Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Dr. Darrell White's Personal Blog

Cape Cod

Sunday musings 8/26/18

Sunday musings…

1) Vicissitude. Fancy word for weather, especially if you need a particular weather pattern at any given moment.

2)) Hero. To be a hero one typically demonstrates courage in the face of personal danger, usually involving the selfless decision to put others before self. As a young man I find it hard to argue that this doesn’t describe John McCain. One could certainly disagree with the positions Mr. McCain took as a politician in the second phase of his life, but one would be hard pressed to argue that he hadn’t done enough in the service of his country over 60 some years.

RIP John McClain. Citizen. Patriot. Hero.

3) Health. CrossFit, Inc. has pivoted. Some among you will rejoice, for the direction that appears to be taken is in line with your own philosophy and goals. Those here who revel in the challenge of elite fitness will no doubt feel that this is a betrayal, a clear step backwards and toward mediocracy. I have a few friends who remain employed at CF, Inc. and they would doubtless like to hear me speak out in favor of this evolution. At the same time there are a few friends who are quite dear to me who would much rather I simply declare my days living in CF nation over and move on. CrossFit in all of its iterations has changed, and so, too, have I.

For many years I have written around this time of the year, just after the completion of the Games, about the peculiar and poorly understood triad that has comprised what we all know as “CrossFit”. It is a business, CrossFit, Inc., one that has as its charge the necessity to be self-perpetuating and to provide for the financial well-being of its owners. This should be self-evident, but over the years commentary has often come up that seeks to present CrossFit the business as some kind of public good. It is not, nor has it ever been. CrossFit, Inc. has succeeded over the years as a business, and in so doing it has made decisions that outsiders have both lauded and loathed. For many, how they interact with the company we call CrossFit is determined by who has been affected by these decisions and how. A pivot has occurred; you and I did not have a vote. CrossFit, Inc. will likely continue to prosper.

Second among the three traditional pillars of CrossFit is the Sport of Fitness. With the possible exception of aerobics competitions in the Denny Terrio age (the spandex!) and that old ABC series The Superstars (O.J. in a boat!), CrossFit likely deserved wears the mantle of the founders of fitness competition. Beginning with a friendly barbecue and leading up to a multi-day tiered competition shown on live network TV, there is no doubt that fitness competition is now here to stay. Early announcements suggest that the pivot will dramatically lower the direct involvement of CF in the competition season, but that CF will have the ultimate say at the highest level. No one you or I talk to has any real idea what this means, and supposition along those lines is wasted effort until we are all told exactly what CF has in mind by CF. The CrossFit Games have changed often over the years and they have changed again. Full stop.

Where most of us come in contact with CrossFit is in the third priority: fitness as a conduit to health. It surely seemed as if this was the least important of the three parts of CrossFit, at least until this past week, but it has always comprised the massively overwhelming majority of participants. Whether on CrossFit.com or in a local affiliate, almost everyone fell under this category;  most of those who thought they were part of the Sport of Fitness were fooling themselves at their own risk. With the creation of a CrossFit health movement and an L1 program for CrossFitting physicians, CrossFit, Inc. appears to be signaling that its public face will now be directed here. Note that I say “appears” because I am no more in the know about this than you or anyone else.

This is a good thing.  To de-emphasize the competitive aspects of CF is to re-emphasize the health aspects of CF that were outlined in “What is Fitness” in CFJ #2, the seminal thesis that brought so many of us here in the first place. I wish we could all go back and look at the threads on the old Message Board, 95% of which had to do with getting healthy. How will this affect the kind of CrossFit we see coming from CFHQ? Again, who knows. CVFMAHI has undergone countless lines of evolution outside of the direct umbrella of CrossFit. Individual trainers have gone out on their own and modified CrossFit in ways that reflect what they learned training people themselves (think James Fitzgerald, once known as OPT).  Entire movements with companies attached have been launched to provide clients with what they feel is a better way. A perfect example of this is The Brand X Method and the Martin family who are without a doubt the world leaders in youth fitness. Who will be right? Who will thrive?

Who knows?

In the end the entire conversation has changed over the last 10 years, and more people are sitting at the fitness table than ever. The line between healthcare and fitness continues to be a bright dividing line. Barriers continue to exist between the fitness world and both public health and public education. Will this pivot at CrossFit, Inc. start to blur those lines, or at least build bridges across them? Will we see some other organization, perhaps one that began within the CrossFit universe but now exists as a separate, growing galaxy like Brand X share the load or even take the lead?

The only constant in CrossFit in the years that I’ve been here is change. Change brings with it opportunity. My prediction: this turns out pretty well for CrossFit. The fitness world is much, much bigger than it was 10 years ago. One would do well to listen very carefully when CrossFit directly addresses this pivot publicly. This will also turn our pretty well for people who may have been part of the CrossFit world but are no longer associated with any of the 3 parts of CrossFit outlined above. One would also be well-advised to closely watch the direction taken by the Martins and others in the fitness world as well. There will be many benefits that come from that one, big original idea. They will come from many places.

After all the Theory of Relativity was simply the on ramp to what we now know as Quantum Physics. The highway of fitness progress is now fed by a growing number of on ramps that come from many directions.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Tags: , , , , , ,

Leave a Reply