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
 Crossfit's Most Authoritative Expert Demoted to Bro Science Peddler?

I like Kelly Starrett. He was able to spread the word on mobility to a lot of newbies over the past few years. Also thanks to Starrett, Crossfit enjoyed so much more sophistication of technique in its last 5 years. However, his initial insights have given way to hyperbolic overstatements which are being eviscerated by movement experts of all kinds.

For those of us who've used different banded variations, corrective strategies and fascia work for 15 years (or more), we've seen his fame rise in kind with laypeople becoming more acquainted with the same concepts. Different body workers have done this stuff for 150 years. But when I first did self-myofascial release in the 90s, I couldn't find anybody who understood what I was doing. Now, it's the opposite: you have a hard time finding people who haven't heard of a foam roller. And we have to thank famous advocates like Starrett for getting the education out there.

With all popular trends, there is some good and some bad. It's great that a lot more people are thinking about how their bodies should move, what optimal technique is, and what a movement practice should be. Unfortunately, the downsides are innumerable.

Many people having this "enlightenment moment" about mobility are doing far more harm than good. Some don't have sufficient strength or muscle mass, but they are obsessed with breaking down tissue with a lacrosse ball or roller. They get trapped in a nonstop pain cycle which didn't exist prior to knowing the word "fascia". Others, not understanding active control, spend excessive time on passively jamming tissue into positions it isn't prepared to handle. When they experience pain from tissue damage, their "remedy" is to traumatize the tissue more with various stretches and direct pressures. No healing ensues.

None of this is singularly the fault of Starrett or the Crossfit organization. Crossfit was one of many attempts to make variable training modalities more popular. As it succeeded in spades, more people than ever began teaching and being taught workouts without sufficient understanding of human movement. Starrett worked to create sanity within that. He worked to reduce the firestorm of orthopedic injuries. He wrote the book (literally) on how to move for various exercises in April of 2013. He did good.

The oddity with Starrett's book is that it is devoid of any references for the statements he makes about human movement. Somehow this glaring omission didn't stand out upon my first reading of the book. Largely because I was viewing it as a perspective of recommendation, I found little fault. But there's another perspective which holds it up as the final word on directives or even a reference textbook, which creates a lot of problems off the bat. However, this shouldn't have been a surprise, because Crossfit founder Glassman has had a similar track record of making claims about human movement which find no substantiation in rigorous scientific literature.

I don’t need to go into detail here, because Dr. Quinn Henoch (GREAT article with notes here: http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/2013/11/15/supple-leopard-vs-world/) and a whole litany of others have done blow-by-blow analyses of Starrett’s claims. The simple fact remains that Starrett did not ever provide a dataset for his “torque” claims, force production testing results, references, or EMG tables to substantiate anything; and his panacea claims (which amount to little more than hand-waving blasé anecdote) are even more specious. Again, it’s not to say he’s some evildoer. I like a lot of what he tried to do. And I've found that many clients needed to learn the skill of knee-pry (which, by the by, was being recommended by Pavel and Dan John before Starrett was born). But as Henoch illustrates, there are ZERO world record holders who practice excessive or exclusive knee pry á la Starret and his ilk. And, frankly, watch the slow motion of every top ranked Olympic Weight Lifter in the world. I'm not talking about the top Crossfitters. I'm talking about the people who weigh 50lbs less than the top Crossfitters and lift 100-200 more pounds than them. You won't see ANY excessive knee-pry. None. I was actually shocked to find that just about every rock bottom snatch or clean catch/rock-bottom squat of Olympic competitors has the knees substantially INSIDE the feet. Go ahead. Do a quick search.


Henoch also made several valid observations about well-accepted and known realities with some of the oddities and nuances of hip rotator muscles (some internal rotators above 90 degrees become externally rotating below 90 and vice versa). These important pointers are essentially devoid in any of Starrett’s numerous posts, videos, interviews, or the book. We have the additional and more significant problem that certain skeletal differences in the layperson would put a Starrett student in potentially, severely threatening risk.

Thus, despite the ostensible thoroughness of Starrett, and despite just how likable he seems, his techniques are certainly not universally true. His penchant for hyperbole has landed him closer to the bro science than science camp. And this has some fairly obvious implications, given that, at least in my opinion, he was one of the more sensible and knowledgeable guys toeing the Crossfit line. Add to that his relative lack of experience (i.e. - most of my colleagues have logged thousands more hours of coaching time), and I’m really just disappointed to see that he’s avoided seriously answering these growing criticisms from well-meaning clinicians, strength coaches, trainers and experts around the globe.

Some average blokes doing the exact opposite of Starrett's sermon pictured below:

Starrett demonstrating his knee pry belief:
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Elev8 Wellness
    ​wellblog

    We strive to provide the latest articles and commentary on health, fitness, nutrition and vitality strategy.

    Archives

    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Active Memory
    Age
    Business
    Cancer
    Coaching
    Dementia
    Diet
    Dna
    Elev8 Wellness
    Family
    Fat
    Fish Oil
    Genetics
    Gut Health
    Health
    Jonathan Watters
    Ketosis
    Leadership
    Life
    Memory
    Muscle
    Nutrition
    Optimisim
    Parkinsons
    Pessimism
    Probiotics
    Sales
    Spatial Intelligence
    Strength Training
    Weight Loss
    Weight-loss
    Wellness

    RSS Feed

Picture

LIVE. AWESOME.

We offer the highest quality in personal  fitness, nutrition, and mindset coaching, helping you achieve your fitness, health, wellness and performance goals no matter the obstacle. With virtual online training and private, in-studio training we make it easier to reach your wellness goals safely.

​No more can't. No more not good enough. If you compete in a sport, let your mind no longer hold you back from being the greatest. If you don't, let your mind no longer hold you back from being the best version of you that you can be.

Sign-up for a Tour
Covid Screen Waiver
​Elev8 Waiver
Become an Elev8 Instructor
Space Rental
LOGIN / MEMBER REGISTER

6244 lyndale ave. s., minneapolis, mn 55423
[email protected]
612-440-6877

© 2021 Elev8 Wellness LLC.  All Rights Reserved.                                              site map  |  contribute  |                                                           SITE BY  Sproute Creative
Photos from benzado, frankieleon, hatcher10027, Sterling College, OakleyOriginals, rawpixel.com, quinn.anya, allispossible.org.uk, wuestenigel, jeffdjevdet, Brian Legate, jeffreyw, Ray Larabie, katerha, AgĂȘncia Brasil, TheBetterDay, A. M. D.
  • Elev8 Wellness
    • About
    • Meet the team
    • Classes >
      • Women's Wellness Series
      • Elev8 Yoga
      • Elev8 Dance
      • Elev8 Kids Programs >
        • Elev8kids Summer Camp
        • Toddler Classes
    • Our Studios >
      • Rent Our Studio
    • Elev8 Recipes
  • WellBlog
    • Elev8 Weekly Thoughts
  • Services
  • Virtual Coaching
  • Contact
    • Take a Tour