How other people see CrossFit, Vol 1

When I describe CrossFit to people who don't know what it is, I usually start out with "It's sort of like a fitness cult." 

While I'm an unabashed CrossFit enthusiast (changed my life, made me a better man, yada yada yada...) like any kind of cult, religion, lifestyle or hobby, there are definitely some aspects that can seem goofy, ridiculous or absurd to the non-believers.  Seeing those people try to describe their encounters with CrossFit can be amusing.

I see examples of this quite a bit.  It seems like a shame that I see them once and then forget about them, and I don't share them with the four people who occasionally read this blog.

So this is the start of a new feature:

How other people see CrossFit

Today's example comes from Hamilton Nolan, a writer for the Gawker and Deadspin websites.  He's the author of "I of the Tiger," an occasional column about fitness and how you're doing it wrong (not you, Leya... you're swell).   From the numerous fitness-related pieces I've read by Mr. Nolan, I'd say he seems to know what he's talking about.  He does believe in the squat.  I mean, he really believes in the squat.  

A while back, Mr. Nolan even wrote this piece that explores, from his perspective, the good and bad of CrossFit, which got some attention among CrossFitters and even attracted a hilarious retort from an active NFL player.  The comment alone makes the article worth the read.  (For the record, I agree with all of the good aspects Nolan identifies, and the stuff he doesn't like about CrossFit that I do like can be chalked up to personal preferences or differences of degree, e.g. I like working out in groups; he doesn't.)
Basically, Nolan sees merit in CrossFit, but isn't afraid to point out the goofy shit about it, too. 

Recently, he authored a terrific piece called "Health is Bad for You: My Weird Weekend at Toronto's Fitness Shitshow"    and that viewpoint comes through loud and clear. 

First, some context.

The Toronto Pro SuperShow is one of North America's biggest fitness extravaganzas: a three-day collection of competitions in bodybuilding, powerlifting, arm wrestling, strongman, Crossfit, boxing, pro wrestling, and just about any other activity that might require you to wear a tank top, all mixed inside a convention center alongside an "Expo" of all the world's workout supplement companies hawking their wares. It is where members of every zealous fitness subculture, from rippling steroid monsters to gaunt competitive jump-ropers, come together in uneasy proximity for one single strange weekend. It is a flourishing zoo, with the human body as every exhibit.

Again, I encourage you to read the whole thing, but I'm going to quote what he  has to say about CrossFit, which actually gets off pretty easy compared to, say, bodybuilding.  (And rightfully so.)

It took only a glance to determine who was who. The powerlifters all wear Chuck Taylors. The Olympic lifters have the straps of spandex singlets hanging down under their shirts. The Crossfitters all wear T-shirts emblazoned with the name of their "box," and they smile with the dead-eyed intensity of Scientologists. The boxers have poorly drawn boxing gloves tattooed somewhere close to their necks. The bodybuilders have shirt collars and sleeves stained by excess spray tan, like the red dust one might accumulate while rock climbing in the desert.

Yeah.  I have met a number of CrossFitters who do have a vaguely Tom Cruise-ish way about them. 

There's more.  Much more. 

Crossfit is good, clean fun that makes your skin crawl. All the Crossfit teams looked like Abercrombie & Fitch retail staffers on their days off. Crossfit is the office bowling league of a generation far too good for bowling leagues. Crossfitters tend to have the bright smiles, boundless energy, and barely concealed smugness often associated with adherents of slightly denigrated religions, like Mormons or Heaven's Gate UFO doomsday preppers.

CrossFitters do spend a lot of time talking about how our CrossFitness will uniquely prepare us for the zombie apocalypse, which is ridiculous. 

I mean, the far more realistic apocalypse scenario is the technological apocalypse in which computers become sentient, declare war on humans, trigger a nuclear war to kill most of the human race, and develop near-indestructible robot terminators to hunt the remaining human survivors.

It's so bloody obvious. 

Anyway, back to Nolan's article. 

Sometimes they don't do a great job concealing the smugness. One girl sported a T-shirt reading, "Crossfit is like a fine art. Critiqued by many. But understood by few."


Haha, yes, well. How special.

Okay.  I will admit that I have spent good money on a T-shirt from CrossFit affiliates I've visited, only to have second thoughts about putting on the shirt because of my fear that the slogan on it will make me seem like a pretentious douchebag. 

Don't get me wrong... I always put on the shirt.  But there is usually that brief internal debate.

Crossfitters are impeccably fit, generally affluent and attractive, and, I think, worthy of scorn, because that they revel in overthrowing the yin-and-yang that allows society to tolerate fit people. Bodybuilders look great, but their lifestyle is freakish; weightlifters are strong, but often look like dumpsters; athletic people in general may be able to beat you up, but you can take private satisfaction in the knowledge that they're dumb. It's a matter of hydraulics. Every benefit must come with an equivalent fault, or the social fabric will rupture. Crossfit, though, aims to take educated, attractive, popular, upwardly mobile, fashion-forward people, and also make them super-fit, so that there is no area in which the average person may measure up.

Mr. Nolan, if it makes you feel better, I'm not really that upwardly mobile or fashion-forward.  I am reasonably educated, decently popular and incredibly attractive.

(I'm kidding, of course. My ego is not that out of control. The truth is I'm only somewhat popular.) 

(I do not recommend working out in a group, and I certainly don't recommend working out in a group of super-fit type-A overachievers. Bad for one's self-esteem.) Indeed, Crossfitters would doubtless be poised to take over the world if not for their collective sense of persecution and tendency to trumpet their hobby to the world by draping themselves in branded apparel, up to and including the T-shirt I saw on one guy in Toronto that had been painstakingly folded so that only the "WODKilla" slogan showed and then wrapped into a bandanna that matched a pair of neon yellow sneakers.

I haven't encountered that many CrossFitters with a sense of persecution, but most are big fans of branded apparel. 

I can safely say that I will never wear anything with "WODKilla" on it.  That would be blatant false advertising.  I might go for something that said "WODTrya"

Doing burpees does not constitute an identity. Take up jazz, or something.

NO.  Jazz is the worst.  Unless it's being delivered by one Ron Burgundy. 

Okay, after that pleasing musical interlude, let's see what else Mr. Nolan had to say:

And for the entire weekend, everything hummed on at once under the featureless roof of the convention center. The powerlifters tottered out stiff-legged in their knee wraps and bent under a squat bar; the Olympic lifters brushed their hands with chalk and adjusted their singlets; the Crossfitters swung from pull-up bars like flopping fish and slapped high-fives...

That totally reminds me, I need to work on my butterfly kip.