I feel the need to say this right off the bat.
Before I get to the requisite self-deprecating humor, Taylor Swift references, stories from my high school basketball camp and distaste for battle ropes that are the hallmarks of this weekly blog post.
I like CrossFit.
Any time I walk into a CrossFit gym, I feel good. It’s got the type of equipment I enjoy using, the people are typically super nice and the workouts are hard as shit.
This is my recipe for a fun time.
Much of what is currently good and accepted in the fitness industry is, at least in part, thanks to CrossFit and at-home programs like P90X.
It’s easy to forget about it now, but prior to these programs gaining popularity, most fitness offerings were marketed as “look at how easy this program is!”
Facilities like Curves and their famous 30 minute machine-based circuits and tapes such as “8 minute abs” were tricking the public into thinking the health and bodies of their dreams could be achieved with the least amount of effort possible.
CrossFit - rightfully so - flipped the script. Real results take real effort.
But the criticisms of CrossFit are also very legitimate.
They are often attempting to execute fairly complex movements and workouts in large group sizes that need more supervision than they typically provide.
Their programs aren’t held to any specific standard. CrossFit is not a methodology as much as it is a licensing agreement. Every CrossFit can program as they see fit and that leads to wild inconsistencies from facility to facility.
The typical - if there is such a thing - CrossFit workout tends to rely heavily on vertical pulling and pressing, particularly overhead. They will often program very high repetitions of movements that are better suited for low reps such as snatches.
They will encourage techniques that prioritize speed over safety with things such as rebounding box jumps or butterfly pull-ups.
They can get more wrapped up in executing CrossFit-workouts rather than simplifying based on the needs and abilities of their communities.
And while this is a damning list, I don’t think any of them are the worst thing about CrossFit.
No, the worst thing about CrossFit is actually their business model.
CrossFit gym owners are typically wonderful people. They were transformed by CrossFit and want other people to experience that same redemption. They are in it for the right reasons - they want to help people.
And, whether because of that or in spite of that, they feel either too guilty or unworthy to charge a fee that would actually allow them to run and sustain a healthy business.
Call it martyrdom or ignorance or, if you want to put a romantic spin on it, a labor of love, but most CrossFit gyms don’t charge enough to stay in business.
You would probably be surprised if you knew how many CF gyms sustain themselves solely because the owner opens the gym early, leaves at 8:30 to go to a full time job that actually pays his bills, and then comes back to coach the evening classes, clean the gym, rush home, kiss their already sleeping children and pass out with just enough sleep to do it all again the next day.
It doesn’t take very many years (and sometimes months) of this before they throw in the towel and shut their gym down.
Do you recognize the paradox here?
These people open gyms in order to help others, end up ruining their own health and fitness and then, ultimately, blow apart the communities they built because they couldn’t keep it going.
Honestly, this isn’t limited to gyms that brand themselves as CrossFit. Any gym that is doing group fitness at unsustainably low rates, offering discounts and flash sales on top of that, end up with low fill rates (so the revenue per session is even lower than projections) and, God-for-fucking-bid offers unlimited memberships falls into this exact category.
And what category is that you ask? The category of soon-to-be-closed gym.
Don’t believe me?
The number of CrossFit gyms has been shrinking since its peak in 2018. In the 2020s nearly 30% of all CrossFit gyms have closed (to be fair, it’s hard to know how many disaffiliated or closed due to the pandemic).
So, if you are a CrossFit or similar gym-model owner, the path is clear and the writing is on the wall. You have to charge what you are worth and actually set up your business model in a way that is sustainable.
If you are providing great value for people they will pay you for it. If you feel guilty about charging people to get fit and stay healthy think about it this way - they’ll have nowhere to go when you have to close your doors because you get tired of missing the school plays or can’t miss a day at the gym when you get sick or have an injury because you can’t afford to pay for a coach to cover for you.
In the words of Saturday Night Live self-help guru Jack Handy, “you’re good enough, you’re smart enough and, dog-gone-it, people like you.”
So charge what you need to live. Everyone will appreciate it.
SIDE NOTE: I was going to include a section on Class Pass here as they suffer from a related problem. But unlike the CrossFit/group gym owners who are just shooting themselves in the foot, Class Pass is an evil corporation who has no one’s best interest at heart and deserve their own rant-y blog post which I’ll save for another time. Gym owners of any kind don't deserve to be lumped in with these vultures.
Finally, if you are a member at a CrossFit gym and you are thinking, “Hey, wait a minute, Dan. I want to keep paying next to nothing to go to my gym all day, every day and foam roll in the corner for 3 hours and I don’t care who suffers!” then, to paraphrase Taylor Swift, “It’s you. Hi. You’re the problem, it’s you.” Stop praying on people’s kindness and insecurities. It makes you a piece of shit unworthy of CrossFit or any other great gym community.
See, I told you I’d get a Taylor Swift reference in there.