The Short Answer:
CrossFit is the sport of fitness. Regardless of your current level of physical capacity, you can begin training using the CrossFit methods and experience rapid improvement in your overall level of fitness.
CrossFit is a lot of fun. Every single workout is a challenge and you gain a mental toughness that you just can’t get through most conventional means of “working out”. You’ll meet people and build friendships that are stronger than what you may be used to. It’s a friendship and community that’s built around intense levels of exertion; we’re all doing the same workout. These friendships are built on the foundation of self improvement for the sake of not only your own improvement, but to inspire and push the people around you to become better as well.
The Movie:
A big thanks to the folks at CrossFit Seattle (formerly CrossFit North) for the movie!
The long answer:
CrossFit is…
“CrossFit is in large part derived from several simple observations garnered through hanging out with athletes for thirty years and the willingness, if not eagerness, to experiment coupled with a total disregard for conventional wisdom. Let me share some of the more formative of these observations:
- Gymnasts learn new sports faster than any other athletes.
- Olympic weightlifters can apply more useful power to more activities than other athletes.
- Powerlifters are stronger than other athletes.
- Sprinters can match the cardiovascular performance of endurance athletes, even at extended efforts.
- Endurance athletes are woefully lacking in total physical capacity.
- With high carbohydrate diets you either get fat or weak.
- Bodybuilders can’t punch, jump, run or throw like athletes can.
- Segmenting training efforts delivers a segmented capacity.
- Optimizing physical capacity requires training at unsustainable intensities.
- The world’s most successful athletes and coaches rely on exercise science the way a deer hunters rely on the accordion.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner /Founder of CrossFit, Inc.
Aims
“From the beginning, the aim of CrossFit has been to forge a broad, general, and inclusive fitness. We sought to build a program that would best prepare trainees for any physical contingency—prepare them not only for the unknown but for the unknowable. Looking at all sport and physical tasks collectively, we asked what physical skills and adaptations would most universally lend themselves to performance advantage. Capacity culled from the intersection of all sports demands would quite logically lend itself well to all sport. In sum, our specialty is not specializing.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner/Founder of CrossFit, Inc. , CrossFit Journal Issue 56
Prescription
“The CrossFit prescription is “constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement.” Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movements—i.e., they are multi-joint. They are natural, effective, and efficient locomotors of body and external objects. But no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. Collectively, these three attributes (load, distance, and speed) uniquely qualify functional movements for the production of high power. Intensity is defined exactly as power, and intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise. Recognizing that the breadth and depth of a program’s stimulus will determine the breadth and depth of the adaptation it elicits, our prescription of functionality and intensity is constantly varied. We believe that preparation for random physical challenges—i.e., unknown and unknowable events—is at odds with fixed, predictable, and routine regimens.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner/Founder of CrossFit, Inc. CrossFit Journal Issue 56
Methodology
“The methodology that drives CrossFit is entirely empirical. We believe that meaningful statements about safety, efficacy, and efficiency, the three most important and interdependent facets of any fitness program, can be supported only by measurable, observable, repeatable facts, i.e., data. We call this approach “evidence-based fitness”. The CrossFit methodology depends on full disclosure of methods, results, and criticisms, and we have employed the Internet (and various intranets) to support these values. Our charter is open source, making co-developers out of participating coaches, athletes, and trainers through a spontaneous and collaborative on-line community. CrossFit is empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner/Founder of CrossFit, Inc. CrossFit Journal Issue 56
Implementation
“In implementation, CrossFit is, quite simply, a sport—the “sport of fitness.” We have learned that harnessing the natural camaraderie, competition, and fun of sport or game yields an intensity that cannot be matched by other means. The late Col. Jeff Cooper observed that “the fear of sporting failure is worse than the fear of death.” It is our observation that men will die for points. Using whiteboards as scoreboards, keeping accurate scores and records, running a clock, and precisely defining the rules and standards for performance, we not only motivate unprecedented output but derive both relative and absolute metrics at every workout; this data has important value well beyond motivation.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner/Founder of CrossFit, Inc. CrossFit Journal Issue 56
Adaptations
“Our commitment to evidence-based fitness, publicly posting performance data, co-developing our program in collaboration with other coaches, and our open-source charter in general has well positioned us to garner important lessons from our program—to learn precisely and accurately, that is, about the adaptations elicited by CrossFit programming. What we have discovered is that CrossFit increases work capacity across broad time and modal domains. This is a discovery of great import and has come to motivate our programming and refocus our efforts. This far-reaching increase in work capacity supports our initially stated aims of building a broad, general, and inclusive fitness program. It also explains the wide variety of sport demands met by CrossFit as evidenced by our deep penetration among diverse sports and endeavors. We have come to see increased work capacity as the holy grail of performance improvement and all other common metrics like VO2 max, lactate threshold, body composition, and even strength and flexibility as being correlates—derivatives, even. We’d not trade improvements in any other fitness metric for a decrease in work capacity.”
-Greg Glassman, Owner/Founder of CrossFit, Inc. CrossFit Journal Issue 56
