In recent years, the exercise craze has swept through all walks of life and people of all ages. While some people exercise to maintain their fitness level, others adopt it to gain muscle. Weight training has become a trend again in recent times, and enthusiasts have different exercise options that will help them achieve their goals.
One of the debates that currently fuels the web as well as gyms concerns the effectiveness between weight training and Cross Fit in terms of muscle gain. This article aims to shed some light on these two disciplines, more specifically on their respective capacities to provide muscle mass.
CrossFit, a discipline with so many followers
CrossFit has become an increasingly popular discipline in today's society. Its democratization has reached all borders. Before entering the heart of the matter, namely the adoption of CrossFit for a good musculature, it is essential to know a little more about this discipline of fitness.
What is Cross Fit?
The particularity of CrossFit lies in the fact that it is a very young discipline since it was created by the American Greg Glassman about 15 years ago. He used CrossFit to physically prepare the Californian law enforcement agencies. The boom of CrossFit around the world started quite recently.
First of all, it should be mentioned that CrossFit focuses mainly on diversity as the workouts vary from day to day. To this end, CrossFit exercises guarantee a complete amplification of different physical skills such as strength, power, speed, efficiency, endurance, flexibility and coordination.
Then, because of the difficulty of the exercises to be performed, it is important to adopt a physical preparation beforehand. These exercises do not allow for isolation of muscle groups since the whole body is involved. Full power is required in this area and the workouts are done at higher speeds.
A mixture of technique and caution
It should be noted, however, that the actions are carried out with care and great technical care. The time pressure of the training must also be taken into account. In other words, they must be performed on time and repeatedly. The goal is to repeat the actions as many times as possible.
CrossFit coaches argue that this discipline is not for everyone. Older people are not eligible for this type of sport because of its dynamism and intensity. Beginners should be careful because of the complexity of the exercises. Unlike most fitness activities, CrossFit allows you to form a small community with a common goal. It creates friendships based on trust and respect.
How to gain muscle with CrossFit?
To build muscle with the help of CrossFit, here's how to do it.
No matter what type of training program you are following, nutrition is your priority as you are trying to gain muscle. This is where many Crossfitters go wrong. No matter how good your training program is, you won't grow if you don't consume more calories per day than you burn.
The paleo diet This is especially effective, but it is important to supplement it with adequate consumption of good carbohydrates. In addition to supplements, there are natural ingredients or foods that can help you boost your own testosterone production. Examples include eggs, avocado, garlic or broccoli.
Have a solid program for more results
Then you need to focus on the workouts. You should start by reducing cardio work by only 15 min per day. Beyond that time, it can be detrimental to your muscle growth goals. You also need to focus your training primarily on a specific program to increase your heavy loads over time or progressive overload. You should perform compound multi-joint lifts, while adding isolation exercises to help supplement the muscle group involved.
Concerning the exercises, the people who are adept at cross fit are committed to doing exercises in a sequence of kettlebell swing, burpees, deadlift, battle rope, front squat, etc. by doing a series of exercises and working all parts of the body at the gym. Strength training is not the same as weight training. Although the results can sometimes be the same, it is the method of work that differs and it is up to each person to find the mode that suits them.
In addition to nutrition and training, gaining muscle through CrossFit is impossible without a healthy lifestyle. Sleep, recovery, and staying away from stress are highly recommended for progress.
Weight training, an effective discipline
There are countless people who are fascinated by the practice of weight training or bodybuilding. This discipline has known a great apogee thanks to many stars of which the most famous is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Impressed by the musculature of these practitioners, many rush to bodybuilding to build muscle mass.
A few words about bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is first and foremost a sporting discipline and has its own world competition. It involves the shaping of the body through a process of hypertrophy of the skeletal muscles. Bodybuilders must therefore perform bodybuilding exercises using specific devices such as machines, dumbbells or free weights. The origin of the discipline goes back to the second half of the 19th century. As regards the modern form of this discipline, one owes it to two American brothers (the Weider brothers). They established training principles that are still adopted to this day. Research has proven that the execution of these exercises in series and repeatedly gave the expected results in the form of muscle growth.
Strength training
During strength training, the main focus is on the regularity and control of each exercise performed and repeated. The rhythm of the movements, the complete stretching, the total tension and the synchronization of the breath with the movement based on the stretching - inhalation, contraction - escape are important.
To expect plausible results in bodybuilding, it is mandatory that training be focused on isolating each muscle through specialized exercises. When these are well accomplished, they should bring out muscle fibers from different angles over time. This offers the entire spectrum of muscle work and intensifies their growth.
In bodybuilding, the details have a great importance like the quantity of the series, the repetitions of the actions, the duration of exercise and pause, the organization of the exercises to be carried out, as well as the perfect agreement of various muscular parts on a given unit of movement. Be careful though, like crossfit, a beginner will not be able to do a split session right away. you will have to work several muscles in one session so that the body starts to get used to the efforts.
If you want to know what type of training to choose, click here.
Concentration above all
When performing the exercises, concentration is highly recommended. Some bodybuilding enthusiasts even say that silence is a considerable asset along with consistent attention to the technique of the exercises. The important thing is to set up a training program that will be done frequently, and that for a few months. It is necessary to maintain the rhythm in order not to lose time and hope for results.
Another point to emphasize is that bodybuilding is for everyone. This discipline does not discriminate gender or age. Each individual can devote himself to it as long as he wishes to improve his silhouette. In addition, bodybuilding offers considerable health benefits. It prevents muscle atrophy, increases muscle strength and endurance while improving the cardiovascular system, burns body fat, develops motor control and visual motor coordination.
Combine weight training and CrossFit
To accelerate muscle gain, some athletes advocate the combination of both weight training and CrossFit. The reason for this is that each of the practitioners of each discipline can learn from the other.
What Crossfitters can learn
Like bodybuilders or weight trainers, Crossfitters should not eat anything and everything or do workouts without a schedule. You should not start a quick 20 minute session. You should train between 1 to 2 hours a day at the gym, dedicating time to each muscle group (pecs, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, legs, thighs...). As for your power supplyIf you want to lose weight, you need to plan a strict and rich diet in advance, at least one week in advance. After that, you need to establish extreme discipline and constant dedication to your goal. These factors are crucial in order to develop a balanced physique and to keep your body fat low enough. This will allow you to see all your hard work after some time. Isolation exercises should not be neglected, especially for advanced exercisers.
What athletes can learn
Having a strong, muscular body is great, but being able to move and perform movements with fluidity is even better. For this, bodybuilders can take advantage of the cardio and anaerobic exercises of CrossFit. This will improve your physique and make your bodybuilding more effective.
Combining the two disciplines will ensure developmental training. But often experts recommend starting with bodybuilding before moving on to CrossFit. The two approaches and philosophies are also different at first glance, yet the differences are far from irreconcilable. Every human being wants to be beautiful, strong, competent and aesthetically pleasing. Everyone wants to be strong and competent. Every CrossFitter has a little bodybuilder in them and every athlete has a little CrossFitter in them too.
So crossfit or bodybuilding, what should I choose?
Both disciplines are designed to be physically active. They are also done in a weight room and require weight training equipment to practice them. With or without a coach, you can follow a complete training program to progress. Warming up for both is absolutely essential and stretching is highly recommended. There is no optimal progression if the diet is not respected a minimum.
What differs is the way we work:
Strength training focuses on one muscle per day (usually if you are not a beginner in strength training).
The crossfit develops the muscles by working every day all the muscles of the body at the same time. Upper body and lower body in the same session. This practice is more explosive.
It's a personal choice to be made according to individual tastes and desires. Some people practice both disciplines and love it. Working out to build muscle is the aim of both activities, unlike street workout which will focus on bodyweight exercises.
It's up to you to find what suits you.
To benefit from a customized 100 % bodybuilding and nutrition program:
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6 Comments
muscle to gain mass
crossfit to lose fat
Muscularity final point
Interesting but the cross fit is too hard
The crossfit is the best in one session I save 10 calories
Muscularity of course at 1000 %
the two are complementary.
but bodybuilding looks easy next to crossfit 😂😂😂.
if you've never given your all to a crossfit session, you can't possibly understand what a real muscular session is like.... it reminds me of the difficulty of sessions in athletics and cycling, but combined with muscular training.
I still do bodybuilding, but crossfit gives me a real basic physical condition as well as a physique....whereas bodybuilding only gives me a physique tout court