Rest Day/Theory

“How can a set of workouts prove anything?”

Coach Glassman explained that you can’t claim to be the best hockey team in the world without winning the Stanley Cup, and you can’t claim to be the world’s fittest athlete unless you win the 2009 CrossFit Games.

“We’re going to get this thing to the point where, if you’re not participating, then it really has no meaning to claim to be fit or fitter than other people,” Coach Glassman said.

As the… Continue Reading

“Primal fitness” is about accomplishing tasks in life. If you can’t move your body in a functional way, you aren’t going to be very good at life—or CrossFit.

“All great things in every province, in every domain, come to those willing to suffer and endure and sacrifice and commit,” he said. “It’s blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids that make things happen.”

Tony Budding said CrossFit can be an “asshole barrier,” where the program creates a community that weeds… Continue Reading

The real value of CrossFit’s new definition of health is that it gives us a meaningful way to assess and measure fitness, heath, and even quality of life throughout the years. Fitness, in the most broad terms, is the ability to perform the tasks of life. The tasks of life are always some form of moving your own body and moving external loads. These tasks can be measured using the fundamental units of force… Continue Reading

Russell Berger, one of CrossFit’s top athletes, attends a Gym Jones seminar and tries to keep an open mind—but he’s left wondering about the substance of the program.

This is the story of my experience at Gym Jones, but the real story is a lot bigger than me.

The story of my love affair with increased work capacity is pretty typical. I started following the CrossFit main-site WODs and saw astounding results within a few weeks. But it… Continue Reading

Jeff Glassman lectured about the nature of science itself at the Science of Exercise seminar on April 25th, 2009. Some have said that science is like love in that we can’t define, but we know it when we see it. Jeff disagrees. There are certain criteria that differentiate science from non-science, and it’s essential to identify them.

Key terms are defined, such as models, measurement and prediction, conjecture, hypothesis, theory… Continue Reading

Jimmy Baker started training with Greg Glassman in the late 90’s at Spa Fitness Center in Santa Cruz, CA. He is now one of owners of, and trainers at, CrossFit Santa Cruz Central.

Back then, as is common today, CrossFit didn’t fit well within a traditional globo-gym like Spa. Even thought the Glassmans were the most successful trainers in the gym, they were eventually kicked out for being incompatible. Unfortunately… Continue Reading

This is the 10th episode of CrossFit Radio, which aired at 8am PST on November 23rd, 2008.

0:00 Show Intro, JJ's wrestlers, Neil's PRs
5:30 Tanya Wagner of CrossFit Apex
24:00 Freddy Camacho of CrossFit One World
49:30 Story from Trevor
52:00 Coach Mark Rippetoe of CrossFit Wichita Falls

Both Russell Berger and Dan Freedman are impressed with the overall quality of the rest day discussions posted on CrossFit. Russell, a former Ranger, noticed both the impact a fitness website was having on his thinking and an increasing number of complaints about the political rest day links.

I started paying attention to the CrossFit website four years ago. From the very beginning, CrossFit was built on mold-breaking, counter-culture methodology. One of… Continue Reading