I pretty much stopped doing CrossFit 2.5 years ago towards the end of Summer 2016, after about 5 years of fairly avid following.
I wasnt injured, but drifted out of love, frustrated by the increasing focus on competition and circus tricks at the expense of genuine useful all round fitness. Interestingly enough CF HQ itself has come to this conclusion and is re-branding itself in that direction as I write.
Since then, in the absence of decent “strength and conditioning” facilities around here, I’ve gone to regular gyms and combined that with some sort of cardio focus, like running a half marathon, or improving my erg times.
My strength work is still based around a staple of barbell squats, deadlift and strict press (I should do more pull ups) combined with accessory work like rows.
After some serious “feckarounditis” in early 2017 I got a program and routine from local bodybuilding legend Francois Gay and learned a lot about accessories and isolation work, but lacked a goal, and from mid 2017 my “project” was to increase my powerlifting 1RMs (squat, DL, bench and press) and got that done succesfully using the nSuns variant of 531, this was really good at getting through the plateaus I’d hit in those lifts during CF. But it was getting tough on the joints and I was seriously neglecting cardio.
In 2018 I got a spot in the ballot for the Great North Run half marathon (my second after 2012) and put in a decent amount of training (for a non-runner – about 750k) and followed some programming from Greg McMillan. Was a bit disappointed by the final outcome (2:03 after hitting a 53′ 10k) on what turned out to be a warm and humid day, so will probably re-enter this year.
Last year, 2018 also saw me refocus on golf, having only played socially since 2010 and as a result developed (or reverted) to some nasty old habits. Back down to a solid 18 hcp, and hoping to chip away at that in the coming months.
So back to CrossFit. Sure I miss some aspects; group dynamic and some fun workouts, but for me it was a hobby, not a sport and I didnt like it anymore once the fun was sucked out of it with too much emphasis on training. I learned a lot about strength and conditioning, movement and form, and still despair of a lot of the exercise I see people at the gym doing… I guess once a CrossFitter always a CrossFitter at heart.