Bench Press 5-5-5-5-5 @ 85%
5 Rounds For Time:
10 Front Rack Lunge 95/65
10 Pull Ups
Crossfitters Are Obsessed and Soft – An Open Letter to the Community and Sport that I Love (Hate).
Now before you go and get your panties in a bunch and go off on me and tell me how your obsession is a healthy one and hard core you are (or how soft I am) take note that everything that I say here applies to me as well. I’m also pretty sure that 99% of folks who read this are probably better at CF than I am. So let’s get that one of the way as well. This is not about being a better athlete. It’s about something more.
First of all, I am not suggesting that CFers are not good athletes, quite the opposite. I think CFers are fantastic athletes, the best in the world. I ought to know; I have been doing it for almost four years and have seen some amazing performances by men and women, young and old. I believe in CF. I believe in proper form, intensity, recovery and good nutrition. I don’t always execute along all of these dimensions, but I try. But I also believe that we are living these principles in excess. I believe that we have adopted this programming and way of life in an inflexible way that is fundamentally in opposition to what CF is in fact about.
Why do I think that? Well, one of the main principles of Crossfit is “constantly varied” which is of course closely tied to the principle of “the unknown and the unknowable.” Perhaps that means different things to different people, but to me it means at least one thing…you had better have the intestinal fortitude and the mental toughness to deal with shit you didn’t plan for, you didn’t train for, you didn’t buy special gear for and you didn’t take level whatever the F… cert. for. And if you can’t do that, then I don’t care how many times you WOD a week and how much you can lift or jump or run, you are soft.
What exactly am I talking about? Let’s take a close look at the community. It’s mostly made of young(ish), affluent, white members…in other words, people who have lots of disposable income and time. And what do those people do with that time and money? They spend it on CF, CF gear, CF Certs., CF competitions, private training, massages, yoga, grass fed this and organic that. That’s great! It’s great for CF, it’s great for CF spin-off businesses (you thought Rogue was a character on X-men a couple of years ago and now you have at least three products from them), great for the smug assholes at Whole Foods and perhaps even for CFers (thought I doubt it).
But do you really “need” all of this? Do you really need to fret that you didn’t get enough sleep when you’ve slept 7 hours instead of 8, or that or that you didn’t have your 8 1/4 almonds that afternoon, or that you only had 4 coconut waters today day instead of the 6 you “needed” or that you didn’t go see the massage therapist? Have you traded one unhealthy obsession (food, booze, work….all of the above) for another? Do you really “need” all this prepping, pampering, attention and stuff? Are you this delicate, this inflexible such that ALL the stars have to be aligned in you CF world for you to do a stupid 12-minute WOD? Or are you just a little self-absorbed and indeed “soft.” Surely coach Glassman didn’t have this in mind when he started this madness or, did he that evil genius!
I propose to you that you don’t need all the stars to align in order for you to have a good WOD or even a great one, or more importantly to enjoy doing CF and living the CF lifestyle. You don’t need 500 grams of protein per day from some cow that got its ass massaged out on the prairie. Your almonds and avocados don’t need to have been hand picked by some fantasy gentlemen farmer (they don’t exist, Mexican labor is the reason you eat a $5 avocado that Whole Foods hosed you on) and you don’t need to get worked on three times a week and you certainly don’t need 10 hours of sleep a night. It’s ok if the stars don’t align on all of those things and you still have to do a bunch of WODs that are really tough. I mean you are a CFer right? And you can do anything, right? Maybe it’s me, but I don’t think that getting 48 rather 53 grams of protein or 7 rather than 8 hours of sleep is going to be the magic formula that sends you to the Games. I mean maybe for the Ferraris among us (Travis/Justin/AO/Brooke/Loren) that kind of fine-tuning and obsession makes a difference. But the rest of us, well, we’re Chevy trucks (or Toyotas, relax fellas) and I don’t think that it’s going to matter. There’s also another more important reason I think this type of obsession is a problem, and that is that in the real world, none of the stuff that we “must have” exists! Because outside of our little CF bubble, people go to work and labor all day in difficult conditions and with less than “optimal” nutrition, hydration and sleep, and guess what? They are fine! They are not walking around whining about it! And check yourself right now before you start telling me how you are an elite athlete doing hard work. Because you know you are a just a desk jockey playing pretend for 20 minutes a day. Meanwhile there are soldiers who slog through crap all day with an 80 lb. pack and fireman hauling shit up 10 stories and people who slave over a grill in a hot kitchen so you can have your grass fed slab of meat and others who do more in a day (with less) than you and me do in a week or even a month. So I can’t help but ask, how would we fare under those conditions, without any of our CF “must haves”?
At this point you might be saying, what the hell does this guy know? My Fran time is better than his, I can DL more than him, run faster than him (yawn…I’m already bored with your response) precisely because I do ALL these things that he thinks are bullshit and I do them ALL the time. To which I would say you are right! But if at this point, your take away is that this is about having better CF performances, then I think my point is both made and lost at the same time. If you think it’s about more than that, then perhaps we are getting somewhere. This is about taking a hard look at all the CF “must haves” that I think ultimately make you soft, and how trading one obsession for another is not healthy, and frankly, makes you boring and less interesting to be around.
You want to prove me wrong? You say you are not soft and you’re not obsessed. Ok, go ahead and go a month without any of the ancillary programs and gadgets you have. Go a month on 6 hours of sleep per day, and without your Whole Foods propaganda fix. Go a month without getting worked on, or obsessing about a CF seminar. Go eat non-paleo (Eat a pizza for f…’s sake! It’s one of the greatest things on the planet) and then go do your stupid WOD, the WOD that you think is the single most important thing in your day. How about you try this one on for size. How about this, try going a week without having most of your conversations with your friends and family be about Crossfit (which in most cases means they are conversations about you).
Go do all of that and then come back to me and tell me you’re not both soft and obsessed. When you do that, I will believe you…maybe, right after I finish my foam roll and my organic soy latte.
Roger's Father's Day WOD
Roger didn't want me to post this video with his rant, but I needed a piece of media from the post and it actually is a good example of not being soft. On Father's Day, with the gym closed and very little to work with, Roger made it happen hardcore, probably on 4 hours sleep. This was not "soft."
