A few reasons crossfit does well from a mass appeal perspective.

1. Sex appeal, people want to look like the crossfit games competitors. In the words of Robert California " All life is sex"
2. Hot takes. Crossfit marketing wants us to have these conversations, at the end of the day people tune in because they claim to be the fittest on earth. This is brilliant marketing and it works.
3.You can walk to your local crossfit box tomorrow and do the same workouts you see on TV. Crossfit has a very low cost of entry.
4. 5-6 hours a week of HIT training appeals to a wide range of people. You have daily competition, no long training hours for busy lives, and the results tend to be very good.
5. Own media, crossfit does an exceptional job of promoting their sports through extensive video series.

The aerobic fitness of the guys in the games is incredible. I served in the military with one of the guys in the games today and he has an aerobic engine that is truely world class. You have to remember who started crossfit and who runs crossfit. This was designed by guys in special operations who needed to be able to maintain fitness in a short period of time during deployments. In essence it started as simple high intensity circuit training and Glassman found a way to market the "system". Dave Castro is weird, but the guys is a true hard man. The crossfit games are childs play to what he has been through.

Dave Castro is another reason not to like crossfit IMO.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Crossfit is anything but low cost.

I can walk down the street and join the local box for 120 a month. To start thats all i need. Sure lifting shoes are nice, but we are talking 200 bucks more.

$120 for a gym with no specific athlete program is trash.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

h2ofun incognito!

What is a specific athlete program?

This thing that I do, this thing is great. That thing you do, that thing it trash.

You know the programming you get from your coach...yeah that thing. Where your coach does an assessment of your abilities in the gym, discusses your goals, builds a program around those goals. Then provides criticism in the gym, takes the data weekly and adjusts...just like a triathlon coach.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Oh, absolutely. That's part of CrossFit. They're very goal-oriented. Improvement and PRs are tracked with apps. Box-members prepare for the specifics up upcoming competitions. There are progressions leading to competition, recovery after.

There are free-form workouts to work on weaknesses with coaching help. There is constant coaching feedback.

It's just like any other coaching-athlete relationship, only a bit more group oriented. Even for endurance athletes, like me, they tailored a schedule for me where I dropped down to once per week during racing season, etc.

If someone's not getting good value, they should find another coach/gym/box. This isn't like Orangetheory group workouts (which are fine, but are much cheaper for a reason).

Must have gone to one of boxes that actually takes themselves serious then...because over 4 a four year period and four different states while I was in the Army I went 9 different boxes looking for that and it wasn't like the "any coach/athlete" relationship. Basically $120-150/month for the WOD class.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Yeah, quality varies a lot. When it got popular gym bros around the world thought they could start up their own box. A lot of them suck, and there are Youtube videos to prove it. But some of them are very good. Of course there are also no shortage of crappy triathlon coaches.

Glad I am still a traditional lifter. :-)
Grandfathered in on a $300 membership.

Several of our best or high level CF competitors train alone in the open gym with the rest of us and not with the CF group at the front of the building. This is typically true as many that reach a higher level stop training with the average joe groups and have to train alone or with another higher level athlete.

Are there trucker hats? 'Cuz it's all about the trucker hat

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

No. Dude, 2012 called and wants its fashion back.

Ah, I so miss that....




NOT.

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float , hammer , and jog

Tia Toomey went to the Rio olympics as a weightlifter and is the current commonwealth games champion, so the olympic weightlifting forum may be a bit more respectful of their lifting, or at least hers.
i expect that also means she gets out of competition testing whether they do it in crossfit or not.

having spent a lifetime around track and field athletes i know most of the muscular sprinter types and many of the female throwers are much smaller than they look on TV, but i was surprised she competed in the 58Kg category. Quite a small woman for all that power.

Tia was on the B standard at Rio. It's more than me of course, but B standard doesn't medal in the Olympics. At the commonwealth games she lifted in A standard and will be top 5 in Japan if not on the podium.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Tia Toomey also won the Triplus event (swim, paddle, run) during the Games, and got into crossfit as a way to train for 400m hurdles.

She is a pretty complete athlete if you ask me.

I have no criticism of her. B Standard qualification for the Olympics is tough enough, she's got a gold Medal at A Standard in the Commonwealth Games and is now 2xCrossfit Champion. She's clearly in the 1% of female athletes and is world class in two different Strength Disciplines. As I said I'm sure she'll be qualifying on the A Standard for Japan and will be top 5...I'm not sure of medaling because that requires her to be perfect, she's capable.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.