Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of CrossFit

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

A 2015 Harvard Divinity School study reported that among many young people, CrossFit has become a bonafide new religion. So much more than a gym, these dark-walled “boxes” full of jacked Paleo dieters flipping tires have become sites of community and transcendence (and a source of billions in revenue). But... how did CrossFit gain such a “cult” following? And what are the dangers? This week, Amanda and Isa discuss the fitness phenomenon’s hulking appeal.   Get 10% off your first order with promo code CULT at OSEAmalibu.com. You’ll get free samples with every order, and orders over $50 get free shipping.

The equipment is different. The interaction of the people is different. The movements they're doing is different. It's agony coupled with laughter. We'll make you a very different, better person. It's a profound belief set with a profound impact. And it is at the heart of the growth of everything we're doing here. Everything we're doing here.

ESA, I have two truths and a lie for you. Okay. CrossFit edition. Exciting. Okay, the first thing. Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, is a staunch libertarian who has famously uttered quotes like, routine is the enemy and I don't mind being told what to do. I just won't do it. Okay.

Okay. Second thing, CrossFit trainers or coaches, as they're called, are required to attend a week-long military style mind-body retreat as a part of their training. Okay. Last thing. One of CrossFit's beloved mascots is Pukie, a demonic clown pictured projectile vomiting to represent CrossFit's glamorization of working out until your body fails. I mean, to me, Pukie sounds like a myth. That sounds like the lie.

Yeah, but I feel like you're going to tell me it's true. Pukie is very much a CrossFit mascot. The lie is the mind-body retreat. Oh, okay. And that's his name. That's his real name. Yeah, Pukie. And that's not even the worst mascot.

There's another mascot who's also a demonic clown named Uncle Rabdo, who's pictured hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine to represent this dangerous, potentially deadly CrossFit-correlated kidney condition. What? These are mascots. They hang on the walls inside some CrossFit boxes. Demonic? That's the term you used?

Yeah. Well, Google Pukie. Pukie the clown. You can buy t-shirts with Pukie the clown emblazoned upon them. Oh my gosh. People have him tattooed on them. Yes. Do you have a clown phobia?

No, me neither. I'm a comedian. Oh, I am a clown. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the book Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism. Every week here on our show, we discuss a different group that puts the cult in culture, from Peloton to Cryptobros, to try and answer the big question.

This group sounds like a cult. But is it really? To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at Sounds Like a Cult pod. I'm on IG at Issa Medina, and I'm at Amanda underscore Montel. Issa, your skin looks so good. Oh my god. Thanks. It's because I've been using that Ossia hyaluronic cesium.

Oh my god. Today's sponsor. Yes, today's sponsor. Listeners, get 10% off your first order with promo code cult at oseamallaboo.com. You'll even get free samples with every order free shipping for orders over $50. Now let's get right to this week's topic. The Cult of CrossFit. I made a ghost sound because it's scary.

Oh my. Long time coming. It's, I feel like the companion episode to our very first ever Sounds Like a Cult app, which was SoulCycle. Yeah. I mean, CrossFit is the other zealously followed workout trend that people always talk about like jokingly as a cult, but also kind of serious. And they comment on all of our posts about it.

Yes, they do. It makes for almost the perfect topic. Exactly. What is it, Amanda? Yeah, what the hell is it? I thought it was an idea. Turns out it's much more than that. Yeah.

Actually, CrossFit being an idea is a very good way to put it. Let's start with some background. CrossFit is first and foremost, I suppose a workout, a boutique workout, if you will, consisting of, to use a little bit of their lingo, high intensity functional movements. Oh, what? I like the way you said that. Just like question mark. Yeah, it's like a boot camp style workout moves.

Like burpees and lunges and planks. Yeah, CrossFit's whole ethos is like, stone age humans were built to lift boulders and swing from trees. So those are the functional moves we should be doing. Yeah, because that's literally how I get to work, actually. I swing from tree to tree. In Los Angeles, actually, palm tree to palm tree. But what makes CrossFit CrossFit is not necessarily the moves themselves,

but the sort of militaristic, masculine, anarchical culture that surrounds the workout. CrossFit first opened its doors, guess what year? I googled it, so I know. Oh, shit. God damn. Sorry. 2000. Yeah, 2000.

I thought it was newer than that. Yeah, I would have thought so too. But it's a full-blown 22 years old. Well, that's the crazy thing is we are very much in our 20s. Yes, we are as in the 20s as it gets. Oh, I see. I thought you were going to say we're very much in our 20s, and I'm like, by the time this comes out, I might be very much in my 30s.

But right now, we're in our 20s. We're in our 20s right now. Also, it's the pandemic year. You're not going to be in your 30s for another year. I love your interpretation of math. That's how I, yeah, time is an illusion. Exactly. Albert Einstein said it.

I'm 24, actually, now. Yeah, I'm 28. Perfect. Love that for me. But 2000 sounds like it was just yesterday, but it wasn't. Yeah, and 1970 was 52. 22 years ago. That's crazy.

Did you see that meme that's like 1979 is to 2000? What 2000 is to now? No, but I'm sorry. That fucked with me. Yeah, it opened its doors in 2000. This was the dawn of the boutique fitness era in the US. So it was around the same time that we got bar and core power yoga. SoulCycle came a little later.

It was started by this guy named Greg Glassman. Greg Glassman's personal politics are very libertarian. He considers himself very anti-establishment, anti-big box gym in the 80s and like early 90s. The fitness scene was ruled by Gold's gym and Planet Fitness. He's like big establishment gyms. And he was like, fuck that. I'm a rebel.

He's like, I'm actually a gym hipster. Yeah, kind of. He was like, I'm a maverick. Okay. Like screw the man. And he was like, I'm opening my own alternative fitness studio that doesn't follow all these corporate drone rules. He's different.

He's different. He's not like other Gregs. Other Gregs. So this Greg had it in his mind that everyone else was working out wrong and he had the answers that were going to revolutionize exercise in this country and build this whole new world of like jacked demigods. Yeah, he was like, we're not going to call this a gym. We're actually going to call it a box and it's going to be all black inside.

And there actually aren't going to be workout machines. There's going to be big tires and ropes and bars like in a prison yard. Yes, but, but oh yeah, I'm going to charge you $250 a month to come here. Oh my God, this Greg is so different. So unique. At its peak in early 2020 CrossFit had over 10,000 gyms. Oh, wow. And was generating $4 billion annually.

Over those 20 years, it like exploded in popularity. Whether soldiers or soccer moms, the evangelical enthusiasm of Glassman's disciples has led to criticism. Can you hear people describe CrossFit as a cult? What do you say? I don't mind that. What if someone led a cult and they didn't know they were? I mean, that would be messed up, right?

So I started trying to try to think what makes us a cult and what would define a cult. One is recruiting and I ain't recruiting anybody. I don't, you know, you got people calling me up. Hey, I was thinking about joining CrossFit. Well, then call back when you've decided to, you know. So the doors are open. You're not recruiting. Yeah, we're not recruiting.

We're not barring the doors. I mean, it really is an open house. One of the earliest interviews that I did for my book was with a diehard CrossFitter, this girl that I was friends with I used to work with. Her name was not really Alyssa, but that's the name I used in the book to protect her identity. Good. Is she safe? I don't really know, actually.

We need to check it on Alyssa. We actually really, really do. I have not even seen her in my Instagram feed. Where are you? To the CrossFitters, get you. Oh my God, I'm worried. So I wanted to interview her because she was like defined by CrossFit. That was the most salient detail about her as a person.

It was the first thing I thought of when I thought of her. She would wake up at 4 a.m. every single day to go do her workout. And you know that wasn't just for the workout. Like there had to be something else going on there. Hot trainer. Hot trainer. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely remember coming across some stories that ended up on the cutting

room floor of my book where like a couple would meet at CrossFit, start working out together, become swolemates. Swolemates? As it's called. Yes. Oh, actually Alyssa and her boyfriend called each other swolemates. So CrossFit definitely influenced the way that she dated, the way that she dressed, the way that she talked, definitely the way that she ate.

She was the first paleo person I ever met. So she was a pretty zealous CrossFitter, but I recently learned that you actually did CrossFit once. Yes. So what was that experience like? True to form. I have tried CrossFit as I have tried everything once in your life, except shrooms.

I haven't done that yet. And I know you, oh, this is the difference between you and me. I have shrooms, chocolate in the fridge. Yeah, I need to be mentally. I feel like I was mentally stable enough to try shrooms before the pandemic. And then the pandemic happened. I'm not. I would recommend micro dosing.

I know I need to get into that. Cult of shrooms, an episode for later. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. But yeah, I have tried CrossFit. I did it my, I call it my fifth year of college, but it was when I was in grad school because I graduated in four years and then I stayed an extra year for my master's.

You did something like very fancy and accomplished, but you're phrasing it to sound like you were slacker. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I have a master's degree and so I stayed an extra year in college. ESA is actually more academically decorated than I am. Which is super random. Anyway, during my year in grad school, I did CrossFit. I tried a bunch of different workouts because I was so bored of running

because I'd been running my whole life. I wanted to try something different. So I just, I did anything that had like a free trial pretty much. And the local CrossFit gym had your first lesson or workout with them was essentially free. Essentially, I don't know why. Sometimes I say that word to sound smart. It was concretely free. It was concretely free.

And so I did it. CrossFit to me, my experience was that you do burpees, you do squats, you do pull-ups, but it's like this obsession with reps and like how many you can do and how much you can lift. The workout is very competitive and it's all kind of based on beating other people and most importantly, beating your own personal best. It's not necessarily about like getting in shape calmly and safely. Yeah, that's like not why you choose CrossFit.

Yeah, so they referred to CrossFit as a sport rather than an exercise, which is weird to me because like it literally doesn't have like a point system. But then of course later, I learned that CrossFit has an extremely competitive CrossFit games every year, which is like the CrossFit Olympics where all these jacked CrossFitters from around the world lift massively heavy shit and it's very intense, just Google CrossFit games. Yeah, it's very like Spartan seeming, I feel. Yeah, it's like, what are you even competing for? Like just text your mom back, you know?

But in my experience, everyone was super kind, welcoming immediately. Just like, what do you think you can do? How do you feel? Like what have you done in the past? But I obviously didn't enjoy it as much as SoulCycle, I'll say that much. Well, the way that you were talking to me about it earlier is that you didn't connect with the culture as much. It's not that I didn't connect with the culture, it's that the culture didn't connect with me.

Yes, but like in SoulCycle or other workout classes, they have their own language, right? Like they have the workout of the day, they call it the wad, a bench squat, they call it a BS or a bench press, they call it a BP. It's really just like a bunch of fucking abbreviations. Yeah, we love an acronym, we love an abbreviation. Exactly, what is the difference between an acronym and abbreviation? Oh, an acronym is when you're just saying the first letter of all the words in the phrase and an abbreviation is when you're shortening the word.

So like MVP is an acronym, these are more acronyms. Yes. Okay. Oops, I've been saying GTGG, the girls that get it, get it, and I've been calling it an abbreviation. Well, an acronym is a type of abbreviation. Oh, but yeah, I tried it. I feel like it's one of those things that you have to be really competitive about it to let yourself get enthralled by the culture.

I don't know, like when I'm going to fucking cheer you on to see how many squats you can do. Okay, so you just like, you weren't, I'm trying to come up with an alternative phrase to drink the Kool-Aid. You weren't finding the inherent value that a lot of other people were in these activities. Yeah, I wasn't guzzling the Gatorade. We'll call it that. Well, of course, like anytime anyone brings up lingo, I'm going to focus on that. And I remember Alyssa talking to me about how the CrossFit lingo was the very first thing that struck her. She had initially joined CrossFit because she was a freshman in college.

She was looking for a workout to like boost her self-esteem and get her back in shape. And her uncle was in the cult of CrossFit. And he was like, this will change her life. You have to try it. So she already had an immediate connection too. Yes. I think the reason I was more at distance with it was because I was just randomly looking for a workout. You weren't recruited.

So she was recruited, so to speak, by someone who was a zealous worshiper and believer in CrossFit. And she was in a somewhat vulnerable position because she's a freshman in college. She doesn't really have a fully formed sense of self yet, doesn't have a strong sense of community yet. And she walks in the door and hears this group of people that seem intensely connected. They're all speaking this exclusive lingo. The gym isn't called a gym. It's called a box. Yeah.

And the trainers weren't called trainers. They were called coaches. She was just really captivated by how bonded these CrossFitters seemed. She naturally wanted to learn the lingo in the way that like you hear kids on the playground speaking pig Latin and you instantly want to know how to do that. And it sounds silly, but like acronyms and abbreviations create that sense of allure. It's like, what do they mean? Entirely.

That's like all social media is falling into these things that you think are an inside joke. And so you feel like you're a part of the community. Yes. Yes. And it's not like you're saying anything that can't be said in plain English, but you being able to say it in this special way makes you feel superior. Yeah. Ick yick.

Ick yick. If you know, you know. Yay. So she was especially enthralled with the way that this wasn't just a workout. This was a mentality that the CrossFitters wanted her to carry with her, not just inside the box, but everywhere. She would come to internalize these motivational phrases that were used at CrossFit like beast mode to help you embed the CrossFit philosophy into your bones.

They would repeat the phrase EIE, another acronym, which meant everything is everything. What the fuck? Which what does that even fucking mean? I never heard that one in my two classes. Well, and I think every gym has a slightly different lexicon because true to the founders, libertarian MO, he doesn't control what goes on in each box. Like the boxes aren't these carefully monitored franchises like a Chick-fil-A or something. Damn Chick-fil-A sounds so good right now.

Fucking Chick-fil-A is a cult. Or at the very least a problematic fave. But I hook up with women so like I'm allowed to eat it. It's my choice. The point is anybody can open a CrossFit box. There's just like a two day training needed to become a certified coach. Yeah, and it's actually not that uncommon for diehard members to quit their day jobs and become coaches themselves.

That is very true and very culty. And then once they have that little certification, they can pretty much do whatever the hell they want in there, which has pros and cons, right? Less regulation, but more chaos. It slowly started to commandeer these different portions of her life. So when Alyssa noticed that everybody at her box was dressed head to toe and designed her workout swag, she went and dropped $400 at Lululemon.

It's kind of like when you join a sorority, you start wearing the big t-shirts and the shorts that you can't see under the big t-shirts. It's that sense of physical conformity. As soon as she learned that most CrossFitters were paleo, she went paleo. A lot of coaches at her box were hooking up with members. So she started fooling around with one of her trainers. And every time she planned to miss a workout because she was going to be out of town or something like that,

she would have to go into their private Facebook group for the box that she was a member of and tell everybody that she wouldn't be there in advance lest she be shamed publicly for being a no-show. Wait, it's a workout class. You don't owe them anything. You're paying to go to the class. So I think there was this social contract that involved shaming if you didn't show up. Yeah, what year was this again?

It was like 2009. Okay, yeah. Oh, Facebook was thriving. Oh, that was peak Facebook era. Facebook was my cult at that time. Yeah, yeah. But now Instagram is even slowly dying, as they say. Everyone's doing like photo dumps.

I saw this thing that was like, as soon as people started making albums on Facebook, that was like the death of Facebook. And then now people are doing photo dumps, which is like the Instagram version of an album. And it's like death to Instagram. That's an interesting observation. It's like, I don't even care enough to curate.

Yeah, just like dumb. But it's so, so curated. Everyone's Instagram dumps are, it mine took me three days to make for the 2021. Rough. The skincare industry can be pretty culty. Stay tuned for that episode. And it can be hard to cut through all the buzzy brands and grandiose promises

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You're going to want all this stuff. Go to Oceamallaboo.com and use the code CULT. You know, I've heard some people say that CrossFit can't be a cult because it's welcoming everyone and it doesn't control anyone. But I think that every gym is different. It's such a big workout style, every gym has its own coaches, and they all have their unique style of training. And I think that the trainer or coach is really, really important to set an example.

I completely agree. I don't want to sensationalize and say that the culture of every CrossFit box is get the fuck out level, culty. However, I do think that, first of all, in general, the fact that CrossFit and cult workouts like it have come to serve truly a religious role in the lives of so many young people in particular who are rejecting the traditional religions and churches that they grew up with puts a certain amount of pressure on it.

A 2015 Harvard Divinity School study found that CrossFit is among the top groups giving America's youth a modern religious identity. So it carries more power than it might seem to. And secondly, we can't not mention that CrossFit founder Greg Glassman is now cancelled. And we'll talk about that in a second, I'm sure. But his personal vibe definitely informs the overall culture of CrossFit. And he totally filled that charismatic leader type role. I remember at the time when Alyssa was at CrossFit,

he was known as the wad father, like the workout of the day father, which is so culty. Or it's like, yes. There was a portrait of him hanging on the wall of the box where she went to. Like he was the freaking leader of North Korea. Next to one of his famous quotes that she then committed to memory. I remember Alyssa literally said it to me from memory on the phone. When I interviewed her, she was like, eat meat and vegetables,

nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. It was like this whole monologue that didn't really say anything profound, but it was so engraved into her brain, you know? Yeah, there's no really getting away from the culture that a leader has created. Even if you have like 10,000 branches, not everyone is going to have a toxic culture. But when there is a one singular leader to anything, there's no really like getting away from that person's beliefs. And I think for me, that is his machismo that like seeps into the culture.

Overall, the workouts that they do are really macho. Traditionally speaking, lifting as much as you can, flipping tires, the dark look of the box, AKA gym. You'd think these people were in a basic training to join the US Army. And that's where I think it creates space for there to be a power of abuse with minority groups in those communities, whether that's like people of color or women in the groups, because it's such a like male dominated thing. Oh yeah, I mean CrossFit is so pro military and police.

And you can hear that in the fact that they have what are called hero wads or hero workouts of the day, which are these move sequences that are named after fallen military and police officers, which no matter how welcoming CrossFit claims to be, that's like a subtle message that populations who have fraught relationships with the military and police are low key, not welcome there, or not so subtle. You know, even if there was one CrossFit box where the coach was creating like a really warm, collaborative, low stakes, low pressure environment,

still the culture of working out in the US is so much more than about working out. Like, yeah, the fitness industry in general has this extremely maximalist ethos that you can hear in CrossFit's language, like CrossFit in particular has this sort of more is more rhetoric that working harder and faster and never quitting and intensely believing in yourself will give you not only strong biceps, but inner peace and that reminiscent of multi-level marketing ideology. I feel like it's this American obsession with being the best at whatever you do. It's like, nothing is ever just a hobby.

Right. Oh, it's so true. That reminds me of one of the mantras that I overheard while interviewing people at CrossFit. They would say the burden of failure is far heavier than the barbell. Whoa. Or have you heard that saying pain is temporary, glorious forever? Yes, that saying was literally on the walls of my high school gym. I was like, what the f- I'm doing curl ups, you know? Well, I think the first half of that slogan is actually really helpful.

Like everything is ephemeral, like pain won't last forever, but using it as a justification for any kind of abuse and connecting, winning, and success and glory to your fundamental value as a human is just a secular version of the message that God helps those who help themselves. Like it is so reminiscent of like new thought and the prosperity gospel and these really toxically positive bootstrap ideas that are so malignant in this culture. My favorite CrossFit slogan that I came across was,

puking is acceptable, blood is acceptable, quitting is not. That's insane. Blood. Even though there are these different boxes with their own cultures, the fact that they have things like that that are part of the community at large, that's the vibe. That's a vibe that they are curating that can be toxic, you know? I have heard you say that CrossFit prepares athletes for quote, the unknown and the unforeseen.

It sounds like you're getting ready to go to war. Yeah, why not? Yeah, for getting ready for war, getting ready for earthquake, getting ready for mugging, getting ready for the horrible news that you have leukemia. What awaits us all is challenge. That's for sure. CrossFit, he says, is creating a new super breed.

When you took those two very significant CrossFit classes, I'm so fit. I feel like people might think that I'm really fit. I haven't worked out in like six months. I stopped doing boutique classes when we started the podcast. Yes, this is our this is our anti-sport. But when you were doing those workout classes, did you ever feel like you were doing a workout that might hurt you? Yeah.

Oh yeah, definitely. I especially had like the voice of my actual high school coaches from cross country and track, like in the back of my mind being like, you need to warm up, you need to do this. Having been like a cross country runner for four years in high school and a captain myself, if I do say so. There are a lot of rules to working out so that you don't get injured. And something that I think I didn't like about it was that the trainers themselves, I don't know how much training they themselves have.

Yeah, that's interesting because CrossFit's climate is definitely one of lawlessness, you know, and that stems from the personality and politics of Greg Glassman. And in not every box because CrossFitters get defensive about this. And I know like not in every box, but in a lot of boxes, followers are encouraged to work out so hard that they might vomit or pee on the floor or even go to the hospital. Yeah, it's almost like a badge of honor to get injured. And I understand that from a personal perspective,

because when you run a lot, you get shin splints, but I got a stress fracture, which means I had to be like in a boot. And I remember like the best runners got stress fractures because like they ran so many miles. But why the fuck was like that glorified, you know, right? That's horrible for you. Like that has led to long term effects for me now where I have to like get really annoying shoes to not be hurting when I run. Yeah, I mean, I think that speaks to right this like fundamental value of like pushing

yourself past your breaking point. But while I was writing, Kultashe came across this medium post that was written by a guy named Jason, who was a cancer survivor. And he joined CrossFit as, you know, a self empowerment exercise after he finished chemo. But then he was forced to quit after developing this chronic shoulder pain and knee injuries so severe that he had to get surgery. And I'll quote his, his medium article.

He said, the first year was exhilarating. I began bragging about my lifting numbers and quickly amped up the frequency of my visits from three to four, then five days per week without even realizing it. I became that evangelizing asshole. The messed up part is that injuries in CrossFit are seen as badges of honor. Just like you were saying, the price of getting righteously ripped, bro. So he came to his coaches about his shoulder and knee pain. And they kind of gaslit him into making him believe it was his fault.

He was saying like, you're supposed to push yourself to the limit. But when you hit the limit and pay the price, you're the idiot who went too far. Exactly. No, I was just about to say when you have shin splints in cross country, your coaches are like, ice your legs. You're not doing enough. You need to like stretch more and like take better care of yourself, but you need to keep running, need to keep running.

No days off. Just run on the grass instead of the pavement. But as soon as you get a stress fracture, which you literally can't run on, they're like, you pushed it too far. Oh, wow. Yeah, that can be damaging because the underlying sentiment is like, we didn't care enough about you to look after you. Like you're all on your own.

And coaches have so much sway over a person's life that I think that there should just be a harsher code of conduct from HQ because every trainee, every coach has their own mechanisms, but they should have some boundaries and some rules set by them, by like higher up. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I see that happening, but if there was a chance of it happening, it might be now since Greg Glassman stepped down from CrossFit.

Greg Glassman got canceled because, you know, for years CrossFit HQ denied that its culture was unwelcoming to members of color. But in June 2020, when people were protesting for Black Lives Matter, Greg Glassman shot off all these racist emails and tweets, and one he responded to a statement about racism as a public health crisis by saying very glibly, it's Floyd 19, and then finally, you know, people started to realize that CrossFit wasn't really for everyone, you know? Yeah, and that was the leader of a national group that was like...

With 10,000 boxes. Yeah, with 10,000 boxes, 10,000 gyms, that even though they have their own unique culture, to have a leader that has those beliefs, that immediately like associates you with that type of belief system, which is wrong and not inclusive for these folks who don't look like everyone else at their gym. So hundreds of gyms disaviliated with the CrossFit brand, active where companies pulled their contracts,

Glassman stepped down as CEO. But at the end of the day, whether Greg Glassman is in charge or someone, let's be honest, very much like him, that religious role that groups like CrossFit have come to play in the lives of so many Americans when at the end of the day, it is just a corporation run by like a bald white dude is sus. It's so sus. I feel like Twitter is the reason for so many corporations having religious like leaders,

because they use Twitter as a way to like shoot out their ideas, and they're kind of seen as testaments, you know? Yes. And so it's like a proverb. It's like a biblical proverb. It's like 140 characters and like it and comment on it. And then like the idea of following someone on social media is. Oh, the first thing I noticed about Instagram was that your friends were called your followers.

Yeah, like Facebook, it was like your friends. I was like, is that not encouraging us all to start our own cult? Yes, it is. So Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life. Watch your back. Get the fuck out. What do you think about CrossFit? Girl, girl.

It is a watch your back. Watch your backie back. Look back while you're squatting. You know, do a pull up, but look behind. It's not to get the fuck out because I think it lacks a sense of really deep central authority. And I think you can join a gym and do your workout and leave at the end of the day. I agree. I mean, if you find yourself in a cult fitness community that may or may not be entirely healthy,

some questions worth asking yourself are, is this group genuinely welcoming of all different people? Or do you feel pressure to dress and talk like everyone else, even outside of class? Are you allowed to participate casually to dabble? Or do you find yourself putting all your time and faith into this group alone and basing all your decisions on theirs? Do you trust the instructor to tell you to slow down or maybe even take a few weeks off or try a whole different exercise if your body needs it?

Yeah, like do you feel welcome if it's not the only thing that you're doing? Exactly. Will your instructors only tell you harder, faster, more no guts, no glory, you know? Yeah. And do you feel like the exit costs are not so high that if you leave, you'll feel extreme shame or lose your friends or lose your whole life that you've built. Is that a price you're willing to pay? And I think a lot of those questions have sketchy answers in the context of CrossFit.

So while I don't want to be alarmist and call it a get the fuck out, because I think I want to reserve that category for like the flat earthers. Yeah. And some of the other topics that we'll be discussing very soon. I think it is a heavy. Heavy. You think it's a heavy watch your back? A heavy watch your back.

I think it's a solid watch your back. Okay. I am bringing my own bias to the situation though, because I called SoulCycle a solid watch your back, but you think that in that scale, CrossFit is worse? Well, I think CrossFit is worse because CrossFit's like more boys and I do, I scared of boys. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm scared of boys too. We all have like our own scales.

No one comes to anything with complete objectivity. Yeah. So not objectively whatsoever. When I look at CrossFit, I'm more scared than when I look at SoulCycle. I'm really weak and small. I really think I would get hurt if I tried to do anything they do in CrossFit. Yeah, you definitely would like fall under the weight of the bench press or whatever the head has a BP, a C2B, a B, C, D, E, F, G, but this is also a good opportunity to

a good opportunity to combine people that like everyone's going to have a subjective opinion about the classification of these groups. That's the whole point. Yeah, I completely agree. Don't get offended if like we, you're in CrossFit and we called it a watch your back, babe. Just watch your back. Just watch your back as we all should do.

Always. Stay vigilant. Stay vigilant. Fokie folks. That's our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. And in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty.

Sounds Like a Cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Colby. Subscribe to Sounds Like a Cult wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.