CrossFit: The wall crumbles?

[Mark Rippetoe]

crossfit affiliate - Fit Fire Dragon

The more popular CrossFit became, the more the name began to come along with associations that have been difficult to overcome, speaking as a business owner. It's hard enough to own a service-related company, but when you add to that the mental barriers that come along with convincing an inactive or sedentary population to exercise, your job just got that much harder. At some point over the last 3 or 4 years, when someone asks me what I do for work, and I tell them I own a CrossFit gym, the responses are no longer open-minded and curious. Nearly 100% of the responses are along the lines of "Oh my gosh, be careful. CrossFit is dangerous. Everyone gets injured doing CrossFit. Wow, those people are crazy, I've heard that every workout makes you puke. I've seen that CrossFit stuff on ESPN. There is no way I can do any of that. I'm sure CrossFit isn't for me. I've heard that none of the trainers have any idea what they're doing. It's just too hardcore for me. My co-worker did CrossFit and got injured. It's just not for me." I've spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to explain to people that we are nothing like all of those stories they've heard. Not only that, the ones who HAVE heard of CrossFit, who DO like the idea of it based on its reputation, come in expecting us to be something like what they've heard about - and, well, we're just not. We don't have a gym culture that matches the pervasive reputation- the one that represents every one of our affiliates.

The people, the real people in the world around me where I live, ARE. SCARED. SHITLESS. of CrossFit. And while, I could continue to try to run a business with a name that pretty much universally scares the bejeezus out of people, I decided that it made much more sense for us to develop our own identity.

[George Christiansen]

Bravo!

[MBasic]

crossfit affiliate - Fit Fire Dragon

As with all these blogs, articles, youtube videos . . . be sure to look at the comments section below, but especially this one.

[AndrewLewis]

Maybe, but Crossfit will go strong for a long time. A very slow crumbling. They're like fucking Starbucks. There are three Crossfits 3 miles away from each other where I live which might actually be higher density than the Starbucks in my area.

[Immortal_k]

Thank goodness this ridiculous fad is dying.

[Beau Bryant]

I shared this today as soon as I read it. We talked about this a little on Friday, Rip. The history. This echos my feelings exactly in my area. If you are in your late 30s, 40 or older and you stumble into a CrossFit gym that takes the sport stuff seriously you are in trouble.

[Mark Rippetoe]

They're like fucking Starbucks. There are three Crossfits 3 miles away from each other where I live which might actually be higher density than the Starbucks in my area.

But are they all making money? The Starbucks are.

[poser]

One of the comments reads:


05:33:29 pm
Excellent. I started CF in 2006 or maybe late 2005. I've felt like I was the only one left who remembers thus stuff. Back then Glassman, Dan John, Wolfe, ***Rippetoe***, and a few others were all on the message boards.

[emoji851]

[Dave_G]

I'm glad to have gotten involved with Crossfit because that is *the* reason I ended up on SS about 5 years ago.

[George Cook]

But are they all making money? The Starbucks are.

I know the danger of N=1, but the Crossfit gym I used to go to constantly has reminders on it web site to members about delinquent dues. Their business model is catering to broke college students; go figure.

When 60 Minutes "discovered" Crossfit, I knew it had crested the hill. It's decline, I think, will be gradual and will be around for a long time as a smaller niche player. But who knows?