Everybody meet Matthew Basso. Matthew Basso is a blogger and the president of Iron Lotus Personal Training as well as the founder of DBX3 Functional Fat Loss. His recent article CrossFit: Have We Learned Nothing? has echoed throughout the CrossFit community and been recieving some extremely negative feedback.
He starts out his post with “This isn’t my first time writing about my disdain for CrossFit, and it’s probably not my last.” Following the link, you will be directed to his own blog titled “Why I hate CrossFit.” It’s extremely clear that Matthew Basso has a distinct hatred towards CrossFit. Almost as if he has some sort of vendetta towards CrossFit. It seems like Basso and CrossFit used to be best friends, but then CrossFit talked about him behind his back. My guess is that CrossFit affects his business and speaking bad about the sport is the only way he knows how to overcome this dilemma.
Below is from the About section on Matthew Basso’s Iron Lotus Personal Training Website:
The system I designed is called “ANSWER” (Advanced Nervous System Wellness for Energy and Rejuvenation). Participants of my training system are asked to perform specific exercises in carefully formulated progressions that will bring personal performance to new levels. ANSWER incorporates food coaching and meal delivery as well as Thai yoga massage.
The video below serves as the main advertisement on his website and I have no idea what to take from this program. Training with the ANSWER system will help you pull a weighted sled a half of a foot?
Russell Berger responded to Basso’s blog post on the Huffington Post. Russell Berger is a Head Trainer for CrossFit, Inc. Berger’s blog post starts out with “The only drawback to Basso’s article is that he critiques a program that doesn’t exist.” He then follows it up with, “To put it simply, Basso attempts to criticize CrossFit without understanding it. Not only has Basso presumably never attended a CrossFit Level One course, the only primary source CrossFit statement that he engaged with in his entire article was a five-word phrase: “Our specialty is not specializing.”
Where Berger is successful is in the fact that he highlights all of the negative points thrown at CrossFit by Basso. He individually breaks down Basso’s article and uses olympic lifts, professional athletes and more to validate his argument on CrossFit’s behalf. Both of these articles make for an extremely interesting read and I am wondering if Basso will eventually respond, or, if he will simply just continue to bad mouth.
Read through both of their articles and give us your opinions:
Matthew Basso:
CrossFit: Have We Learned Nothing?
Russell Berger:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Cancel my membership haha. If it IS a cult, I can't think of a better cult to be a part of. All that being in shape and healthy and all. Going from an ACL tear a year and a half ago and now being able to deadlift almost 2X my body weight is a small miracle!
People who hate CrossFit usually are ignorant to what it really is. Either that or all they are concerned with is "getting big" and neglect the many other facets of fitness.