Interesting CF and ironman video (Page 2)

x3.  I'd wager that every one of the athletes who saw improvements using CF or CFE got those results because of the increased training load, not CF or CFE specifically.  Athletes plateau because of their failure to progressively increase training load, not because they focus on s/b/r training.  If they had increased their load by the same amount, but while paying more attention to the principle of specificity, they would have seen even greater improvements.

I also don't begrudge anyone training in whatever manner they choose, but I do have an issue with claims that a particular method is superior when the claims contradict the most fundamental training principles, namely progressive overload and specificity.

That is exactly the point.  Many of these athletes had been simply adding more and more traditional LSD volume and had plateaued.  The incorporation of CF/CFE and replacement of higher intensity efforts successfully forced their bodies to adapt to more power demand, hence they became stronger and more able to perform faster.

As for the request to offer summaries on these various athletes protocols before and after, I have given their specific training protocols for 6-12 months in the blogs many of these athletes kept.  Should anyone be interested in seeing how they trained, here is a thread that includes each athletes exact protocols.  Unfortunately, people like Shane and others don't seem interested in performing their own due diligence in reviewing the exact workouts.  For those of you who are interested in reviewing them, here is a link to their protocols:

http://www.crossfitendurance.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=577&start=0

Max

Exactly!

^  He gets it.  It's about smart SBR training.

From my other CFE post.

Crossfit is strength training.  It will make you look way hotter when you cross the finish line.

My sample size of 11 teammates of Team TPR...

The people who put in HIGH VOLUME at an easy pace (including me) finished 1-4 for our team.

The people who put in HIGH INTENSITY regardless of volume finished 5-11.

Seriously, if you want to get better at golf, primarily practice golf.  If you want to get better at fly fishing, practice fly fishing.  If you want to get better at triathlon, practice triathlon.

To be fair, CFE is not just strength training. The easiest way to understand it is to think of it as tempo and HIIT workouts added on to CF.

The other thing is, it's not just cutting out volume. If someone is doing a low volume training plan, that's not CFE. The key to making CFE work is the intensity and most people don't work out as intensely as you are supposed to.

Note: I am not defending CFE as the one true training path. As I have said, I am skeptical that it really works for HIM and IM distance. But I also think that people don't really understand what it is. I have read a number of 'critiques' of CF and CFE that were basically just bashing it and often for ridiculous things that weren't even true. I'd love to see a really thoughtful critique that went through the different workouts and talked about what was good and bad about them compared to the more traditional ways of doing things. I'd also love to see the numbers asked for here.

As someone trying to make up their mind and who wants to see some scientific data, it's very frustrating because I see a lack of data on both sides of the argument.

I do triathlon because I enjoy training swim/bike/run, with some weight training (admittedly not as much when I'm really hitting it good). 

You can't take two people with equal natural ability, let one train s/b/r in a decent way, let the other train CFE in a decent way, and tell me that the CFE trained person has a prayer in hell chance of staying close to the s/b/r trained person.  It won't ever happen.

If you want to convince me that CFE is a shortcut to "finishing" a triathlon then save your breath, I believe it.  I have no interest.