I have been working out, training, coaching, teaching, learning, and testing inside and out of gyms since I was 15 years old. It has fortunately been my job to train and be inside of a Crossfit gym while representing the gym, a community, and an idea since 2006. The question still comes up everyday, What is Crossfit?
What is Crossfit? Really what is it? Is it a way to “do” fitness? A lifestyle? A person? A specific gym? Yes, yes and yes. Unfortunately there are people/individuals who think they “are” Crossfit (add chest pounding here)…sad I know. However, day by day, month by month, year by year I learn from various aspects of the ‘Crossfit gym’. Some things I learn from other peoples’ positives, but often it’s from negatives. With most underground things, where a specific few represent the group, there are less negative influences than positive. When you add more people, with more thoughts, ideas, and specific vendettas...you get a different product …enter…multiple crossfit affiliations. In an era where someone can pay 1,000 dollars and learn in two days how ‘to do/coach crossfit’ and then open and run a crossfit gym, we now have entered a state of being diluted. So again, what is Crossfit?
Before you can define what it is, I would ask, why do you workout? More importantly, what do you train for? Is your goal to loose weight, better yourself for your men’s basketball league, become a stronger human being, or is it just to keep your sanity…your release? That is the more important question. Crossfit has a great group of people, but lets take a step back…it’s a gym…what do people do in gyms? They workout, that’s IT. However, popping its head up is a group within the community that believes all that matters in life is the “age old” question “What’s your fran time bro?” Right? Because throwing around a 2 digit barbell and doing weird flying pull ups faster than the others in your gym class IS what matters and wearing the proper attire and beating your chest to that winners drum makes you superior over the rest…awesome, you worked out well. You worked…out….well…that’s it.
“Dude that workout was epic and I threw up everywhere”… I know you have all heard it and have seen (enter douche name here) a guy take his shirt off for the 6pm class when it’s dark and cold…yet his shirt is still off. Put your shirt on. Take that that stupid black ink off your chest, calf, or back saying you are the shit and you are brave for ‘crossfiting’. A click, a cool kids crowd, has developed inside the crossfit population and it is quite entertaining (by entertaining I mean sad and disturbing). Your self-worth is how fast you do fran, eva, elizabeth
I am assuming many of these people never played a sport or stood out at it least. They never played football, rugby, hockey, basketball, volleyball, or ran track. You know why? Because they call themselves sic athletes in this ‘sport’. It is not a sport, crossfit is a fitness society, and a gym. It can be life-changing, but it is not a sport. The people who think crossfit is life, I ask you to re-read glassman’s 100 words of fitness…What is the last sentence…let it sink in. Learn and play new sports. Now that you know (wipe that last tear) that Crossfit is not a sport…go play pick up basketball, soccer, tennis, hockey, rugby, football, softball whatever, whatever. I am sure there are thousands of people that could do ‘fran’ faster than lets say…Ray Lewis…First off, he would laugh at the idea of doing a squat to press with 95 pounds, second off he would laugh at the idea of competing in a ‘workout’. Does someone who concentrates on sprints and heavy weightlifting not crossfit? Does the swimmer who pairs swimming with kettlebell work and gymnastics not a crossfiter? Or does the person who works out at 24 hr fitness who does squats, presses, deadlifts, and bench press…paired with ‘cardio’ not crossfit? Guess what people…you can get a decent level of fitness if you are stuck with 24hr fitness…just because you belong to a crossfit gym makes you no better or worse.
Be real with yourself, your self worth is not based upon how well you workout. Do you come to the gym everyday with the right mindset, do you attempt to inspire others, do you take the easy way out cause no one is looking, and most importantly do you positively influence people. Or do you look at the gym as a place to make you feel special, treat it as a social scene, and PR and automatically think people owe you something?
So again I’ll ask, what is crossfit? There will always be someone faster, stronger, fitter, smarter, better looking, taller, etc. Knowing that, what is Crossfit to you? Do you believe you are better than the person next to you because you PR’d and they didn’t? If you read that and have been there before take a long look in the mirror and ask why.
Crossfit can be what you make of it, but make sure it’s in this realm and not one made up in your head like the sad few who believe crossfit will be the government, military, and religion of the US
Yours in Heavy Squats and Hoppy Beer.
