This column features tips and advice from a revolving cast of industry leaders on hand to discuss your beauty dilemmas, from blemishes to Botox.
Is CrossFit deserving of all the hype? Everyone I know is obsessed with it.
I’m a huge fan of functional cross-training, both for my own athletic performance goals and my patients’. There are a couple of reasons why it’s so great: First, it focuses on multiple muscle groups to improve your overall balance, power, and explosiveness. If you do at least one forty-five-minute session twice a week, it strengthens your kinetic chain of muscles that runs from your head to your toes, so you have a toned physique all over, and are less prone to injuries. If you have an achy knee or weak back, functional cross-training lessens the loading force on any one spot. It makes any athletic activity easier—whether you swing a tennis racket or go for a run. The impact on your body is impressive: You’ll be more cut and defined but not bulky. It’s more about getting stronger than just skinny. That said, you don’t need to do actual CrossFit classes to reap the benefits—any type of functional cross-training would provide these results.
Dr. Jordan D. Metzl is a nationally recognized medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery with practices in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut. He is the author of The Exercise Cure and The Athlete’s Book of Home Remedies. An avid athlete, Metzl has completed thirty-one marathons and eleven Ironman triathlons.
