What I Ate Today: CrossFit, CrossFit and More CrossFit

Authors Note: If there is one thing I have learned for sure in this life it’s that nobody beats a dead horse. Not that I condone beating horses mind you, or any animal for that matter, it’s just an idiomatic expression.

Please understand that I never wanted to write a post on CrossFit. Spending more time with my dogs is much more inviting. It’s just this topic keeps coming up over and over again so much so that I feel we need to put it to bed once and for all so we can all move on with our lives.

Thanks,

Mike

(It’s funny that nobody ever talks about kicking a dead bird? Seems like it would be much less work.)

Hey Nancy Boy,

Before something happens to you on the way to heaven, can you gather your stones together for just one minute and provide us the definitive answer on CrossFit? I know you have said in the past you are neither for or against it but that sounds to me like you are some big, bulky human version of Switzerland or something.

I notice that whenever you have a chance to take a stand on this important issue you Suss, Suss, Sussudio your way out of it by pontificating that Scott Abel line “The best programs are the ones that fit the program to individual and not the individual to the program”. I’m not buying it.

I think you say this because when you show your true colors it is apparent you lack the cojones to let us know what you really think. Last week at least Yahoo came out with a pretty damning article saying amongst other things that CrossFit is dangerous, that it is a Cult, and it’s leader Greg Glassman “a.k.a. The Coach” is a poor imitation of James Earl Jones in Conan The Barbarian:

(How awesome would it be if this guy really was the head of CrossFit! I’d join. Still it’s pretty cool how they got all the affiliates in one place for a group candlelight photo. Just FYI the article on Yahoo never claimed the Glassman/Thulsa Doom connection. That was my thing. I don’t know if anybody over there is creative enough to think of stuff like that. Instead they let people put out piece of crap articles like the one that claims the new Star Wars Trilogy is better than the old Star Wars Trilogy. Now mind you the people at CrossFit don’t need me to stand up for them but how can you take Yahoo seriously on anything after posting Star Wars ignorance like that?)

Listen here Shank, I am in a land of confusion over this thing. I live next to this big, ripped Marine who is always walking around with his shirt off, his body covered in gym chalk and a video camera in tow filming his every move. He told me in between bites of meat that CrossFit changed his life. Every time I see him he implores me to join so that I can be part of “The Fittest Athletes on Earth”:

(Yes, it is true. They believe this so much they put it on their weights.)

So what’s the deal? Who is right? If you can’t iron out this CrossFit thing we will have to go on living separate lives because I will no longer be able to read your blog. I refuse to waste my time watching you walk on eggshells surrounding the hottest topics in fitness today.

Signed,

Phil Collins

Hey Phil,

I Love your work! I agree with the American Psycho that Invisible Touch is a brilliant song but I am sorry to hear you are in such a rut over CrossFit. Granted I do resent that you have used your fame, power and celebrity to drag Team Clear Path into this abortion of an argument. But since you and a lot of other people have asked about everybody’s favorite exercise fanatics this side of the Navy Seals, I guess I owe you an answer.

It’s just next time if you could give me something simpler to figure out, like a two state solution in the middle east, the legal implications of euthanasia or the meaning of life, I would appreciate it:

(Discussing the role of Religion in the Post Modern State with this guy would probably be much more enjoyable than getting in the middle of a CrossFit debate. Mr. “I wear a ski mask despite the fact I live in the desert” is probably just a tad less fanatical and rigid in his thinking than some of the people on either side of the CrossFit issue.)

Now before we go any further I just want to affirm that this blog is not going to be a history lesson or a tutorial on what CrossFit is. If you want that then here is a link to their site:

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html

For the record here is Team Clear Path’s official stance on CrossFit:

Leave them the Hell alone. They are a lot happier than you and me.

If that answer makes me more Swiss than a big block of chocolate floating in a steaming hot cup of Cocoa then I don’t care because it is true:

(These are CrossFitters. They are happy.)

The truth of the matter is some people will hate anything I have to say about CrossFit and others will love anything I have to say about CrossFit. The debate is way too politicized at this point to really make any rational sense.

The haters might argue (Like the Yahouligan) that CrossFit is dangerous because they use Olympic Type Lifts for really high repetitions thereby ingraining bad form and putting high speed stress on the muscles and joints. For me, who is now relatively famous for being neutral on CrossFit I find that irrelevant:

(You might as well can all the anger on this one. He doesn’t care what you think of him because he is happy.)

Others would criticize CrossFit by suggesting that their programming is too random. That it is based less on science and too much on effort, and winds up being incredibly difficulty manage over the long term. Once again from the perspective of the land of precision time pieces and anonymous banking that too is irrelevant:

(These are CrossFitters too, hot ones. Not only are they not interested in dating you they also don’t care what you have to say about the way they choose to exercise and diet. That is because they are happy.)

And if all that hate was not enough there is the issue of injury which according to those in the know is all but guaranteed if you do CrossFit:

(Yes his arm is in a sling and yes he is still trying to workout on a rowing machine. As insanely stupid as that might seem to you and me, for some Mr. Fit as F**k is an inspiration and for that reason he is happy too. One arm and all.)

The bottom line is it doesn’t matter what you, I or anybody thinks of CrossFit because the people doing it are satisfied and in the end that is all that matters. Therefore all this bickering is pointless just like Grand Moff Tarkin told us about way back in Episode IV:

(If we just listened to this genocidal maniac all those years ago we may have avoided this stupid debate.)

Now I get the fact that CrossFit people can sometimes be annoying and that really irritates people. But you know what, sometimes I can be really annoying and irritate people too. And I happen to really like myself.

You don’t think that I realize that sometimes my anger goes a little overboard. In particular my hatred of Mario Lopez, albeit well founded, is a little bid odd:

(If you want the definition of the statement “Why go out for hamburger when you got Steak at home” just take a look at every time a married woman swoons over this piece of ground chuck and you will get the idea.)

I understand how the the whole “never wearing a shirt thing while constantly filming every exercise you do” is like watching one endless loop of Matthew Mcconhaughey pictures:

(These are some of the only known photos where he actually wears clothing.)

I also realize that nothing screams “I have a small penis” more than the whole “Fittest on Earth” thing because the statement itself makes no sense at all.

Fitness is context dependent. It is not up to us to remake the definition so that it more closely meets our style of training or natural gifts. If we defined fitness that way then people with a natural inclination towards being fast would define fitness as “being really fast”. People who have a natural inclination to being slow but having great endurance would define fitness as “having really great endurance”. People who are really strong by their nature would define fitness as “the ability to pick things up and put them down”. And those of you out there who are pretty good at but not excellent at all of those would define fitness as a mixture. You can never have a fittest at everything because they second you try to create the definition you would only wind up with a system that favored your own bias and strengths.

Think about it. You would never judge a fish unfit because it can’t climb trees like a squirrel just like you would never judge a squirrel unfit because it can’t fly like a bird. Different goals require different strengths and different structures. Even when God himself tried that whole animal kingdom swiss army knife thing he wound up with this genetic mess:

(Yes he is cute. But did you know that this bag of bones is so screwed up he doesn’t even have nipples! Seriously. Platypuses are so un-evolved they actually have milk filled sacks instead. The Platypus is to God what “Brazil” was to Robert De Niro.)

Lastly there is that “I do X (exercise system) and that is why I look like this and if you do X (exercise system) you too will look like this too. Now while CrossFit didn’t invent that they certainly haven’t moved away from using it in their marketing. That pisses people off too.

I get it. He is jacked. And just like I predicted he is happy too. But doing CrossFit will make you look no more like him than doing Zoomba will make you look like a Professional Latin Dancer:

Or doing a bodybuilding routine will make you look like Schwartzeneger in his prime:

Or playing basketball will make you like Michael Jordan:

The fact is if you want to Forge Elite Fitness you better start here:

Then move on to this:

Eventually get to this:

And then if a lot of things go right , after a couple decades of insanely hard work, a boat load of injuries, surgeries and gallons of blood and sweat and the aforementioned genetics you might eventually wind up here:

Look at the guy above and then understand that nobody who has a body like that started at 26 and then by 36 got there and then had to start working sideways for the rest of their life. CrossFit is great but the foundation for those beautiful bodies you see were laid a long time ago in a hotel room far, far away.

I have now tired of this subject and will never discuss it ever again (famous last words says Lou Valente). Good luck to all you CrossFitters out there, I hope you find what it is you are looking for. And to all you people who hate CrossFit, if it really is as bad as you think it is don’t worry because that means it will eventually implode upon itself, just like Jonestown.

But then again what the hell do I know.

Yours In Chocolate Chip Cookies,

Mike Cruickshank