CrossFit has an unusual increased risk of a disorder both deadly and detrimental to fitness
The article presented no data other than some evidence about meme propagation in the Crossfit community.
Rhabdo is a consequence of severely overexerting your muscles and is not specific to the types of exercise that Crossfit does. It is specific to motivation and the claim is that, basically, Crossfit overmotivates the newbies. Well, maybe. And maybe other fitness programs do, too. Without data it's really hard to tell and so far I haven't seen any.
Here's an internal dialogue I just had.
Q: How do we test rationality skills?
A: We haven't come up with a comprehensive test yet.
Q: Maybe we can test some part of rationality?
A: Sure. For example, you could test resistance to akrasia by making two contestants do some simple chores every day. The one who fails first, loses.
Q: That seems like a pointless competition. If I'm feeling competitive, why would I ever skip the chores and lose?
A: Whoa, wait. If competitiveness can cure akrasia, that's pretty cool!
Now we just need to figure out how to make people more competitive in the areas they care about...