Another reason we like crossfit:
"Elite CrossFitters are performing 18,000 foot-pounds of work per minute for three or four minutes (that’s nearly half of one horsepower!). This is what our top tier athletes are doing in workouts like “Fran.” Without deliberately training for maximum expression of effective work against a wide-ranging time domain, it is virtually impossible to deliver power output as high as our athletes do. The training stimulus for developing power endurance that comes anywhere near that of our athletes is simply not there. CrossFit employs exercises, lines of action, and programming templates that allow for expression of maximum work volume over a wide-ranging time domain. We don’t think anyone else is doing this anywhere.
Athletes from conventional training programs have found that, relative to CrossFit-trained athletes, a) they cannot maintain similarly high workloads, b) they are likely to suffer orthopedic trauma trying, and c) they develop rhabdo at power output levels that are easily maintained by CrossFit regulars, including women, older athletes, and children."
This is an excerpt from a warning of rhambdo to new crossfitters (PDF).