The Truth About CrossFit
by Chris Shugart

"Was I in the right place?" I asked myself for the
second time that day.
The little street near Southern Methodist University in Dallas
was an incongruous blend of old houses and new bars teeming with
college kids. It was 9 p.m. and the sun had set, making it
impossible for me to read the street numbers. Finally I pulled over
next to a bar called The Green Elephant to look at my
directions again.
And that's when I saw them, a handful of men and women
lunging down a long corridor holding Olympic bars over their heads.
A well-built young man held a timer and appeared to be either
encouraging them or yelling at them.
I'd finally found CrossFit Dallas Central, one of 650
CrossFit affiliate gyms.
Later I learned that the athletes — which included members
of the SMU lacrosse team — were performing what the owner of
the facility called a "single-movement mindfuck." This
group was on their 28th minute of overhead walking lunges, the only
exercise in that day's workout. The record was 400 meters in
20 minutes flat. The sweat poured.
Earlier that day, at 6:45 a.m., I'd had the same
experience, driving around an industrial-warehouse district in
Plano looking for building numbers in the dark. That time, instead
of lunging lacrosse players, I was clued in by a man running by my
truck wearing a weighted vest. I followed.
Ripping the vest off, he walked through a door with me close
behind. CrossFit Plano was small but well-equipped with the
standard markers of the "CF" gym: bumper plates, Olympic
bars, kettlebells, dumbbells, gymnastic rings, climbing ropes,
tractor tires, bands, Concept II rowers, medicine balls, pull-up
bars.

The runner dashed into the next room and began to do kipping
pull-ups. I learned later he was doing "Murph": a
one-mile run in a vest followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300
body-weight squats, and another one-mile run, all done against the
clock.
This "WOD," or Workout of the Day, was named after a
Navy Lieutenant and CrossFit enthusiast killed in Afghanistan. Most
other WODs are given girl names, like they used to do with
hurricanes.
I was there to learn the truth about CrossFit, the training
phenomenon dubbed "one of the fastest-growing fitness
movements on the planet" by the Business News Network. Later,
I'd do interviews with CF fans and critics, make phone calls,
and read everything I could find online. But I'd start by
driving to Dallas and doing CrossFit ... twice in one day.
This is what I learned. This, as I see it, is the truth about
some of the most controversial aspects of CrossFit.

The Truth About CrossFit's Training Goals
"CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program, but a
deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of 10
recognized fitness domains," says founder Greg Glassman in the
Foundations document.
Those domains are: cardiovascular and respiratory endurance,
stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination,
agility, balance, and accuracy.
CrossFit coaches like to point out that even champions in
certain sports have huge gaps in their fitness, as defined by the
above 10 domains. Ironman competitors score high in some areas, low
in others. The marathoner dominates cardio endurance but he
isn't strong. The powerlifter is strong, but often has very
low endurance and can't do a single pull-up.
If your goal is to specialize and compete in one sport, then
CrossFit isn't for you. Instead, the goal of the CrossFitter
is to become "competent" in all 10 domains. He may never
be a top gymnast but he will develop great body control. He may
never win a marathon, but he can enter a 5K without training for it
and finish near the top.
Troy Dodson, owner of CrossFit Plano, says that for the
CrossFitter, fitness itself is the sport. Indeed, CrossFit
draws a lot of ex-athletes, and the CrossFit Games are growing in popularity and pulling
big-time sponsors. If it sticks, CrossFit competition will join a
distinguished list of training methods that eventually became
competitive sports, including Olympic lifting, powerlifting, and
strongman.
The CF goal of overall fitness, "functional" strength,
and all-around preparedness has attracted many law-enforcement
agencies, military and firefighting units, and martial artists who
like the "train for the unknown and unknowable"
philosophy.


According to the CrossFit website, "Our
specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and
life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the
specialist."
Experienced CrossFitters aren't the strongest athletes out
there, but they're stronger than most. They're not the
fastest either, but they're fast. Their claim to fame is their completeness.
And it's easy to see the appeal: Why be big if you're
not functional? Why have great endurance if you have no strength
and power? Why not be competent in all of those
things?
Critics point out that being "competent" at everything
makes you great at nothing. It's a valid criticism, but it
doesn't bother the CrossFit community. They revel in their
versatility and believe strongly that being skilled in every aspect
of fitness makes them, as their T-shirts proclaim,
"unfuckwithable."


The truth? If you're not competing in a specific sport that
measures only a few athletic qualities, then why not become fully
rounded? Why be the guy with the big bench who can't run up a
flight of stairs? Why be the guy who can run 10 miles on the
treadmill but who can't help someone move a
couch?
Perhaps CrossFitter Richard Doughty summed it up best when he
wrote on a CF forum, "Does CrossFit make sense for an NFL
linebacker? No. Does an NFL linebacker's program make sense
for regular people who want to be able to do everything well?
No."
If you have a specific goal in your training — top-level
competitive mountain biking, bodybuilding, a 600-pound deadlift —
then CrossFit isn't for you. You need to specialize. If you
want to be good, but not great, at a variety of athletic qualities,
then CrossFit is a good option. And that's the truth.


The Truth About Greg Glassman
Greg Glassman is the founder of CrossFit. A former gymnast, the
49-year-old Glassman is credited with "creating" CrossFit
in the 1980s, though the mix-and-match training system wasn't
officially named until much later. The first CrossFit gym was
opened by Glassman in 1995 and the website was launched in 2001.
Glassman is a controversial figure, quick to make enemies. While
he's revered by some in the CrossFit community (many of whom
clamor to get their photos taken with him), he's also been
called a "lunatic" by at least one former CF coach.
"The major problem with CrossFit is Glassman himself. His
personality, his ego ... he's now doing CrossFit more harm
than good," said the former coach, who asked not to be
identified by name because of ongoing friction.
Glassman is frequently confrontational to those who question his
protocols. A couple of years back, TC wrote the following snarky
lines in one of his Atomic Dog columns:

"...and screw Crossfit and their like. What, you
have so little imagination that you need a website for housewives
and pampered stockbrokers to give you your daily, completely
arbitrary workout?

Friday's workout:

Run 400 meters

Do 20 push-ups

Dance like a cast member of the Broadway musical Cats for 15
minutes

That's a workout! You're all winners!

Jesus!"
In retaliation, Glassman publically challenged to a $10,000
competition against a female CrossFit athlete. When he received no
reply, he called TC a "T-Nation
clown."
Oddly, he didn't challenge TC himself. Perhaps this
is because Glassman is admittedly overweight and no longer does
CrossFit WODs, according to a 2005 New York Times article.
Sure enough, photos of Glassman show a man who looks out of shape.

In addition, when Glassman asked Testosterone contributor
Dan John to defend CrossFit and Dan refused, Glassman referred to
him as a coward and cut ties. Still, Dan, who trained two years in
the CrossFit style, is acknowledged by many CrossFitters for his
contributions to the training philosophy.
One important aspect of CrossFit is the Tabata method,
a protocol that involves training the aerobic and anaerobic energy
systems simultaneously, using short sets of all-out effort followed
by even shorter rest periods. Dan is credited with introducing the
Tabata method — first used in Japanese research, and later
tested with elite athletes in a variety of sports — to
regular gym rats looking for quick fat loss.
Despite the cutting of ties, most CrossFitters still give Dan a
lot of credit for their training protocols. Dan, by the way, tells
me that he's never made a penny from his CrossFit
contributions.
Another example of Glassman's reportedly heavy-handed
style: A master of "Google spanking," Glassman responded
to a lawsuit filed by Makimba Mimms, a former Navy CrossFitter who
claims he suffered permanent disability from a CrossFit workout, by
posting a video of
children doing the allegedly dangerous workout, which was
sarcastically renamed "Makimba." (CrossFit and Glassman
were not named as defendants in
the suit; Mimms was ultimately awarded $300,000 for his injuries.)
The truth about Glassman? He's a leader, an innovator, and,
it seems, a man who's not easy to get along with.
For the record, Testosterone requested an interview with
Glassman to get his side on these issues, but we were ultimately
refused after Glassman read a list of our proposed questions.


The Truth About those Clowns
Hang around long enough in the CrossFit world and you'll no
doubt hear about "Pukey the Clown" and "Uncle
Rhabdo," mascots, of a sort, for CrossFit.

It goes like this: You puke during a CrossFit workout, you get
an "I met Pukey" T-shirt featuring a clown losing his
lunch. "Our goal isn't to make you throw up, of
course," said Dodson, the Plano CrossFit coach, "but it
happens sometimes. The clown T-shirt is just to lighten things up
and let the person know they've pushed themselves hard."


Greg Glassman and the infamous Pukey T-shirt.



The walls of Dodson's facility are covered in photos, many
of them showing people lying on the ground or on their hands and
knees after a CrossFit workout. Throwing up, of course,
doesn't lead to increased fitness in any domain, but the
lightheartedness of Pukey is forgivable. Uncle Rhabdo, on the other
hand, may not be.

Rhabdo, or rhabdomyolysis, is caused when muscle fiber breaks
down, gets released into the bloodstream, and poisons the kidneys.
On a CrossFit FAQ for affiliates, in a section titled
"Ten Tips for Successful Affiliation (AKA Our Business
Plan)," tip number four reads:
"Don't kill anyone. Rhabdomyolysis is a potentially
lethal threat to newcomers; be very careful. This is a very real
and present danger. Avoiding 'rhabdo' should be the
primary concern of first- and second-time workouts. Throwing [an]
unknown newbie into an established group class is an invitation to
rhabdo."
That's the official line, at least. Hardcore CrossFitters
sometimes have a different opinion. On CrossFit's forums,
those who claim to have developed rhabdo from standard WODs are
called "pussies." Others claim that rhabdo is almost
impossible to get from any type of training and is found more often
in car-accident victims and the occasional ill-prepared marathon
runner. One CrossFit critic has said that the warnings about rhabdo
were more of a marketing gimmick to show how tough the workouts can
be.
Whatever the case, it's not the potentially injurious
nature inherent to all intense forms of athleticism that garners
criticism; it's the sometimes flippant response by CrossFit,
symbolized by the T-shirt with the image of a dying
clown.
Glassman dismisses most of the "CrossFit is dangerous"
criticisms with the macho posturing for which he's become
known: "If you find the notion of falling off the rings and
breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our
ranks," he said in that 2005 New York Times article.


A CrossFitter dresses as Pukey at a CrossFit event.
The truth about the clowns? Pukey is silly fun. Uncle Rhabdo is
in poor taste, to say the least. Glassman? As charming as ever.


The Truth About CrossFit Women
It's said that CrossFit makes men small and women hot, and
every female CrossFitter is a stunning example of female
athleticism and sexuality.
We can't argue with the second half of that statement.