A couple years back I looked up this stupid new workout fad called Crossfit. I thought to myself, “Hey, it looks alright with them doing squats and other actual lifts.” But then when I took a deeper look, I realized it’s more of the same bullshit, just with a different slant. Per usual with stuff that doesn’t affect me, I filed it away as something I don’t give a fuck about. However the time has come where I need to vomit thoughts on screen and rant about this dumb bullshit because it has begun to have a negative impact on my life.
Now, I know this post published in 2014 is a little late in the hating Crossfit genre, but stay with me here for a bit because I’ll be covering a few topics that may not have been talked about that much. There’s a bunch of legit reasons to hate on Crossfit that have all been talked about ad nauseum. There’s the fake plates that don’t actually weigh that much. The terrible form on exercises taught by people who are certified with a weekend training course. The stupid looking knee high socks. The promotion of doing exercise until your body fails. The elitist attitude of people that do it. The stupid looking pull up form. The idea of being the best at exercising. The need for Crossfit people to tell you that they do Crossfit. I could go on and on here, but this stuff doesn’t bother me at all other than being philosophically opposed to it.
So you may be wondering what’s the big deal, why the need to go ahead and call them out via Liquorfists blog post? Because in the last year Crossfit nerds have begun to stop working out at their own garage gyms and start working out at legitimate gyms. You see, I go to a legitimate gym. My workout routine consists of doing squats, deadlifts, bench press, etc. Because my gym is on the smaller end of the spectrum, I like to go late at night about an hour before close to avoid as many people as possible. There are two power racks at my gym which I utilize for squats. There’s enough idiots at my gym who do stupid shit in the power racks like bench that I’m annoyed already. Enter Crossfit people.
Crossfit people come to my gym and have an annoying habit of taking up the whole gym to do their stupid routines. They will of course utilize both racks while timing each other on how many whatevers they can do before running over to a pillar and throwing a medicine ball up against it for a minute. Then they will sit in said racks and talk to each other about stuff for minutes at a time. I was in my gym once when these assholes took up both benches, both racks, and were running around in between sets. Two people took up the most important equipment there for an hour. It was then I saw this video from Elgintensity on youtube that perfectly summed up what I was going through.
http://youtu.be/4KsL_Ib4qF8
I got to wondering to myself why Crossfit people are coming to my gym if there is a Crossfit gym down the street that has room to take these morons in. It all started to make sense when I heard a podcast from Victor Pride over at Bold and Determined. Around the 25 minute mark someone asks him about Crossfit and he talks about how it’s racist. That of course got me laughing because it was so random, but then I checked it out and other people were saying the same thing. What gives?
So I did a google search for Crossfit is racist and came upon some hilarious shit. Blogs like Stuff Black People Don’t Like were ranting about how Crossfit is basically all white people. They were also going way out on a limb with some of it, but it was funny, so I then googled Black Crossfit people and came upon this gem of a page. All craziness aside, I think the main argument of why Crossfit is racist is because the cost of going to a Crossfit gym is so high, that it excludes black people who are less willing to spend money on a stupid gym membership when they can go elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. Let’s take a deeper look at this.
Here are the fees that are associated with being a member at the local Crossfit gym that happens to be near my gym.
That is indeed expensive as fuck. So the conclusions I draw from this is that Crossfit isn’t really racist per se, it’s just that they are against poor people. Only idiot white people with a bunch of money sitting around that they don’t know what to do with will sign up for this stupid shit. However this has had a secondary effect of sending people who would not normally be in my way, in my way. Some enterprising young pups think they can have the best of both worlds by learning what to do at Crossfit, then taking what they learned(poop) to a regular gym for less money.
I hereby propose a ban on Crossfit in all gyms that aren’t specifically set up for Crossfit. Think about it for a second, if Crossfit gyms aren’t good enough because they cost too much, what does that say about the product itself? In my opinion the leaders of Crossfit have basically conspired to develop as much a cult like behavior as possible in order to be able to charge absurd amounts of money for monthly memberships. If people are able to take the Crossfit routine and do it in a regular gym, what is the point of spending a shit load of money every month? The next logical question in your mind should then be what is the merits of doing Crossfit, not looking for a real gym to do Crossfit in.
I’m going to do the unthinkable right now and praise Planet Fitness for a moment. Planet Fitness has some kind of vague policy in which if you are doing actual weight lifting, they will sound some alarm and ask you to stop. I don’t know exactly how this goes down because I have never worked out there, but we can take a lesson from them on how to shame people. Regular gyms should have alarms installed like Planet Fitness to stop people from doing Crossfit. See some fucking idiot running around the gym, sound the alarm. Taking up all the squat racks at one time? Sound the fucking alarm.
In my perfect utopia, gyms would break down in a three tiered system. If you are looking to workout on a budget and don’t want to get “intimidated” by actual fit people working out, go to Planet Fitness. If you are looking to needlessly spend a shit load of money every month just to fit in and be part of a group, go to a Crossfit gym. All other normal people go to regular gyms. Stop the madness people.