Tip Avoid This Dumb Workout Trend Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness Training Tip Avoid This Dumb Workout Trend It' s not CrossFit It' s not HIIT It' s an ugly blend of the two And it needs to go away Here' s why by TC Luoma October 27, 2016August 18, 2019 Tags Tips, Training Crossshitty Workouts A couple of years ago, CrossFit and HIIT went out on a date and drank a lot of fermented paleo drinks. One month later – because CrossFit and HIIT people do everything more fast and more sweaty – they gave birth to a bastard, sexually ambiguous offspring with webbed feet. It was so awful and terrible that no one even bothered to give it a name. It s Not CrossFit or HIIT I describe their offspring, or more accurately, what their offspring do, as "Crosshitty" workouts because it's neither CrossFit nor HIIT. You might not have ever used the term, but you've sure as hell seen it being done in your local gym. Crosshitty-type workouts consist of short rest periods, randomly chosen exercises (but always including those stupid battling ropes, for some reason), indeterminate, pulled-out-of-their-ass rep ranges, breathing hard, lots of sweating, and an inexplicable air of smugness, as if profuse sweating and a pounding heart were the only determinants of a "good" workout. They rarely use any significant weights and never really do anything seriously difficult. It's sort of like CrossFit, but without the Olympic lifts or squats or deadlifts or any attempt at fulfilling the ten recognized "fitness domains." And it's sort of like HIIT, but there aren't any active recovery periods. It's just frenetic, neuroses-fueled, non-stop activity with a puzzlingly superior attitude. Part of me understands them. It harkens back to the early days of fitness when millions of Mad Men type Americans in the 1960's would get up and do their naked push-ups and jumping jacks to get that old blood percolating before they marched in and tackled the Peterson account. Part of it was for health, and part of it was out of guilt because they were white-collar guys who didn't have calluses on their hands and often made their money on the sweat of blue-collar guys. Maybe it's the same with these people today, but they bug me because the nutballs who do Crosshitty workouts take up multiple stations in non-CrossFit gyms, occupying vast swatches of territory like the Nazis in 1941. They blitzkrieg from one station to the next, getting in everybody's way and strangling women and children with their flailing battling ropes. Go Away Crosshitty People Start your own gyms, or pick a discipline and run with it, be it CrossFit, legitimate HIIT, or science and technique-based powerlifting or bodybuilding. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Training Tip Unilateral Kettlebell Complex Get shredded with this complex that trains damn near everything and smokes your core as a bonus. Exercise Coaching, Kettlebell Training, Tips Wil Fleming August 5 Training Muscle Specific Hypertrophy Chest Triceps and Shoulders Understanding the science of sets, reps, and muscle-specific fiber composition will make you sound smarter. Going to the gym and applying that knowledge will make you bigger. Bodybuilding, Training Menno Henselmans October 14 Training Build a Thicker Back in 28 Days A wide back will separate you from the typical tank-top lifter. But you're going to need more than rows and pull-ups. Bodybuilding, Training Dan Blewett July 2 Training Tip Do This First on Back Day Here's how to fire up your lats to build more muscle and strength. Training TJ Kuster March 25