I noticed I was a better performing athlete who was injury free before I started CrossFit. And my decline in running, swimming and lifting ability began around the same time I tried to take cross fit seriously and became a cf1 and started to teach and compete in my mid 20s at my local box. Felt like I destroyed my body trying to "increase my work capacity"by doing WoDs not realizing the fundamentals is what kept me healthy and I was literally killing my joints with so much varied training.

Spyro 2 as a background? I am sold.

very tired of fitness science at the moment where in the search of the most optimal we forget that we as humans need to explore different things, make mistakes and learn from them

As a CrossFitter, I've always assumed this would be the case. I think the mixed sessions are great for the average person though to keep things interesting. A lot of people don't need/want to be as fit as they can possibly be, they just want to be "healthy" with 2 or 3 sessions a week.

I mean, but who really gives a shit if it’s wrong or not, or if it’s causing the two systems to fight each other. You’re getting socialization(assuming you’re working out in class or with partners), mental discipline training, AND you’re doing physical movement. As long as it’s something you enjoy and you consistently show up to do the workouts, who truly gives a fuck if your progress in strength or cardio is getting hindered by the other.

Interesting video and study. I started crossfit about 1.5 years ago and feel like it added just a general boost to my level of athleticism. The last 6 months or so I have focused mostly on CF with a little bit of my usual powerlifting / hypertrophy sessions in between. I PR'd my squat and deadlift when we did a CF total at our gym. This was after a block of training that was programmed more towards that goal. More recently our programming is geared towards running / cardio endurance. I think what I am saying is I think CF is at it's best when the programming is dialed and more specified. Which I think that is the point you were making at the end of the video.

I believe that what works is what people can commit to doing consistently. It would be great if the average Joel understood that splitting their training is beneficial, as the study suggests, but reality isn't like that. I'm the head coach of a CrossFit gym in Australia and looking at our data, there's a massive drop off in attendance on days where there's only a strength or only a conditioning component to the workout. We've tried educating people on the subject but it can only go so far, so we'd rather have people actually doing the workouts than programming something that even though is more effective, doesn't bring members through the door. I'd love to know how the gym you go to got to the point that people still show up to a rowing and running session as you mentioned.

So they funded a study to prove that the product they’re selling is more effective than their competitors? Crazy

I see Crossfit as a competition, I don't think it's training.

Doing crossfit for a year reduced by 1RM across the board. Too much cardio, not enough actual strength training. Turns out all the big boys in the crossfit gym were on steroids .

This study proves that the original CF methodology works. Strength and heavy days separated from metcon days. What they call Hybrid CF, is actually how CF was written by coach Glassman. Thanks for putting this out ZT. The affiliate(in last 5-6 years) got pigeon holed into making people think they have to get most bang for their buck by doing stength & metcon in one 1hr class, 5-6 days a week. That is not true CF in my opinion.

I used to be in the 5am group at a local box. After the WOD was over, I would then have to get in a lift. That told me everything I needed to know. I work for a living and banging my head for HSPUs was super funny. LOL! Needless to say, I stopped going. Plus it was expensive to be a member as well. Luckily I was smart enough to avoid getting injured while I was there, but lots of other people did get hurt and had things they wouldn’t even do.

Great video as usual, I’ve been doing CrossFit Linchpin for 1.5 years now and coach Sherwood fully embraces this, our whole workout today was 4x8 front squats with some optional accessories, and we very purposefully moderate intensity, only going full send 20-40% of the time depending on how we feel. I’ll never go back to a lift/metcon “new CrossFit” program ever again. I keep getting stronger and my fitness keeps increasing, even though I’m much less beat up than I used to be.

The best ive ever felt in my my life is hybrid training between lifting weights and running. I did crossfit for a year and a half and I never felt anywhere as good. Everyone always just wanted to feel like they died instead of feeling like they had a great workout.

I get bored with standard bodybuilding style workouts, cardio, or powerlifting/oly programs. CF style training keeps me interested and going to the gym. So people can say what they want about it, I like doing it and keep going vs I just give up on other stuff after a few months. I’ve been going to the gym consistently for nearly 8 years now doing CF style training.

Great video Zack! I'm a masters thrower (age 64) and I don't need much endurance training, however I do split up the weekly workouts as follows - 2x week Olympic Lifting, 2x week Strength training, 2x week throwing (shotput/javelin + discus/hammer) + one day rest. So Power - Strength - Skill - Repeat - Rest. Each weight workout session is 1 hour - five exercises per session. Throwing sessions 30 mins each for two events. Seems to work well for me. Thanks!

So since I did leg day today and then swam for two hours afterwards, does that mean I did a CrossFit?

I think your content is highly underrated, I really like the way you present and analize your videos, I have used several of your previous technique videos on weightlifting and training programming. Regarding crossfit, I hate it when I´m doing front squats or some variation of clean or snatchs, like a balance or a hang, and someone says "hey dude, I also do crossfit"... I don´t understand why peolpe relates weightlifting, gymnastics or body weight training to CF... but it is what it is, without a doubt CF is fun and can be effective (as any training you commit to and follow along side a good diet), so people that like it, all good, is just that CF is not the only kind of training.

Every crossfit gym I've ever worked out at, I always eventually went out of my way to sign up at a globo gym to work on strength building. Your right when you said less people show up for full on weightlifting days because I've witnessed it myself in the past 10 years. It made me wonder if the owners plan it with less weightlifting activity because they recognize that also. I love crossfit, the community, and it's competitiveness, but I always have to supplement in doing extra stuff outside of it to get more well rounded....typically in strength.

Been doing Crossfit for 10 months now, and I've never stuck with anything sports related this long. It's been such an eyeopener for me and I can see the difference both in my weight and my muscle mass. At our gym, you can also take a weekly olympic weightlifting class, which I ABSOLUTELY love doing. I've been going 3 times a week with regular WOD's which was one of my goals, before that I did 2 WOD's and 1 olylift class. Next goal is to be able to do 3 WOD's and the olylift class. But I love the C&J man...

Funnily enough, this is actually very similar to Andrew Huberman's training style. I believe he has a pretty structured plan, but its basically just strength, cardio, strength, cardio, strength, cardio, rest.

Nice video!! There’s a lot that i would like to point out as someone that does CrossFit for about 8 years and as a PT. But the thing that stand out to me is that I’m Brazil people tend to skip conditioning days and jump strength but even more to high skills days (butterfly pull up, bar muscle up,HSW) but principle stays the same if the coaches do not find a way to insert a little bit of everything into the week programming people just cherry pick workouts and complain, it’s veryyy hard

What if you have no choice but to attend a gym that does strength + WOD style programming? Choose one as your intention for the day and go low intensity on the other? + mix in some runs/cardio on off days?

Interesting. I've been in the crossfit scene since late 2006 (no typo - getting to 18 years now!) - and one thing that has changed since the early days of the sport is that (stereo-)typical "warm up - strength/skill - metcon" trajectory designed to (a) fill a 60 minute class and (b) leave everyone feeling like they got hit by a bus. Back in the Day (TM) the front page WOD (which I followed one my own and most early boxes also followed) was typically ONE SINGLE element - like, JUST Fran or JUST 10 DLs or JUST a 5k. (You started with the CFWU, which took me 10-15 minutes.) And: Back in the day, I regularly spent a good hour working on those 10 DLs. There were definitely weaknesses (as well as strengths) to that older approach, but one thing I've noticed since the transition is that the strength and/or skill segment often feels a bit rushed - and you may actually feel hesitant to give it your all because you're saving energy for the metcon at the end (which always feels like "the real WOD"). This is particularly relevant in (also typical) programming scenarios where the movement trained the strength/skill section is important for the metcon. I.e., you work up to a heavy rep 5 rep front squat - then do a metcon where you do, like, 30 DUs, 20 C2Bs, 15 T2Bs, 10 FS (@70kg) for 3 rounds. (I just made that up, but you've got to admit that it looks pretty typical.) In scenarios like this, if you really go all in on the 5 rep max FS, your WOD-pals are going to destroy you on the WOD.

Great video! Do you prefer/recommended partitioning strength vs conditioning a day at a time, or a week at a time?

So it turned out that to get good at CrossFit, you need to not do CrossFit, but train normally. What a shocker. By the way, CrossFit is a brand, not a sport.

Ratchet and clank music for the ad😂 i dig

Getting to the point where I really don't know what CF is anymore... maybe I never knew. Also, I did like the workout showed; originally, I would set the push press at the beginning of the session, but the more I consider its purpose in the workout the better I feel about its placement.

I bet that, despite the comments, 80% or more of affiliates do not do "Strength Only" sessions. Originally CF proposed such sessions (heavy days with only one movement) but much less frequently, not twice a week and with multiple movements as it was done in this study. So well done for pointing that out

As a big fan of CrossFit, too many jump into it without a plan and just try to go balls to the wall every day with every wod which increases chance of injury and I think lowers performance over time. There are times and places for intensity, just not everyday

Yeah, doing hybrid is certainly the best approach. One just need to find what is the right dose of metcon training in order to not hinder the strength training. Regular people should prioritize strength over conditioning and it fits right in with a novice str program...

Dude, the last time I watched a video of yours was in 2022 sometime. You look much broader in the shoulders since then man 👍

I don't know where each reader trains, but this is "somehow " how we program in our affiliate. Yes, people want to get a good sweat, but it also has much to do with: What is the objective of today's training? and this is a vital point to be understood For example, Warmup Strength: Let us assume exactly like the sets that Zack showed, Metcon In this case, if the objective of today's session is to focus on strength, then the focus and the time will go to the strength, and the class will be taught to go heavy and push harder, while the metcon is taking like an extra to give a final push " short and less intense than usual." The next day, you will have a skill first part and then an intense WOD I was constantly training like this, except when I was preparing for a competition or getting obsessed with being better in a specific movement

I’ve seen the opposite- people don’t wanna show up to conditioning days and love only strength

Thanks for defining your terms. I recently watched a podcast where they referred repeatedly to the SAID principle without decoding the acronym. I turned it off partway through. Also, to me I wouldn't know the distinction between "conjugate" (together like a marriage) and "concurrent" (together in time). To me, with my 4 years of Latin, they both just sound like a loose statement roughly meaning "closely joined." Thanks, this'll help me parse others' videos.

I do CrossFit- love CrossFit- but I know that it’s not perfect- most of us love the atmosphere more then the ideology

Telling people you do CrossFit is kind of like telling people you’re gay. No one cares. I joke, I joke. If you love CrossFit and it keeps you in shape then that’s awesome.

Usyk used crossfit in order to help him to make a step from cruserweight to heavyweight.

I wanted to watch the whole song so I Googled and found the Telander Music channel. The song definitely has a country vibe, and although I'm not a huge country music fan, I liked this one. It also had a bit of a bluesy vibe to it. Nice job. "People change and maybe you should, too." We should play this one for our favorite dogmatic strength coach! :)

are you still doing any S & C, for any rugby clubs.., I’m just asking as an old rugby player. keep up the great work on the channel

Exercise is training for your specific sport or personal maintenance. I think it’s insane to do exercise at break neck speeds, because it’s just begging on hands and knees for an injury.

I've worked out in a CF gym 4 times now, and watched this video, and I still don't know what makes CrossFit CrossFit. I'm also not sure it would be any better than my current at home lifting 5x/wk and frequent bicycle rides to the beach to swim and do Yoga. I like the people though. I went to a concert on our Town Green and ran into several people from the box. One of them invited me to sit in with his band this weekend, and I'm looking forward to it. This never happened while doing log presses alone in my backyard! I like it.

Zack, I keep thinking about the video where you mentioned some guy at the bar who kept talking smack about beavers. I’m really sorry you had to go through that 😢

CrossFit is a workout, it is not training. Very few would do CrossFit if not for community aspect.

I think part of this is that as a culture, fitness has been forced into boxes. Either you do general bodybuilding (which is then broken down into things like leg day, back day, and upper body), Pilates, Zumba, CrossFit, etc. So when you list a workout like you did with the front squats and rows or running and rowing, people don't know what to do with it so it's labeled CrossFit. And CrossFit is relatively vague in it's definition that do many things can fit in it

THE BIG PROBLEM WITH CROSSFIT IS THE INJURIES...AND THE INCOMPETENCE OF MOST CROSSFIT TRAINERS...YOU ONLY NEED A TWO WEEK COURSE TO GET A CERTIFICATE TO TEACH CROSSFIT...LOVE WATCHING THE CROSSFIT GAMES THOUGH BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH NEEDLESS INJURIES CAUSED BY STUPIDITY

Watching these videos and reading these comments make me appreciate my crossfit gym even more. By the looks of it, a LOT of CF gyms don't do much programming at all or not serious anyway. My gym goes by quarters, and each quarter had an emphasis (olympics, strength, and so on) We follow planning designed by folks with decades of experience and ridiculously educated. Every WOD starts with 20+ minutes of warm up, tissue rolling (or ball depending on the workout ahead and what we've so far.) As well as an insane amount of movement practice before we get into the WOD, which sometimes can be as little as 3 sets of 5 minutes. Sorry for the other fellow crossfitters who got the short end of the sticks with coaches that throw random bs at ya. But I have physical evidence that this sport, when done safely and planned, yields phenomenal results.

When i owned my crossfit the hybrid style was similar to how i set up our programs and everyones favorite day was the strength day!

I think CF hits all the fitness bases for most people. That said, most people will hit a plateau if they do no separately do pure strength training and zone 2 (high volume low intensity) cardio. CF style training is very focused on zone 5-6 (ultra high intensity aerobic to lactic acid and hypertrophy training ). This should improve VO2 max and muscle size, but are limited by heart stroke volume and 1RM strength. CrossFit is not intended to do the style of training for 1RM strength, and certainly not zone 2 cardio, but it leverages the benefits of both. I see it like a fitness pyramid. You increase the height by building up 1RM strength. You increase the width by doing zone 2 cardio. CrossFit (and similar) lays all the other bricks. Realistically, doing a few heavy reps of squats and 30-60 minutes zone 2 cardio do not result in much fatigue/soreness, whereas CF does, so I work them into my non-CF days. Finding great results with this approach

As a former active and competitive Crossfitter, the “Hybrid” style training is what I do nowadays although my strength and conditioning as separate macrocycles.

13:51 I think the term “CrossFit” has become synonymous wit any hiit training. It’s how most people were introduced to those style of workouts and oly lifts, so even though CrossFit is a brand, in general conversation I think people just use it as a term to describe hiit workouts.

I think the best way to train in my opinion is just to get as much muscle as possible, do your cardio 3 to 4 times a week, and stretch for flexibility.

Hybrid training is a fitness style that combines different training techniques and exercise modalities to improve both strength and endurance simultaneously. CrossFit is constantly varied, functional movement, executed at high intensity. You mad cause we used less words bro?🤣

Maybe even take it a step further and take a lesson from history. The greek tetrad system is a pretty awesome system set up. You can definitely use it to program for hybrid athletics or cross training and it has a somewhat built in wave loading progression, along with a built in active recovery system. It was effective because it allowed everyday training for greek athletes and olympians without burnout, which led to higher frequency training to get better.

I’ve found this at Red Wolf CrossFit in Huntington Beach. If you ever come to Huntington you should check it out !

Did you add the ratchet and clank theme to the ad? Respect

I didn't know what to call it back then but this how I've been training for some time now. 3 training days dedicated to hypertrophy, 1 day of strength training, 1 day of running 5-10 kms (depending on how recovered I feel) and 1 cycling day 30-50km. Taking 1 week off every 3-4 weeks. I've been making gains in strength and size, endurance and cardio to the point people were starting to think that I'm taking a little bit of something except for creatine. I've hit a plateau recently though and completely ditched cardio as a test, now on my 2nd month. Guess what, I'm making even more strength gains LOL. Maybe I can mix in some periodizations every year. I'll see how this goes though. Have great fitness journeys everyone!

Splitting the strength and conditioning, even on the same day is what I've seen with other forms of strength and endurance training. Doing conditioning immediately after strength will cut into the adaptations of the strength training. Alternating weeks of strength and conditioning is something I haven't seen, though.

Back in the day, there was cross-training, which combined strength and endurance into a workout. Then, the whole CrossFit movement came about and decided to take cross-training and make it competitive. It looks to me that in your video, you were going back to Cross-training, doing the workout but not trying to beat a clock.

Ive been doing body building training for the last 34 years amd in 2018 i tried crossfit for roughly a year, even to the point of taking the coaching course. My body went backwards in terms of size and defintion and even strength. Back to body building with the odd easy cardio session (like walking) and I'm much better off.

Crossfit isn't a training modality, it just manipulates a training variable called time, or rest periods. That's not a training ideology or system.

Training is never wrong...and always better than sedentary

Mixing it all up - endurance, lactate tolerance, technique work, speed and max strength - goes against everything sports science has said for more than a half if not a whole *century.* I've got a book from the 70s where it says that speed and technique work should not be done in an exhausted state. And this hasn't been disproven. On a similar note, strength athletes pause around 5 minutes between max effort sets and strictly avoid lactate buildup. On the other end of the spectrum: good endurance training keeps you in exactly the right metabolic state which is almost never where "the muscles burn". Going all out is bro-science. This too has been known since the 1950s when Swedish runners outperformed the competition by adding long but low intensity sessions to the then fashionable interval training. Or almost equally important: lactate threshold training where you keep the effort at an intensity slightly below the point where lactate builds up.

Is CrossFit optimal for anything? No. Is it good enough for most people to get/stay "in shape"? Yeah, it's good enough. + That whole "culty" gym culture vibe is good for the number one most important variable: actually going to work out.

Is your background from Spyro? I've got to know lol

I have always trained since starting 3 years ago doing compound super sets and intervals and i always considered my mode of training similar to what seemed to be the goal of crossfit(a brand). I do push, pull, core, legs super sets x3 of 11 reps for example, non stop all 4 exercises until the end of the super set then i rest between 3 super sets like this. Alternating days i did walk, run pushup intervals. 58 male and obviously im doing this for functional, flexibility, strength and endurance and it has been effective for my goals. Far better than what most are doing doing 1 set of one exercise and restibg for 5 playing with thrmselves between sets. Colossal waste of gym time and zero indurance and cardio vascular improvement.

If you want to be a balanced athlete, do as much exercices on 2 feet than exercises on one foot. You can watch Werner Gunther workout on KZfaq if you want a good reference.

Pretends to be shocked. This is literally one of the many reasons most people that have done their homework don't like CrossFit

I would be willing to lay a hefty bet that Crossfit is responsible for more lost days of work for professional firefighters from 2003 until now than all other work related injuries combined, if it isn’t more, it is close. This would be regarding those firefighters that participated in Crossfit. I saw dudes with stress fractures in their elbows from flopping fish pull ups. Dudes getting spinal fusions. Knees with zero cartilage. It’s a buffet of orthopedic destruction.

The missed points: 1) The average CrossFitter hits the gym twice a week. Not 4 to 5 times, just two. I think with the traditional programming style you will probably get better results for the majority. 2) The best program is useless, when nobody does it. Maybe the hybrid method is better, but when the majority don't follow it, because they don't like "just strength" or "just endurance", then yes, it's more effective, but you will get more people average-fit with the traditional programming, than just a few people extra-fit with the hybrid style. CrossFit is GPP, and thats best employed, when a lot of peoble do it. 3) That you have to train more specific, to get better results, is not new. Solution: Maybe do a middle-way. To have a week, where you have let's say 80% Strength and 20% endurance, followed by a week where you have 20% strength and 80% endurance. You will get anyone entertained, so the majority will stick to the program and you will get a good stimulus in both areas even for the people who just train 1-3 times/week. I would like to have the same study with just 2 training days per week. :) Best, Marcus. Box owner and CF-L2.

CrossFit as a sport - fun and amazing CrossFit as GENERAL fitness - useful CrossFit as the end all to high fitness - near pointless. There is a reason the best CrossFit athletes dont train only with CrossFit.

If ur looking for strength. Checkout Westside barbell programming

well what they found out in this study i feel like is what every athlet that plays a sport do? i mean i was playing handball for a long time a sport that reqiures strength and fitness at the same time and this was like our training in preperation for the season was looking like allways cant see the new revalations in that

The only issue i have with crossfit is when they use Olympic barbell exercises for high reps and speed (AMRAP) that's dumb because that will generate injuries with such a sloppy form it will get. And then the cult feeling it has. Man buns. Beards. Rebook. Otherwise you aren't inside the club and they will look weridly at you.

This makes me feel so much better on my rest day.

ZT. One day you did varied strength movements with intensity. Next day mixed modal metcon with intensity Classic CrossFit programming imo. Bravo to that gym. That’s OG shit

141 subjects is not qualify for any conclusive deductions

Funny, if any of the three CFit gyms I went to did workouts like that I might still be there.

The main problem is that some of the people which got hooked in crossfit due every class was random and different will lose interest if the sessions became a ordenate rutine like if they were training as triatheltes or powerlifters. Crossfit appeal people which do pilates or zumba; a very structured program will deliver BETTER results but will be LESS appealing for the mases, and the interesting thing with crossfit is that for general people made lifting weights interesting.

Dude, I loved the spyro's background ! 💯

I too fell in love with the Sna……. Oh nvm not the same thing😂😂😂😂

I noticed that this hybrid training is trending hence this video. It should be obvious if you bodybuild separately from CrossFit that you’ll increase strength more so versus doing strictly CrossFit. Plus if you strictly do anything like take for instance running…if you just run a lot then you’ll get better at running versus mixing running into a metcon. CrossFit never says you’ll become stronger in bodybuilding than others that only bodybuild. Greg Glassman developed the sport out of an epiphany. Being a gymnast he one day created Fran. The rest is history.

Crossfit is a sport... I don't, and never have viewed it as a training style. You are training strength and endurance in whatever order a coach tells you. I don't give Crossfit credit for anything other than the actual games.

9:56 those people just want to have fun they don'T care about results which is fine but they might as well just play soccer or darts or something

Olympic weightlifting is POWER not STRENGTH. P=W/T

This is so vague . Please read the L1 and L2 . Crossfit isn't what you do ONE day in any box 😅

hey zack how are you, thats my only way of reaching to you and actually getting an answer. So, I'm a competetive crossfit athlete from Egypt who has a specified lifting only day and I was thinking about getting the reebok legacy lifters 3, my question is should I get it ? keep in mind that's its a bit expensive for me so I REALLY need to think it through. Another option is getting a metcons or nano x3 ( I currently have the x2).

What do you recommend for a typical week for hybrid training? How many rest days?

That’s CrossFit you did a weightlifting day. Next day you did a monostructural. That’s CrossFit is at the level 1

Most of crossfit athletes are on magic sauce. Those studies doesn't apply for them.

To say that workout is not crossfit is a fallacy. Any workout can be crossfit. Cf is a methodology. Look at the big picture. And youll see the magic in the programming. In one sentence you say you coached single modality strength and in the next you say that a triplet of strength isn't crossfit? Do you remember the programming lecture from your L1?

Crosstraining of any sort, be it CrossFit be it something else Will always yield less results than dedicated blocks or focuses. Makes sense

Good video. Good points. CrossFit or Glassman didn’t really “create” anything as much as it took from existing science and packaged it or presented it differently. In a way we used to think wasn’t possible. The science is Force x Distance divided by Time equals POWER. Weightlifters, Powerlifters, Strongman , track, field, baseball, football etc in one way or another are all chasing that same formula. It just looks different on the outside to our eyes but a “slow” lift powerlifter and “fast” lift weightlifter train for that same formula. That formula is how CF defines intensity. Whether it’s Fred Hatfield, Louie Simmons or let’s say Don McCauley that formula is what we all want. Depending on your modality it just looks different to our eyes. And CF is just that, your fitness and capacity across different modalities and time domains. Period. It’s not a fast Giant set or Super set. It’s not HIIT. It’s Fitness Across different time domains and modalities. As all modalities may look different depending upon your community, your coach , your culture so too CF can look different. The Science is Force x Distance divided by TIME. Now apply it for each ones goals.

This is very interesting, before weightlifting I’ve always trained the ‘hybrid’ way and never really saw it as CrossFit. I would work where I had block where I would focus on strength but maintain conditioning. Then I had blocks that did the vice verse. I would start with a general base block (GPP) then I'd go into phase to improve a particular area e.g. strength while maintain another area e.g. condition - running, swimming etc. I mainly wanted to get fit for the military and I was probably the fittest I’ve ever been. But this didn’t end up happening since I found weightlifting lol

I'm sorry how is _that_ a well-thought out programe? 1.) you pyramided up on your Frontsquats, which is nuts because you could have moved way more weight if you had pyramided down. Also you could have moved way more weight in way more muscles hence creating a better sstimulus for strength _and_ hypertrophy by using a different squat variation altogether, i.e. low bar squats 2.) the same goes for the rows, if you had done barbell rows -> more weight, less reps, more strength gains. 3.) Ans again the same for the push press, which is not a strength exercise altogether, but also not a power exercise the way that you did it. All in all it seems to me what you're looking for is a program à la Starting Strength.

You’re right about some things, wrong about others. There’s issue with you saying “dont give crossfit that credit.” But what you’re talking about is crossfit. Crossfit isn’t only metcons that leave you on the floor. Crossfit is that strength day. It’s all that rowing/run day. That is the purest expression of crossfit. Problem is you’re saying it isn’t crossfit by looking at it day by day. You have to look at the totality. Sure, if you did the row/run and nothing else that week, ok, maybe it’s not crossfit. But if you do that strength day, then the row/run, then a 7 minute Metcon the next day, etc, then yeah, it is crossfit. Constantly varied functional movements at high intensity. Intensity being relative of course. You don’t need to give crossfit credit. But it is crossfit.

Constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity across broad time and modal domains. CrossFit rules and prepares you for healthy and beautiful life.

If crossfit sucks, have your athletes should go and dominate the CF Games. It's that simple. Until then, CF is the standard of athletic superiority. BTW, I NEVER max lift or ego Lift anything heavier than 70% of my capabilities. This is what gets people injured.

Bro. You needed science to tell you that? 🤣

It's not ego but rather an endorphines issue. Clearly the conditionig workouts are significantly more endorphine rich.