Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 008: CrossFit Part 2: It's Almost As Safe As Gardening!

Episode Date: January 16, 2015

Our episode on CrossFit (006: Why we don't CrossFit) stirred up the attention of CrossFit through their official Instagram page. While we were honored that they even knew we existed, they didn't seem to feel the same way about us! Needless to say, some heated debate ensued which we reveal in this edgy episode.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Alright, welcome back to Mind Pump. Our awesome show that talks about fitness, nutrition, random shit, we talk a lot of shit. Speaking of which, we aired an episode. Bum bum bum bum. Oh, this is the backlash episode. This is the backlash episode.

So what happens if you have a big fucking mouth? We got big mouth. This is what your nickname is, motor mouth. Jesus. What was your, what was your, what was your, I don't know man. I'm a passion, a lot of passion there and then now we're gonna have to explain to you I think.

I mean, honestly, we did that, we did this thing but I don't remember being, I don being, we were dicks about it. We just stayed as a- Well, no, because we were ourselves. That's just how we are. No, we just had to come and say- I even feel like the way I expressed it, like, hey, you know, this is,

I'm into the business of aesthetics. Well, here, let's go into it. So it was episode six. We talked about CrossFit. We talked a little bit about the good. We talked a lot about the bad, some of our opinions. So Doug, we have our producer here. Doug, you make sure you jump in

if we say anything crazy. That'll get us in trouble again, please. Can we, is it, do we have to pay something extra for one of those things that bleeps out stuff? How does that work? Do you edit that? Or does that something that we have to buy? Well, we aren't live so we can oh you mean So we do make some stupid mistakes everyone's done say names of companies

Starting that in okay, so it's but it's not something that we need to like no not right now Okay, so now we do it after the fact all right, so so we did our show on CrossFit And we're a new show all right. We've only been on the air for a little over a week. We've had an tremendous support from listeners. I mean, we've been smashing downloads. The show's been doing great, but I did not expect this. This was exciting for us. This is how sh-

Fuck up we are. So we dropped the CrossFit episode, right? We dropped it. It was, what was it? Monday morning, Tuesday morning? Yeah, Monday. Was it Monday? Well, right? We dropped it. It was Monday morning, Tuesday morning. Yeah, Monday. Was it Monday? Well, it hits it at nighttime, so Sunday night at five o'clock. Okay, and it hits Monday morning, I get a text from Justin.

Justin's like, dude, go on the Mind Pump Instagram page. CrossFit, just responded. The official CrossFit Instagram page. You don't have to get into that. I tell you something before you, because when he said that, he said that group text to both of us. And I was just like, oh, fucking Justin doesn't, he didn't really look. It's probably just somebody who's talking about CrossFit.

You know, I know, I know, I know, dude. Shame on me bro. Shame on me. So I actually got that same reaction. Of course you do. Yeah, I was like, holy fuck dude, this is really, these guys actually took the time to listen. Because he quoted you bro. He did.

He quoted me, too. He quoted it. So fucking. So the official... He quote me though, I'm a little, I'm a little bit hard about that. Yeah, I am a little bit... He didn't give him enough. I feel like that means that was a little too nice, man.

Oh, well, welcome to CrossFit Part-Doo. Part-Doo. Part-Doo. So CrossFit response gets a little irritated and we go back and forth. And before we continue, we're going to clear up a little irritated and we go back and forth and Before we continue we're gonna clear up a little some a couple of misconceptions one was Justin had said something about CrossFit you want to go ahead? Let me clarify that I Okay, so I kind of went back and and claim something about the history of it Which was in actually the case so I was I was explaining kind of about the their affiliation with the Navy seals

And so really it was just that they've adopted the program. The actual creator of the program, Gray Glassman, I believe, was a ex gymnast. And so that's how it all started like 2000. So there you go. There's the origin and a story. Wow, that was unnecessary. There you go. So you should talk about that guy. Have you seen have you ever seen what I just curious for all you listeners? I don't um what I think You just Google him and hit images so you can see what I mean I was really I was really surprised. I was thought you know, I think cross it X X gymnasts yeah, gymnasts. Yeah, all of some of that. I'm expecting to see this and I'm thinking okay

He just created it. So he's coming from being I I'm thinking gymnasts, he's next gymnast. So I've Googled and read up on him before. I've actually seen a picture of him, stuff, and I'm reading up on him, like, okay, this guy's got to be a pretty bad ass, right? He's fucking gymnast, and then he, you know, fucking probably has created this crazy ass routine in this cross, but he doesn't look like he's done cross.

No, but, you know, you never know. I've seen some dudes that look like him and that are freaking freaks in the gym, though. You never know. He just doesn't look like one. Yeah, I know. I've seen some dudes that look like him and that are freaking freaks in the gym, though. You never know. He just doesn't look like one. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, you can Google it for yourself

and you can see. Now, that being said, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a businessman, I enjoy sales and marketing. He's a fucking brilliant marketer. Oh, beyond. I mean, that's what they've done extremely well. We talked a lot about that.

Even if he's smart enough to know, even if you have the vision of actually starting it as a affiliate to get going. Instead of going after trying to become an LLC or a franchise or anything like that, I mean, there's a lot of real smart business strategy to that just to protect yourself, to just like we've talked about before

with studies, things like that. If you were a company, if you were a 24-hour fitness, a ballast, if you were a huge company like that, and your pumping members in and out and stuff like that, you're responsible to what could possibly happen to them in your facility or because of your facility. And so they're very, very careful, very, very, see when it comes to.

But see, they're an affiliate, they're kind of a loose affiliate program, which basically means if you're If you want to be able to run CrossFit out of your gym or have the sign on your gym that says CrossFit You got to go get CrossFit certified, which takes it to weekend You get CrossFit certified and then you get to put a sign up on your gym that says CrossFit and then that's pretty much it and in all honestly There's there's almost zero oversight. Like they're not gonna come in and check on you and see what you're doing. You could probably teach whatever you wanted to

and just say we have CrossFit. I mean, there's not much oversight whatsoever. I know this because when I was going back and forth with the official CrossFit Instagram page, I'm so proud of that. I love it when it's not- You know, it's gonna be awesome, but it's totally not. It's a fish.

Hey, it's a 13 year old kid in his base. My new crew. Better idea. I know. It's like 650,000 followers and he's just, just this little smart look. Well, so he gets, so he gets on there and I talked about how CrossFit was dangerous and how many injuries will happen. And he, and I quoted a study on our Instagram page and there's a little debate between it. First and foremost, what was the organization?

Was it the NSCA? NSCA? NSCA? Yeah. So it's a large fitness organization. They did a study on CrossFit and they had 54 participants, 11 which dropped out, nine of which said they dropped out because of injury Or overuse which basically is injury CrossFit sued them and said you did the study wrong and they had this big debate this big battle So that that right there, you know, I guess it's it's debatable whether or not that study was legit or not Then there was another study that I had quoted. Again, CrossFit comes back and says, oh no, you're misquoting the study. In the study I was quoting, it came out to like a 70% injury rate.

He came back and said no. And then they said some ridiculous shit. I'm gonna kind of tell you what he said. He basically said that CrossFit, and he tried to quote the study that CrossFit is a little bit or slightly more dangerous than gardening. I am not making that on a shirt.

I am not making the shit up. Dude, let's make a shirt. I love that. Yeah, I'm not making the shit up. You can go on, you can read the comments. That's my favorite quote. Oh, bro. CrossFit, CrossFit is a little bit more dangerous

than gardening. I guess that's true if you garden with a fucking lightsaber. Like if you're outside with a, like if you're mowing your tree, I garden more than machete. Yeah, so, you know what I'm saying? A little bit out there.

When you garden it, it's new to the thunderstorm too, to add, right? What? Let's go, let's make sure, bro, that would be such a good year. Well, then the second thing that they said, that like,

CrossFit is as safe as gardening. No, no, no, no, almost almost So then so then I then we talked about certifications and because we had ridiculed that the weekend certification wasn't enough or Wasn't an adequate certification. So I want to clarify I want to get into a little more depth with that. Okay. Yeah Do I think you can learn quite a bit in a weekend? Yes, if you're very passionate and motivated and you apply yourself, do I think you can learn how to teach Olympic lifts in a weekend?

Fuck no, no, no, no. Sorry, for any of our listeners who are Olympic coaches or very well versed in Olympic lifting, you can go and comment on our page and let us know what you think. Imagine, I mean, I don't, look, I'm look I'm a trainer been in the fitness industry for a long time The same thing goes for you can say about gymnastics also if you ask a real gym. Thank you the same exact question They're gonna say this they're gonna say the exact same it's all it's disrespectful to in fact

What article is that that we are reading that when the same guy that came after class men and made the comment about him and came after classmen and made the comment about him. And what was his response when he was talking about the gymnasts and rings and everything like that, and he was comparing to him? Well, I mean, everyone talking about it. Yeah, some of the stuff you were saying is how some of these movements, for example, the kipping pull-up, or what we like to call a shitty form

pull-up, is very specific to gymnastics. And so, and gymnasts learn it because they have to learn it in order to do their minigurances. They're transitional exercises for them to do other movements. Exactly. Right, so by the way, if you look at the injury rates of gymnastics, it's much fucking higher than you just working out regularly at the gym also.

Why? Because it's a sport. Oh, it's super stressful in the joint. It's a stressful sport. And they admit it too, like gymnasts are in complete, you know. And I think even though I feel butthurt because I didn't get quote-uncoded, you know, I feel like I stayed on that side of this.

So it was like, there's no debate with that dude. There's absolutely no debate with that. You can't tell me, you know, that it's not a sport. And that's the main argument I feel like I always make with it is that, hey, I love it. I've fucking loved to watch I got buddies that are doing it that are freaking right in the world I don't want to listen I want people to understand we have the utmost respect for the competition for the athletes for the sport of CrossFit The problem we have is the the is the doctrine. Thank you the marketing of CrossFit as a way to get in shape

Yeah, it would be like me saying hey you want to get in shape. It would be like me saying, hey, you want to get in shape, go play football or hey, average American who doesn't work out, you want to go get in shape, you should go play competitive soccer. Not the best way, is it, can you get in shape doing this thing? Absolutely, can, is it smart to do that, to take some guy who hasn't worked out for 15 years,

to go run on a field and go play soccer or something like that? Well, I even, you know, even as a football player, like, so if I was to think that if I'm going to keep at this pace and I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to practice five, six days a week and then I'm going to play a game, like, just the amount of damage I took to my body every time I play a game. And you're trying to compete, like, all the time. And that's totally palatable. That's compounding, too.

Yeah. It just gets worse. It's damaging and it's common sense. As far as studies are concerned, of course, there's going to be data that's lost from both ends. So, if we can't prove things on one end, they can't prove things on another. Well, what they say, what they tend to say is, so this is what CrossFit usually typically does.

If someone comes out, let's say an organization comes out and says, hey, CrossFit is a more dangerous form of exercise. This is what CrossFit says. Show me the data. Here's the fucking problem with that. There's no data because CrossFit doesn't keep track of it. It's an affiliate. There's no track. Like, we know how many we don't. That's what protects us. That's the difference between, yeah, franchise and affiliate is basically it's a loose affiliation. You basically take on the branding, and you take on the doctrine, but you actually don't have any research. Your business, your soul businesses at responsibility,

not the whole responsible for your members. And that's exactly, because there's no VP who comes in and oversees and checks to make sure that they're following the program, like they're supposed to be following the program and holding them accountable. So that's to make sure that they're following the program, like they're supposed to be following the program and holding them accountable. So that's always the debate that they say in response also is that, well, you know, we can't.

Yes. I would challenge trainers. That's the whole thing is like, oh, there's good trainers. There's bad trainers. It's like, no, it's not like that. You know, if you want to get my, my respect, you would turn yourself into a franchise. And you would, you would do that instead of become like this loose affiliation really like get those statistics, get that data and

present it to the public. And you know, if you're that confident, if you're that confident, if you're that confident that it's that's my challenge to you. That's my challenge. And I challenge. Yeah. I would put that study. Right. I mean, you just kept well, well, I think, you know, besides all that, if CrossFit just came out and said, we are a sport, come in compete in some major sports, you know, to go there.

Yeah, I believe in you at that point. Well, let's talk about it. It is a sport. Let's talk about this because they do get a lot of hate from the fitness industry right now. There's a lot of backlash. And why is that? But here's the thing though, I feel like,

and I know we're passionate about this, but we don't hate about it. We all can say that right. We can all admit that we all love the watch it. I think it's fucking cool shit. I mean, there's good friends that do it own gyms and we're not trying to do it. And let's keep it real.

I don't know about you too. I've never talked to you to one of you. At one point, I contemplated jump in it because I saw where it was going. It's one of the fastest growing fucking sport. It ever, I did it with one of my buddies for a while. MMA was before that. MMA was blowing all those stats out of the water

and some of that now. Here comes CrossFit and it's blowing all those stats out of the water now. They're that badass. And as a business guy, and I'm thinking like, I could easily get with my, just my reputation in my small little town And all the people I've trained I could get one of these boxes and a least guarantee 20 30 members no problem. I know I could do that

I could do more than that because I know how many people I've impacted just in my area So I fucking thought about it, but then I just couldn't I couldn't let me ask you couldn't drink the juice like they said Well, let me ask you guys what why the hate so so there's a lot of hate Like there's a huge backlash in the fitness industry about it. Why what is it about CrossFit that gets under people's skin? Um, I would say that just just the way that you I don't know you I mean It's sort of an obvious thing, but it's really hard like thing. Thank you. It's the cool like thing It's the the rituals the routines. Yeah. Well, you know, you know, I'll tell you what it is. It's not being able to take part. I actually, you know, that's my, I lead on your nerd ass to know. I expect you,

you know, what was shame for you right now. Why? You should know this nerdy. That's like a statistic to that. Like there's got to be, there's got to be a relation to that. But between what? Between the two of them. Well, I, you know, I think that the, the, I think some of the hate honestly comes from how they come out and make wild claims. Now, I don't know if they've crossfit officially makes these claims, but you hear some of the people that do crossfit

make these claims. That number one, it's we make the fittest athletes in the world. Number two, I've heard this before, and this made me, I mean, I almost fall out of my chair every time I hear this. Crossfit will build more muscle than bodybuilding. You wanna be the best athlete of all time

or you wanna be the best athlete you can be, you do Crossfit. These type of claims are gonna get under any fitness professionals' skin. I don't care what you're talking about. I don't care if you say that, powerlifting makes the best athletes. I'm gonna say, no, that's not true, or bodybuilding, or any other training for individual sports

is very different for each individual sport. And really, let's take true, bodybuilding or any other training for individual sports is very different for each individual sport. And really, let's take a back for a second. What is CrossFit? Yeah. Right. What is it? It's sort of the jack of all trades, right?

So you're trying to complete every facet of fitness that you can think of all together. Right. That's really like their, but what is their philosophy that's new? Like do they have a new philosophy? It feels, no, no, no, no, no, it's just a collaboration of everything that has already existed. They took a lot of things,

they put them together in a class setting. So, you know, the founder discovered, hey, I can make more money if I train five people at the same time versus just one. And some trainers do this that aren't crossfit. They'll just put together classes like boot camp classes or weight training classes or whatever. Also, and then they jumped, they boost the intensity.

He included exercises that he found to be extremely effective. However, like we've argued in the past, some of these exercises should not be included in these type of fatigue-based program. They just shouldn't. Well, honestly, the biggest distinction I've seen that that's different than anything else that's ever existed is that they combine Olympic lifts or major compound lifts with sprinting

and with running and with endurance together. And so people realize, oh my God, that was so hard. Like I almost got into it. Yeah, it literally took all the oxygen out of your head to where you almost pass out. Well, that's what you're gonna experience. And so some people associate that with like, well, if it's the hardest thing I've ever done,

then this must be the best approach. This must be the way I need to go. And so I feel like people have this association with hard being the best way to go. Well, speaking from personal experience, I'm gonna say this so that we don't get the behemoth after us. From personal experience, this is my personal experience. I have seen more than I can count injuries

coming from people who have trained at CrossFit facilities. These are average everyday people who went in there to get in better shape. Then they come to me with these injuries that should have never fucking happened. I also trained doctors and I trained chiropractors, and both of which have told me that their own jobs have been impacted since CrossFit got so popular.

One of the chiropractors that work with in particular, on a regular basis sees people coming to them with injuries from CrossFit. Now this is our own personal experience, okay, CrossFit, headquarters. However, I'm not the only one saying this. There's trainers, you talk to trainers all over the place and they'll be telling you that this stuff happens.

And I think it's because they're so intense heavy and because again, they're doing these very complex exercises and some of these trainers got, they learned how to Olympic lift with the weekend CrossFit certification. Well, I also, I've never heard of Rabdo Milosis before. Oh, let's talk about Rabdo. I've never even heard of that before

until CrossFit came around. You wanna go ahead and describe that for everybody that doesn't know what rabbit. So, Rabdo is when you when you damage your muscles to the point where they start to over the damage the byproduct or the waste products from the damage start to override your kidneys. They start to damage your organs. So you have to you go to the go to the hospital They test things like your creatine canace levels levels or CK levels, and they'll put you on dialysis to try and clean out your kidneys. If it gets bad enough, you can die, you can get organ failure. Well, there was one famous case online of a gentleman who sued CrossFit because he experienced a horrible case of RABDO. Now CrossFit lost that case.

Is CrossFit responsible for more cases of RABDO than other forms of exercise? Again, we don't know because the fucking data doesn't exist. However, why don't you pull up, get your computer or your iPhone, whatever you're on right now, and just Google Uncle RABDO. Type in the term, Uncle RABDO. That used to be a CrossFit mascot or logo, and it's literally, it's a clown hooked up to a dialysis machine with his organs falling out of his body, puking out his guts and turn the organs. Almost like it was like a badge of honor.

Like we're proud of the fact that Uncle Rabdo represents, you know, what the fuck? Yeah, I don't know about that. My question is, is that officially from CrossFit or is that done by somebody else? You know, why don't you, why don't you check questions? Yeah, why don't we look that up, Doug, real quick and see what that, if you have, if you can do that while we're talking here, I know it's definitely associated with it, but it could have been somebody else. Let's just go back to it. We never got to

talk really more to it. You know, I, once again, I think it quoted, right? So the aesthetic side, bro, where is that? I mean, where's the the aesthetic side? We most people let's be honest join the average person. I'm not saying like I'm not talking about the competitors If you're there's there is a percentage of those guys that sign up that actually has that they believe they want to be Compete and cross. Yeah, compete and crossfit. They have a shot. They love that that much right? So then there's the other 80% or whatever. You know what? These are numbers that I can't prove, but there's another majority, right? A much larger. We can say that safely. The majority of people don't compete in CrossFit. Yeah. They're wanting

to be either healthier and better shape. And they've heard somebody who's heard somebody who's done it and done the move their body weight. So their composition is so fast and it's such a short amount of time. And my thing is this, like, you want to do as little as you possibly have to to get the maximum results you have because all you're doing here, setting yourself up for something you just can't possibly maintain for a very long period of time. Even what I do, the whole bodybuilding thing

meant to be things. One thing I do hate about it, I am most certainly not the healthiest I've ever been. 100% I know that. I may aesthetically look like it, but the way I beat my body up all the time to try and get it to shape and look a certain way by showtime and stuff like that, the over-emount of work that I put on it and neglect to stretching and doing things I

should do for it, I'm definitely not. I have aches, pains all the time. And I think bodybuilding's a million times safer of a sport than something like CrossFit, but even I'll admit that hey, it's not long-term. I can't do this long-term if I want to be balanced. It's funny you said, so a number of articles that ever since we dropped that episode and all that controversy started, which by the way, I will say this,

I'm gonna have to admit this. When I piss people off, I tend to get off on that a little bit. I know Adam's kind of the same Justin too. We got big mouths and I love stirring the shit and it looked like it worked. But I looked this up, I went through some articles and numerous reputable articles said that CrossFit is about as dangerous as weightlifting, powerlifting,

or gymnastics. OK, now when I say weightlifting, I mean Olympic weightlifting. That's probably accurate. It's also why I would never recommend the average person looking to get in shape Go do powerlifting weightlifting or gymnastics right off the bat What I would say is someone came up if someone came to me off the street and said, Sal I want to just get in better shape and I haven't worked out in 10 years and I want to be an Olympic weightlifter

I would say great. We need to work out first We need to train together first before you can even attempt to do that. Does that make sense to you guys? No. So, I think it was the American Council of Exercise even made the same recommendation. They said before you start CrossFit, you need to exercise because they've also acknowledged that it's a sport. It's not a great way to just work out. Yeah. Well, I mean, one clear example is if somebody comes in with a previous injury,

how are they going to address it? What's the protocol? You can have a basic set of movements and fundamental sort of core exercises that they're going to revert to and teach you in the very beginning to get you up to speed. But is that really the right approach? I mean, are you really addressing what's best for that person, you know, in order to strengthen the ability? It's a group thing.

Why do they take an average or what are they like that? It's a group thing. It's like you can't. Yeah, and this is the problem I also have with groups too. So, in general, like, I don't like groups. I don't do groups because especially if you're somebody that's coming into fitness and you've been deconditioned and, you know know you haven't been in it in a long time. Like you really need that one-on-one personalized attention and this is why you know I personally

and also it sounds like ACE recommends you know you work with somebody. Yeah they want you to basically I mean you should probably if you've never worked out before you're looking to get in better shape and you still want to do CrossFit you probably should work out first with an instructor, with a one-on-one trainer to correct muscle imbalances, to learn some of these techniques and exercises before you apply them in a fatigue-based setting. Again, I can't stress enough.

And if they just replace the... It's just like if somebody had never played football before and they're gonna put them on an NFL football field for the very first time, even if they were already a freak, if we scale down, like, hit in the sled and then moving that, you're still hitting the sled and driving it and you're still getting impact and collision, like, there's no dancing around that.

You know? No, I think personally, I think the future of CrossFit, I think it's got a future. I think it exists as a sport. I think it exists as a separate sport, then the sports that we are familiar with now. I think in the future, they're going to have to start saying, listen guys, this is a sport

because as they continue and go along and add them, you actually talked about this in the first episode that people haven't been doing this long enough for us to see what the potential effects are going to be. I think in the future, as this continues, they're going to have to move in that direction because if they continue to promote it as just some way for everybody to work out,

then they're going to start. The backlash is not just going to be in the fitness industry, it's going to be the public, general public. Well, I think anybody who's doing it, like say, ask yourself, if you're in your 20s, you're in 30s, you're listening to this, even if you're in your 20s, you're in 30s You're listening to this even if you're in your 40s and you're doing it right now And you're asking yourself and you already know what these workouts are like you're going through this

Ask yourself. Can you continue training like this for 20 more years straight and really ask yourself that and if you can because I guarantee you all feel it You know, I'm saying you all feel it. You know how intense it is. We can do. There's no denying that right? There's no denying the intensity of it. That's it's legit, you know, and how you feel. Can you do that in your 70s? No, I do. In your 70s? Because if you can't, you're setting your body up for whatever however long you decided to do it for, that your body is going to think that that's what it needs to do in order to maintain the physique that you're at right now. Well, well, you know, here's a much less improved and better. Well, here's the thing.

Where you're at, what level you got to take it to then. Here's what's great about traditional resistance training. Traditional resistance training isn't, there is, yes, there is a general, very basic philosophy behind it. There's progressive resistance. You know, you're training certain muscle groups. However, resistance training is so malleable that youable that a 90-year-old can do resistance training. And so a nine-year-old can do resistance training. Crossfit is kind of, they've

pigeonholed themselves into this position to where if you're not following kind of their general workout-of-the-day type of philosophy, then you're not really doing crossfit anymore. And you know, Justin, you said this also, we train clients with a lot of the exact same movements that Crossfit does, except we don't follow that same kind of philosophy. We follow more of a linear progression, we back people down. Right. And we institute recovery and rest. Right.

Right. Which is something I never even addressed in the last one. And you address every workout according to how their body is responding from your last one. Exactly. And that's something that when you're training someone day to day like that, no matter how much we've planned ahead of time, like, okay, I thought, today she's going to work on this and this and this and this.

Once it goes go time, a lot of times, it's redirects because these things need to be addressed more than these things. Like it's, well, I'll tell you what. You can't do that in a design program for group of people like that's and I have the same Pablo I ran I ran boot camps for years and it's the it's the hardest thing that I have to swallow is I Know that like I'm looking at all these people and I'm helping them right? I'm helping I'm making them move more and do good exercise taking them through Dynamic flexibility things like that, and keep it. But that's why it's less expensive than a personal trainer.

It's awesome. I mean, this is the predicament. So, I mean, your average person, they don't want to pay the actual prices that personal trainers are worth, right? So they're going to look for alternatives. So a group training class is going to be the most appealing because now you can do it with your friends and everybody gets the synergistic effect from it.

So everybody's motivated, everybody's in there together. The problem is, and that's why we're kind of questioning, I want to say, a bit of the programming involved with CrossFit because that's something that like your average person has no idea. They're just in there for the ride. Well, have you guys seen some of the workouts, the rewards, the work out of the days? It's almost, I mean, and I hate to say this, but sometimes it looks like they just fucking throw shit together. Yeah, you know, okay, you're gonna row, and then you're gonna do these,

you know, burpees for as many as you can in 10 seconds and you're gonna do. And I look at them like, okay, where's the, I don't understand where this came from. Yeah. Anybody could do that. And here's the thing, if you just want a hard ass workout, you don't need anybody. You could go outside and go fuck yourself up for 30 minutes. I mean, it's really not that hard to really fuck.

It's not a whole lot of resistance training for pressing, either. I mean, the most is handstand pushups and hand pushups. Anything pushing up, like any more than that. We need to get some weights involved. Yeah. And so the program is, but I will say this. Look, I know there's great CrossFit trainers out there because I know some personally that are excellent trainers. However, these people have been trainers for long, they were trained for a very long time. Yeah. Before they went and got their weekend certification

across it. You could literally, literally, you could get off the couch not no shit about exercise. Go take a CrossFit certification on the weekend. Do a really good job, pass the test, and boom, now they will let you have that name on your gym as long as you pass that test, and now you can be across the trainer.

Now the same. Didn't that guy reference something about? He did, so I talked about that. And he said, oh, our certifications are excellent this and that. And so I said, are you willing and writing to say that a Crossfit certification is better than the gold standards of certifications? And I use the example of the National Academy of Sports Medicine. And he said, it is not the same.

It is better. So he said that if trainer getting certified through CrossFit is better, which any trainer that's listening will know that that is. You can't even read the NASM book in a weekend, bro. No. Much less go and take the test right away. No, because I'm pretty sure with CrossFit,

maybe that's because they have a bunch of extra pages. I can't even really comment on that. It's that stupid. Yeah, I think they teach you the programming, but like I said, if any of us in this room right now, if the three of us wanted to go learn Olympic lifting, we would have to go take some serious courses. It would take a while just to learn Olympic lifting.

And then if we wanted to learn gymnastics, basic gymnastics. These are just the mental aspects, mind you, too. Right, even applying it. It would take a while. Now, does that mean you can go get certified in an ASM and you're an awesome trainer? No, there's experiences also involved.

However, with an ASM, they attempt to teach you how to address muscle and balances issues, correctional exercise for the average client you're gonna get. That doesn't happen. I can't happen in a weekend with someone coming in now. Like I said, I know some great CrossFit trainers, but they have a long background way before.

And a lot of them have any assumptions. And a lot of them, I can speak on their behalf too, because I know them and a lot of them apply their good knowledge. Oh, they're excellent trainers. And that's what makes them a little unique for you. And I'm sure people that are listening to you are like, oh yeah, that's like my guy, he's awesome. He used to be a trainer, I'm sure.

I'm sure someone's relating right now that, you know, they're there. They at least try and incorporate things that they should know better, you know, but you just can't though. You can't, if you're truly following the program. Yeah, well, we know, the three of us know someone in particular that, you know, I would love,

actually, I would love to have a CrossFit trainer come on our show and talk to us about this and have a good healthy discussion. I really would. We're super welcome to discussion to all, you know, alternate points of view. We're very open-minded and I enjoy debate. I enjoy banter. It's almost impossible to know. No. It's almost impossible. I will say some shit and I might piss you off, but I can take it as much as I can dish it out. So we would love to have someone come on and talk to us. I mean, I invited the official CrossFit Instagram page,

whoever that guy went, to come on and talk to us, but we didn't hear anything back. I don't think so. That would be cool, dude. It would be excellent. Now, here's another thing I know this is gonna happen. There's gonna be some really fit ass crossfit people I can say, oh yeah, I challenge you to work out it.

Listen, you'll probably kick my ass and a workout. That does not say much. That doesn't say much. We're just guessing how to train people, not necessarily that we're in the best shape of all. You know, therefore I can tell you, you know, what the best thing is. Well, I just told you, I just admitted that I know

that I'm not, you know, just because I've been training this way for men's physique, man, it's not, it's different than I've ever trained. I've always trained before, like listening to my body and truly like doing, like always, I never followed like this crazy, you know, magazine workout, you know, I'm saying, like, I just, that's not how I work, you know,

I'm like, I've been working out long enough that I know about my body feels, what's tight, what needs, what I have in a dress or what's feeling overworked. And I have it, I have it hit, or something I need to really develop to strengthen something. And then you start, and I always kind of come in and out.

We've in, listen. And when we look at it, God, guys, we have to be in awe of the absolute marketing brilliance that this company has done. First of all, they have to respect for that. That's why I said, I do, I contemplated it. God, guys, we have to be an awe of the absolute marketing brilliance that this company has done. First of all, the head respect for that. That's why I said, I do, I contemplated it. I used to answer that. I said that. Did you, do you, do you, do you guys ever, did you

ever contemplate it? Oh, wait, are you like, as soon as it came out, you're like, fuck, dad, that's stupid. You know what? I did it. I did it because I, you know, what, you know what, you want me to tell you why? Yeah, you why? So I thought about, I didn't think about it because I, and I would admittedly say that I am, I am not a trainer who can train people on Olympic lifts. I don't, I've never really done them myself. I've gone as far as train in practice, just a regular hand clean or a power clean.

But I wouldn't, I didn't want to teach them. So when I saw that CrossFit incorporated those lifts, I did not want to run Any type of a cross-fed gym because I knew how technical and difficult those exercises. It's a really good point I actually thought about that. Yeah, so I said, you know, I can't I can't teach this class because I'm gonna teach people How to do snatches and this and that I can't even do myself. I've never really even trained them But you know like I said they have Fricken extremely attractive, you know athletes representing them some of the chicks on CrossFit are smoking, right?

So they show them all over social media. Then they have these competitions, which are just fun to watch. You just see these great competitions. They got great branding. They partnered with Reebok. They've got this loose affiliation, which lets them just spread like wildfire,

you know, wildfire, which I think might also be their ultimate downfall, is that it's spreading so quickly. You know, there was another company that spread. I don't know if they can't, do they got Reebok, man? Reebok is actually rebranded their logo with CrossFit logo. I don't know, I'm gonna be. They have literally made their way into the UFC.

You know that, right? Yes, and they made their way into UFC. They've actually been, bro, let me tell you, from a business perspective, I mean, I get a hard on talking about their business It's smart and it's there, you know, and I see their angle fuck yeah, I do I thought about it That's the hardest thing is a train. It's one of everybody everybody who's ever been a trainer for a long time at one point

You you you kind of question like you know, do I keep continuing this because it's my passion and because this is what I love to give to people, or do I wanna just hop on any sort of trend and ride the financial wave because we could easily do that, get easily do that. And especially once you have a certain amount of people's attention and you've helped so many people, like, that's a real easy way. But I just have too much integrity to do that.

Well, here's it. I think that's where we stop. Well, integrity is really like what defines, I think, like each one of us and what we're trying to bring to the table. And so any challenge is a healthy challenge to get people to understand not only where we're coming from, but there's also other ways of approaching fitness and to really make sure you do your homework and your research and find out.

Don't just take the common knowledge. Don't take somebody's suggestion that you know that's a friend or whatever. Do your research before you get going and make sure that it's quality information. You know what, too. If you look at the fitness industry, the fitness industry is extremely fickle. Let me give you an example, guys. You guys will remember this because you guys have been in the industry industry is extremely fickle. Let me give you an example, guys. You guys will remember this, because you guys have been in the industry as long as I have.

This company came into the market, fucking blew up. They franchise and grew faster than any fitness organization. And I'm not talking about CrossFit right now. They grew so fast, they were everywhere, all at once, and then they crumbled, because they grew, they crumbled under their own weight. I'm talking about curves.

You guys remember curves? All of a sudden, they were fucking everywhere, right? It was these little pneumatic equipment. There was a past up 24 hour fitness on the fastest growing chain. Right, so they were these pneumatic equipment and they were done in a circle and it was for women only and attracted

this particular market. They did penetrate the market differently because it attracted people that weren't normally working out. They exploded. I guarantee you if you've been in fitness long enough, you at one point contemplated opening one. They hit a niche. I mean, this is the pattern, right?

So CrossFit hits a niche, you know, they hit a niche. Right. But then they, they, they shrunk out of that. Why did they shrink? Why did they shrink so fast? I, so my studio that I just recently sold, I bought it. And it used to be a, a curves type facility. It was called Sl recently sold, I bought it and it used to be a Curves type facility. It was called Slender Lady, I believe.

But these facilities grew so fast and they were allowing just anybody to open them up And so you had these people who never worked out were like, oh, I want to jump on the bad wagon This is a great franchise. You know, if you open if you read franchise magazines Talking about the top franchises curves was listed as a top. And so, all these people had no business in fitness, opening these places up, and it was bound to crumble. The future of fitness is definitely in small facilities. It's definitely not the big boxes. And in CrossFit, I think has gonna have a place in there,

but I don't think it's gonna be this huge market player like they're positioning themselves to do now. I think it's gonna be there huge market player, like they're positioning themselves to do now. I think it's gonna be there, but I think the growth is gonna happen with also Pilates, yoga, personal training studios, and other type of, you know, more method. Unless they find a way to evolve themselves, right? Cause he's got so much momentum.

This personally, this is where I would love to get in his mind where he's going with this. This is the part I'm so intrigued by this of CrossFit. Like, you got another guy who started this with a pretty fucking smart guy. Pretty fucking smart dude to see that or I imagine he sees he saw where it was going. So like that, the way he has set himself up. Yeah, he definitely created a new concept. He could, I mean, you could evolve it to where he starts to make it more and he starts listening to stuff like this and he started to mold it more

more, you know, well, here's the problem with the branding. They've done such an effective job of branding CrossFit as a super intense, toughest workout of all time. That, how the fuck do you move away from that? Yeah, you guys can't do it. That's what I'm saying, so. So, for those of you who are listeners

who are, you know, into business, or into the business of fitness, that is something you have to think about when you're making your brand. When you're making your brand, if you're hammering home, your brand, and if your brand is super intense workouts, and you grow and explode that way, it can be very tough to back out of that. So I don't know how they're going to do it.

I honestly, I would hate to be in that position to look at everything and say, okay, where do we go? I personally think the smart thing would be for them to continue pushing the sport aspect of it. It's making the sport. It's making the sport. You've heard a seed competition come up. There's a couple of different grid league and these other kind of leagues that are coming

out of nowhere that they're basically taking a lot of the CrossFit athletes and then they're making them go through their own personal games that they have set up. The smart thing too is that it's like one of the only things which we didn't even address last time that really does an amazing job of incorporating men and women together. And so, you know, even them competing together in games, like you don't really see that.

And so, you know, they build off each other. And so I think that's why the community is so tight in it. And they're, you know, they build off each other. And so I think that's why the community is so tight knit. And they're, you know, that's your thing, whole. That's so, you should give you your heart on with your whole, where we are with sexes and stuff, where we are now, like, as far as general, how that, what a perfect timing that is right now. For CrossFit to be on that wave right now,

where we were just talking about our topic about testosterone and men and stuff like defining, you know, like the rise of the woman and stuff like that like and cross feel like there's some bad ass chicks bro. Oh there is. Fucking legit. I would not want to try to compete with a wammu to work out. No, not at all. So again, you know all the respect to the athletes, the respect to the business model, if you just want to get in shape and your you know average Joe or you know regular person just wants to look better,

probably not the best. Probably not the best. That's my opinion. That's our opinion. I don't have data to back it up. We don't have data. We don't see data otherwise. But we see things in the real world.

That's what it's about. It's probably not the best way just to get in better shape. And if you're one of our listeners and you're a cross-fitter, you know, hey, good for you. You know, we want to hear from you. We want to hear some of your experiences. But otherwise, you know, I guess that's pretty much it. We'd like to have someone come on the show with us

and have a nice, nice, healthy debate. For me, an open-minded, that's key. Maybe one day. Maybe one day. Maybe one day. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show Maybe one day. you