About
Crossfit is a fitness company which promotes itself as a physical exercise lifestyle and competitive fitness sport, which sells licenses to affiliated gyms across the world. Crossfit athletes are often associated with various types of weightlifting, body weight exercises, high-interval training and unorthodox fitness routines.
History
Crossfit was founded by entrepreneur Gleg Glassman in 2000, with the first affiliated gym located in Seattle, Washington. The Crossfit company licenses its name to gyms for an annual fee and provides a certification program for Crossfit trainers. Workouts include gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, running and endurance. The “Crossfit Games” event has been held every summer since 2007, in which participants compete in a variety of fitness challenges. As of March 2014, there are over 9,000 Crossfit gyms around the world.[6]
Pregnant Weightlifting
Several Crossfit gyms incorporate weightlifting programs for pregnant women. On May 12th, 2014, the Barcroft TV YouTube channel uploaded an interview with Crossfit athlete Megan Leatherman, who continued performing various barbell lifts up to her ninth month of pregnancy (shown below).
Reception
Many athletes praise Crossfit for bolstering an inspirational and motivating fitness community, urging members to push themselves and make healthy lifestyle choices. Critics often accuse Crossfit of being too lax with certifications for trainers and cite a high prevalence of injuries among Crossfit enthusiasts.[5]
Online Presence
On July 2nd, 2008, a Facebook[2] page titled “Crossfit” was launched. On December 25th, the /r/crossfit[1] subreddit was launched for discussions about the fitness company and affiliated gyms. In the first six years, the Facebook page gathered upwards of 1.5 million likes and the subreddit gained over 25,100 subscribers. On February 16th, 2012, YouTuber Jenny Morgan uploaded a video titled “Shit Crossfit Girls Say,” mocking stereotypes associated with female Crossfit athletes (shown below, left). In three years, the video gathered more than 1.03 million views and 590 comments. On February 19th, 2013, YouTuber durianrider uploaded a compilation of workout FAIL videos mocking Crossfit techniques (shown below, right).
On November 11th, Redditor mikemulloy submitted an image macro of himself performing stand-up comedy captioned with a joke about Crossfit athletes talking too much about the fitness company to the /r/standupshots[4] subreddit (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post accumulated upwards of 5,500 upvotes and 175 comments.
On December 5th, the BroScienceLife YouTube channel posted a video titled “What is Crossfit?”, in which host Dom Mazzetti mocks the fitness company for focusing on endurance training over heavy lifting (shown below). In six months, the video received over 2.4 million views and 2,800 comments.
Fandom
Related Memes
Crossfit GIFs
Animated GIFs of people performing bizarre or unorthodox exercises have been created that are often captioned with flashing “Crossfit” text, some of which mock the Crossfit-style “kipping” pullup which uses swinging and jerking movements to pull oneself up on a bar (shown below, middle, right).
Search Interest
External References
[1]Reddit – /r/crossfit
[4]Reddit – Crossfit – first attempt since my AMA
[5]Reddit – Can someone clearly explain to me why Crossfit is bad?
[6]Crossfit – Success and the Bulls Eye