085 How Did We Get Here?

The Paul Weber Podcast

Send us a text

In the wake of the CrossFit Games, many people have found themselves disenchanted with CrossFit.
For some, they feel that an organization they used to align with has betrayed their trust.
1. it’s important to recognize what makes CrossFit attractive
2. once we understand those characteristics, we can know what we want to preserve while CrossFit goes through something of a reformation
We discuss:
1. Degradation vs. Sanctity
2. Risk vs. Safety
3. Physicality vs. Skill
4. Primal Man vs. Civilized Man
5. Effort vs. Thought
6. Survival vs. Hitting the Mark
Here's what I'm trying to do - we chose CrossFit. You and I. We voted for it. With all of its risk. With all of its military connections and primal physicality.
We don't want CrossFit to die, or even to change that much. We want it to be safe. But when something becomes safe to the point of having no risk at all, we lose interest.
Finally, CrossFit is one of the only sports, or endeavors in general, that overtly makes a sort of spiritual claim. Crowning the winners of the CrossFit Games the "Fittest on Earth."
In order for that claim to be compelling, it requires risk of pain, physicality, primal movement, effort and approaching physiological limits (like we had to when fighting for survival).
However, in the opinion of many athletes, for years that intention has gone just a little too far.
At the end, we want the athletes to emerge victorious. We don't want to have to honor them after death, we want to honor them in life.
This requires that we reframe the CrossFit Games, and that the sport team at CrossFit, Inc.:

• clarify their intentions
• standardize the movements
• establish the competitive season
• develop safety protocols
• design balanced testing
• be accountable to checks and balances

If these things happen, we can begin to see CrossFit as a sport, rather than a gauntlet of spiritual significance.
And we can participate with an amount of risk we can all accept.