CrossFit Inc
CrossFit Inc. is a private fitness company founded in 2000 by Greg Glassman and Lauren Jenai in Santa Cruz, California. The company originated from Glassman's innovative personal training methods, which emphasize a minimalist approach to fitness, focusing on strength and conditioning through varied and intense workouts. CrossFit not only refers to the company but also represents a fitness philosophy and a competitive sport overseen by the organization.
CrossFit Inc. operates by licensing the CrossFit name to affiliated gyms, known as "boxes," and certifying trainers to ensure program consistency. By the start of 2021, there were over 9,400 affiliated gyms worldwide, a number that grew to approximately 10,800 by the end of that year. The company is known for its annual CrossFit Games, which began in 2007 and have since popularized fitness as a competitive sport.
While CrossFit promotes a community-driven environment with a strong online presence, it has faced criticism regarding the safety of its intense workouts, particularly for beginners. In response to concerns, CrossFit has implemented measures to educate affiliates about potential risks, such as rhabdomyolysis. Overall, CrossFit Inc. has developed a distinct identity in the fitness industry, blending community engagement with a focus on varied and challenging physical training.
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Subject Terms
CrossFit Inc.
Company information
- Date founded: 2000
- Industry: Fitness; sports
- Corporate headquarters: Washington, DC
- Type: Private
CrossFit Inc. was founded in 2000 by Greg Glassman and Lauren Jenai, who began with a single gym in Santa Cruz, California. The company was conceived to promote Glassman’s unconventional personal training methods and convert them into a minimalist gym environment and fitness program. "CrossFit Inc." refers to the company, while "CrossFit" refers both to the philosophy of fitness that the company espouses and to the competitive fitness sport that it oversees.
CrossFit Inc. operates by licensing the CrossFit name to affiliated gyms in exchange for an annual fee, as well as certifying trainers. CrossFit’s brand is grounded both in Glassman’s fitness program, which draws from numerous influences to focus on strength and conditioning, and the no-frills approach to equipment. This results in gymnasiums (called "boxes" in CrossFit terminology) that can be located anywhere and have their own style and layout, and means that the CrossFit program’s methodology can be used in police departments, fire departments, school athletic departments, and military organizations, without burdensome equipment costs. In addition to its standard fitness training, the company offers a number of specialized training programs. It also cosponsors the CrossFit Games, held every year in July since 2007.
CrossFit’s growth was slow initially, adding a dozen gyms beyond the Santa Cruz headquarters in the first five years, but in the subsequent years, growth accelerated. At the start of 2021, there were about 9,400 affiliated CrossFit gyms worldwide, but by the end of the year, this number grew by 1,400, bringing the total to 10,800. In early 2023, the company reported around 5 million athletes in 155 countries, using 14,000 gyms.
History
Trainer Greg Glassman and his second wife, Lauren Jenai, started CrossFit Inc. in a rented space within a Brazilian jujitsu dojo in Santa Cruz, California, in 2000. Glassman had worked for the Spa Fitness health club in Santa Cruz (where he had met Jenai, one of his clients) and had gained acclaim working with officers of the Santa Cruz Police Department and former Olympic skier Eva Twadorkens. When Glassman was fired after Twadorkens accidentally caused a scene by dropping a weight during one of their training sessions, she encouraged him to strike out on his own instead of moving on to yet another gym; Glassman had been fired from other gyms for similar reasons, his intense workouts too often disturbing other trainers’ clients.
In 2000, Glassman started putting his workouts of the day (WODs) on CrossFit.com, in response to requests from some of his clients. The practice of posting WODs on the company’s website continued into 2019. Users of the website can also post their personal results under each workout and compare themselves to others doing the same workout.
While CrossFit went through several years of development and refinement, from the start, it bore the distinct hallmarks: it was stripped down and intense. The dojo-based training business used almost no equipment apart from kettlebells and an Airdyne bike, a flywheel exercise bike that increases resistance the harder one pedals. But most of the regimen revolved around outdoor sprints and high-speed sets of bodyweight exercises like push-ups and squats. When the first dedicated CrossFit gym opened a year and a half later, the Glassmans added the equipment that has become associated with the brand: weights, rowing machines, pull-up rigs, jumping boxes, medicine balls, and bumper plates. Free training was offered to certain professional and Olympic athletes both to add to the gym’s cachet and to provide a wider body of data for Glassman to study as he refined the CrossFit regimen.
The early years of CrossFit Inc. were focused on developing the CrossFit programs, including specialized programs for older adults, professional athletes, pregnant women, and so on, rather than on licensing the name. In the process, Glassman formulated a theory of fitness that included ten attributes of fitness that CrossFit was intended to develop, which he described in a 2002 article in CrossFit Journal: cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, power, flexibility, speed, agility, coordination, accuracy, and balance. Further, CrossFit training was supposed to emulate the real-life circumstances in which people draw on these attributes, which Glassman felt conventional gym equipment (especially pulley-driven weightlifting equipment) did not do.
The initial expansion to multiple gyms was conducted slowly, with the Glassmans working with affiliate owners, but in 2008 CrossFit Inc. accelerated its certification and licensing model, by which a trainer could pay an annual fee to license the CrossFit name and open their own box. Level 1 trainer certification, which initially costs one thousand dollars and must be renewed every five years, is one of the primary sources of CrossFit Inc.’s income. Affiliates must have and maintain their Level 1 trainer certification. In addition, affiliates pay an annual fee of up to three thousand dollars for use of the CrossFit name.
The CrossFit Games, which became known as the Reebok CrossFit Games starting in 2011, have grown since their inception in 2007 and have arguably helped to make fitness a competitive sport. In 2011, CrossFit started holding the CrossFit Games Open, a five-week, five-workout online competition held in February and March that is the first qualifying stage for the CrossFit Games held in July. In 2017, more than 380,000 athletes from around the world competed in the Open. In 2019, CrossFit announced that they would be adding three new qualifying events sanctioned to invite athletes to the 2020 CrossFit Games: in Dublin, Ireland; Vancouver, Canada; and Quebec, Canada. In 2021, the adaptive CrossFit Open came to fruition after years of interest. This competition offers athletes with intellectual disabilities or visual impairments, athletes with limb deficiencies, and short stature athletes the chance to compete in CrossFit activities.
Impact
CrossFit Inc. promotes itself as a community with a strong social media presence. While helping the company and movement grow, this presence has also made it a target of criticism, as the company’s various accounts do not limit themselves to neutral fitness-related posts and so inevitably tread on controversial ground from time to time. The company often compares its online community, where trainers and clients are encouraged to share techniques and results, to open-source software—an environment where the best ideas thrive.
Critics of CrossFit have pointed out the dangers of the intense workouts for inexperienced and out-of-shape trainees, especially in the context of autonomous CrossFit affiliates. In December 2005, a New York Times article described one such beginner who ended up with rhabdomyolysis, a medical condition in which muscle fiber breaks down, enters the bloodstream, and poisons the kidneys. In response, Glassman provided affiliates with ways to reduce the incidence of the condition, known informally as "rhabdo," and incorporated discussions of the condition in his seminars and on CrossFit.com. As part of an article Glassman wrote on the subject for CrossFit Journal, a cartoon clown figure, Uncle Rhabdo, was included to illustrate the dangers of the condition, albeit in an irreverent way.
Bibliography
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Black, Jonathan. Making the American Body: The Remarkable Saga of the Men and Women Whose Feats, Feuds, and Passions Shaped Fitness History. U of Nebraska P, 2013.
Bowles, Nellie. "Exclusive: On the Warpath with CrossFit’s Greg Glassman." Maxim, 8 Sept. 2015, www.maxim.com/maxim-man/crossfit-greg-glassman-exclusive-2015-9. Accessed 6 May 2023.
Glassman, Greg. "Foundations." CrossFit Journal, 1 Apr. 2002, journal.crossfit.com/2002/04/foundations.tpl. Accessed 6 May 2023.
Helm, Burt. "Do Not Cross CrossFit." Inc. Magazine, July–Aug. 2013, www.inc.com/magazine/201307/burt-helm/crossfit-empire.html. Accessed 6 May 2023.
Henderson, Scott. "CrossFit's Explosive Affiliate Growth by the Numbers." Morning Chalk Up, 23 Oct. 2018, morningchalkup.com/2018/10/23/crossfits-explosive-affilaite-growth-by-the-numbers. Accessed 6 May 2023.
Herz, J. C. Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness. Crown, 2014.
Lieberman, Daniel E. The Story of the Human Body. Vintage, 2014.
McKenzie, Shelly. Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America. UP of Kansas, 2013.
Murphy, T. J. Inside the Box: How CrossFit Shredded the Rules, Stripped Down the Gym, and Rebuilt My Body. Velo, 2012.
"Three New CrossFit-Sanctioned Competitive Events Announced for 2020 CrossFit Games Season." Cision, PR Newswire, 16 Jan. 2019, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/three-new-crossfit-sanctioned-competitive-events-announced-for-2020-crossfit-games-season-300778852.html. Accessed 6 May 2023.