[PanTardovski]

>I don't think form breaks down after a few reps nearly as much as you say.

Then you don't know much about training the Olympic lifts or power movements in general. Take a look at this graph -- http://i.imgur.com/vFP0D58.png -- from Practical Programming for Strength Training (Rippetoe, Kilgore, & Pendlay, pg. 131). "Figure 5-3. Electromyogram (EMG) and force production tracings from a high-rep set. Note that the muscle fatigues as more repetitions are completed and that motor control erodes with fatigue, as evidenced by the amplitude scatter of the EMG tracing. This effect can result from a single set, as presented here, or can be the cumulative result of repeated sets." Even by the seventh rep of a single set there's a noticable breakdown shown in the graph. Multiple high rep sets are going to show more and more issues of coordination from even the first rep, especially mixed into circuit training with other high intensity exercises like you'll find in Crossfit WODs.

[mightybyte]

I actually own that book and have read the whole thing...most of it more than once. I'm not saying that motor control doesn't go down. I'm saying that it doesn't go down enough to make it dangerous at the lighter weights. I have been doing high and low rep Olympic lifts since 2007. The only injury I ever got was on a 1RM clean and jerk. That might have been technique related, but it's probably more related to me having a history of previous injury which happened before I ever heard about CrossFit.

[enraged_camel]

For the love of God please stop with the anecdotal evidence.

[mightybyte]

I don't see you busting out any peer-reviewed studies to support your claim. If you don't have that, then it's your word against mine. The fact that most of the people who have done these movements do them in low reps and really high weight doesn't prove your point either. I have actually done the movements under question in both rep schemes, and it doesn't sound like you have.