Has the “Sport of Fitness” really arrived in the form of CrossFit, via Reebok? Sorry to disappoint you, but no, it hasn’t. The Hype of Fitness, however, is in full gear. Like clockwork the Fitness Industrial Complex uses the mainstream media to overhype an existing, but perhaps fringe or niche element of the exercise world.
Step classes, cardio kickboxing, self-defense bastardizations, yoga, pilates, Latin dance steps, boot camps, distance running have all undergone this hype machine treatment over the past three decades. CrossFit, and all of, its iterations and clones is now being pimped by Big Fitness.
There’s a lot of money to be made in them thar shoes and activewear, and with our short attention spans retailers need a constant flow of vehicles by which to move merchandise. CrossFit is just the latest in a never-ending, always-changing string of hype vehicles.
On display is marketing at work, because nothing about CrossFit resembles sport. A lot of people would argue that it isn’t even fitness. Doing something that makes you tired is neither a sport, nor is it necessarily fitness. Discuss amongst yourselves. I would say basketball, swimming and tennis are probably the closest to being the real sports of fitness. Lifting weights, throwing medicine balls and doing calisthenics by themselves aren’t sports, so how do they be come a sport by creating this mash-up?
And then there is the execution of the idea of CrossFit. When this style of exercise is performed by athletes it looks great. However, go into a local outlet, or check out the numerous CrossFit knock-off classes that you can find in just about any gym in America, and it is U-G-L-Y. A lot of reps and sets of poorly performed exercise really isn’t good for you. And doing as many of certain exercises in a certain time period, or doing in rapid fire exercises that are best done as stand alones isn’t an evolution and is not ground-breaking fitness.
So, if you want to get out there and jump into the CrossFit hype pool be my guest. But there are way better ways to spend your exercise time, effort and money.
