I think 2 things are contributing to this. 1 is the firing of the media dept. and 2 is that the athletes aren’t immersed in the community like they were in the Froning era.
@@ramblr5900 that’s awesome how you found it. It’s just hard to put into words how CrossFit was in that era. The media they would put out then was unreal. And not just on the road to the games. But on real people in the affiliates that lost a bunch weight, reversed their diabetes. I remember they had this series of this guy that was doing CrossFit while he was in prison.
I started CrossFit in 2011. The reason I quit CrossFit in 2017 was due to these changes. $200/month No open gym Culture changed from athletes to God people. Coaches that weren’t athletes, but non athletic cheerleaders who didn’t know shit about coaching techniques
SO MUCH THIS. After having soooo many bad experiences with “coaches” especially after doing CrossFit for more years than these “coaches” and then learning how easy it is to be a CF L-1 “coach” - it ruined the affiliate experience for me and now I do it all at home. And, for the first time in 7 years…. I don’t plan to send any $$ to HQ for the Open.
Rory working for Mayhem Nation seems to say it all. Froning made Cookeville the epicenter of CrossFit and welcomed all of his competitors to train with him. Fraser, Bridges, Bailey, Hobart training at the Barn with Rich. Rich runs Level I seminars, trains at CF Mayhem, has 2 competitive teams in the Games etc. Rich, Dan and Josh trained at Josh's San Diego house. I know more about Rich than I do about Mat and Tia combined. Rich continues to give to his community and to CrossFit but others seems to just take and take.
One of the big nails in the coffin was athletes shifting to training in their own facility instead of the affiliates. Having star athletes training along side regular classes helped motivate members, and act as a sort of free advertising was pivotal for years. Team division mattered a hell of a lot more because it was members of the community, people that live in the area, and not just a field of people that didn't qualify as individual that year. If you hear about a new up and coming athlete it'll be out of a training camp, not an affiliate.
In the UK Hyrox has taken over from crossfit. London May 2023 Hyrox was the largest indoor fitness event in the UK ever with over 10,000 competitors. Even crossfit boxes now are focusing on Hyrox. Mainly down to the fact that crossfit is now seen as just unattainable to even get into a local low level competition, whereas Hyrox the entry bar is low. Every year crossfit gets heavier and more technical gymnastics.
I love constantly developing skills in CrossFit like improving Olympic lifts and gymnastics. It keeps me interested in the sport seeing numbers or technique improve but I couldn’t agree more when you see things like crossover double unders and all the variations of HSPU and handstand walks come out. It seems unobtainable to remain a RX athlete even if your training 90 mins to 2 hrs a day
I'm mostly doing Hyrox at my crossfit gym these days as we were the first gym affiliated to Hyrox in France. There are several good points to Hyrox. 1) It resonates with people who just want to come in the gym, sweat their ass off and go home. You don't need to go through cycles of skill work with low intensity to develop the skills to do kipping pullups, hold a hand stand and do a snatch. crossfit prones to develop technic before intensity but to a part of the population they know they'll never pass the technique threshold and just want to move with intensity. 2) Since there are less skills required, you can have a bit of a larger group to coach in a session, thus making it more economicaly sustainable. 3) Since there is less skills required, the shit coaches (and there are too many) will send less people to the physio cause they are hurting themselves in the long term. The main bad point I see with Hyrox is the format of the event, the fact that it is standardised and never change so far makes me feel that the trend will be risk to fall off quicker than crossfit is right now. They'll need to diversify and offer a variety of events in my opinion or people will get bored.
@@tracybriggs3542 yep agreed. By the time I'd learnt HSW and muscle ups that was no longer good enough. It just felt like an endless moving bar to even enter a competion.
@@ar3sgaming514 agreed. I think the beauty of it at the moment is you can really track your progress in this race. With the low bar to entry you can compete right away and then work hard to improve. Hyrox in the UK is absolutely insane now, you can't go to a gym without seeing the logo or people training for it.
I did Crossfit from early 2012 , which looking back, was probably the very end of the "underground" era (i.e., paleo diet, pre-bock, vibram sneakers, super grungy small "boxes" etc). The athletes back then were to some extent "one of us", your local gym hero had a shot at regionals (albeit very small), and elites were heavily invested in the community. It somehow made it seem like the $20 five week open fee had some value. Even down to the teams division in the Games...they were for the most part actual members of the affiliate, guys we trained with every day, and when the team made Regionals it felt like the ENTIRE GYM made Regionals. As a more general CF fan, the media team provided some real good content, some as simple as "Dan Bailey performs mainsite workout XYZ", or "a Day in the Life of....", and the setting was based around a Crossfit affiliate. Maybe it was because it showed the athletes doing "typical Crossfit" stuff (metcons). Anyway I wrote all this but don't quite know what point I'm trying to drive home lol. I haven't done CF since 2019 and the ONLY reason I have ANY interest whatsoever is because of Sevan and Hiller. Keep up the good work!
I’m jealous of people who got to start back then. I started maybe 2018 or 19 fell off hard, came back 2019 into 2020 and then Covid shut me down which destroyed me and then took me another year or so to finally get back to it again.
Things do just change sometimes. I don’t know everyone else’s experience but here’s mine. When I started we had a very large box with a lot of personality of people (some of which I’m still friends with). It seemed like the coaches lost interest (and TBH even though they were in shape they knew jack shit about the human body or programming). The programming just got worse and TBH I didn’t seem to get in better shape (arguably I became in worse shape). I “got better” at some things so it had the illusion of becoming stronger or better shape. Most of that was probably poor programming. So finally I just had to drop the membership because I wanted to put some size and strength on that I lost joining CrossFit. So long story longer you REALLY need someone that is great at programming because inherently CrossFit is at a disadvantage in the way people usually see it because it doesn’t progressively overload consistently enough. You see so many people just stay the same.
I started back in 2014 and have since built a home gym and follow mayhem programming out of my house. I prefer my resources to go to the areas that bring mutual benefit (Mayhem, Rogue Fitness, Sevan and Hiller)
You hit the nail. Froning era athletes were bought in. They believed in it which made us believe it. Compare that to the IG model/influencer era of current crossfit elite.
its also a 'sport' thats hard to consistently do for a decade without a litany of injuries. So many top athletes left because the training load is too hard.
Whatever happened to the international crossfit competition where the top atheletes from each country would compete? That would also help if they bring it back, it was fun to watch!
I started CrossFit about 6 months ago. My wife got me into it and I didn’t really watch any documentaries or video on it. In fact I was at the CrossFit semis in Orlando. The buttery bros were in the workout with me and I literally had no idea who they were and the guy next to me acted like they are famous. CrossFit is definitely getting less popular and people like me do it because it’s fun and it makes me feel like I’m working out hard. I’ll never have a shot to win anything but I enjoy the workouts.
“My wife got me into it” Of course she did, the cult leader at her local CrossFit gym asks all of their disciples to indoctrinate their family members 😂
Same here. Im not sure about the dying part though. Seems like my box gets more members everyday. Also in the best shape of my life. Lean as fuck with a visible 6 pack. Mental toughness too.
As a masters age group “athlete”, I have less of a interest in CrossFit because of their lack of care/commitment/coverage of masters and adaptive. They’ve focused solely on the corporate future of CrossFit itself which is understandable to a point. I do enjoy seeing the main events and new athletes themselves, I am a big fan. But I feel the rest of the community has been discarded for a paycheck. That is only my opinion. The games certainly feels more like the NFL and the average Joe no longer truly has the ability to qualify unless they make it their focus and career. Certainly not the grass roots I’ve come to love and appreciate. #opinionpiece 😜😂
I think CrossFit should do an affiliate tour in the off season. I suggested it to Dave. Similar to how the Olympic gymnastics team does a tour of champions. Could be different athletes for different regions but get a handful of games athletes to go around to some affiliates and do workouts and hangouts. Just a thought.
The Games were started to help market CrossFit. And you're 100% correct that today's Games' athletes, for the most part, give nothing back to the affiliates or the community. The Open should be for the community, not for the Games' athletes. If Games' athletes are not part of an affiliate make them pay $3,020 to join the Open. I've been a member of a CrossFit affiliate that was "all in" on Games. It sucks!! The gym caters to the egos, the Games' athletes are arrogant and give off the vibe that they are better than you. They take equipment, even if you are in process of using it. They cause drama, etc etc. The Games are great for the affiliates to get together. Would a CrossFit expo do the same? If you eliminate the Affiliates, the Games disappear. What if you eliminate the Games? I would argue that the Affiliates would thrive. I have zero interest in supporting competition athletes that give nothing to the CrossFit community. I have voted by keeping my $20 and buying/donating items for my affiliate.
To play devils advocate here (and this may be a totally wrong take, but may as well put it out there) I would potentially argue that the elite Crossift athletes give less these days because it takes so much more to be an elite athlete. The level that these athletes need to be at to make it to the games, let alone perform well at the games, is hugely different to what it was ten years ago. It feels like they need to give their whole life to training and have very little room for much else. Mat has definitely spoken about this in the past. I would love to see athletes get more involved again in the community but I'm not sure they have much of a capacity to do so?
I think that craig richey's channel hasn't done as well as in the past is because he is not actively doing crossfit. I stopped watching for that reason. I think craig feels he has to do his crossfit content but it doesn't resonate anymore, at least to me.
That is 100% the reason I stopped watching Craig. I honestly do not give a shit about his 130kg+ snatches and that’s it. CrossFit isn’t just Olympic lifting.
I actually stopped before that even though I stopped CrossFit before he stopped. I still watch some CrossFit content. He personally just kind of got “click-baity” and such… everything from him was just different. Kind of the same if ObesetoBeast if anyone watched him. Just changed what he was putting out and then now I don’t know if he does a podcast or just all “click bait” drama looking videos. As a general statement I don’t care what people do but he’s got the painted nails I think, nose ring, colored hair and such… and saying THIS IS THE REAL ME. Reminds me of my best friend’s ex wife who tattooed freckles on her face like an Instagram filter and always talked about her being her real self between that and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing says “the real you” like changing everything natural about you and posting it on the internet.
Maybe the brand is dying, but my observation is the methodology is gaining some popularity. I belong to both a CrossFit affiliate and a Lifetime fitness (they build that lifetime right next door…I couldn’t resist😂😂). Lifetime has those ‘Alpha’ classes, which look an awful lot like a crossfit class. I’m sure there are other non-affiliates using the methodology, yes?
I love what Dave says. I am one of those people whose life completely fucking changed in the last year or two after stepping into my local box, and I think Crossfit needs to focus WAY more on that. Does that mean more docs like that recent Mayhem one? Maybe. But the magic WAS the media team tbh. I mean, I only started Crossfit because of Heber and Marston and their content (both their docs and their youtube channel post firing). So yeah, I agree they need a media team. But it might be too late for that now. FWIW i don't think Crossfit will ever die, but focusing SOLELY on the games and athletes is not the way forward.
I think at the core of the issue and you highlight it throughout is without a common vision/greater mission you do not have something that attracts ppl. As Sevan has said on his podcast for years whoever bought CrossFit treats i like an F45 or Orange Theory instead of the Hells Angels. AKA what attracted sooooo many people to the CF Cult was how focused Greg/Methodology was and how its stances on nutrition and movements did not change no matter who tried to attack it aka how CF would go after anyone legally if needed etc. The core of CF has been stripped with the lost of connection involvement of athletes and affiliates, firing media team and Greg selling which then removed the unique value prop. CF had.... so now its becoming like any other fitness company... shallow without a greater purpose or meaning so ppl are not drawn into it etc. I do not know if any of that made sense... Keep up the great work! You, Sevan, and team have kept up the fight that CF originally had. Thanks!!
Reasons CrossFit is dying: 1) media sucks, a doc is good but people need golden age CrossFit media team/butterybros content. 2) it’s expensive, and there’s a high price point of entry. I remember being a broke college kid and paying $150 a month was not an option. No way for lower income people to get into a gym unless they’re doing occasional drop-ins
@@JB11334 same. I started in a garage, was L2 coach until 2018, and have been garaging it since. I prefer it. I do understand the community aspect. But I’m not that guy. I need my alone time and that is preferred when working out. I feel like a lot of gyms are just cool guy clubs, and you get shamed when you leave. No matter the reason.
@@mlreynolds21 very true but I would’ve hurt myself trying to do a lot of the high skill movements they program withoutht prior coaching and trained supervision from a community of other trained crossfitters (a CrossFit gym)
@@victorandrew646Plus I would imagine $150 is fairly cheap anymore. I’m I a good size city in the state I live in but still very small in comparison to large US cities. I think a new member joining the box I quit was almost $200… None of it was getting better either. Not the community feel. Programming. The equipment. Etc. Hard to escalate the price that much (I think 8 years before it was maybe $90) for a product that was arguably getting worse.
Richey comments on decline of his views are incorrect in regards to popularity of CrossFit. With time your views go up. His likes have been pretty stable. The real problem with Richey was that he quit CrossFit, when his mantra is “We don’t quit”. He did a great initial job of coverage of the games, but the final day content he didn’t publish for a week. That’s nuts, and doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. You didn’t see that with the Buttery Bros. They made sure to release content the next day, and continued edits. Richey has always struggled on pure endurance, it’s his Achilles heel. He likes the Olympic Lifting, but give him a grinder and he hates it. Hence quitting CrossFit. He would be 100% out, but he knows his subscriber base is mainly CrossFit community. He hasn’t really found his next yet. But he will likely end up like Sika Strength rather than Zelander.
Craig has done a few different evolutions of content. His early stuff was great and had a lot of workout content. As he became popular he transitioned to more athlete cameo content. Since that time I noticed that he struggled getting final day content posted for the games or other big events. When Craig evolved to the OLY competitions I lost interest. Fortunately Sevan and Hiller started showing up in my feeds and now I’m hooked.
Richeys content went downhill when he stopped actually doing CrossFit and when the clothing company seemingly started to really pick up. He doesn’t make his money from CZcams, he makes it from clothes and that’s why his IG and CZcams channel is just one big advertisement for HSTL. That’s all it is at this point.
Early TeamRichey vids were pure and they lit a fire under me but i think it gets difficult to do the same thing over and over again and have the same enthuisiasm for it, afterall you can only cut the content so many ways before it's something that's already been showcased 100x over already
You hit all the points with this one, when I started I saw the video series "Killing the Fat Man" and I was part of a great affiliate. This was during the early time 2010 thru 2014 and we had a games athlete as well as a masters level athlete which owned the gym. The open was important because it was the way to check your fitness and it was the way to the games. Unfortunately the gym got some additional owners and destroyed the community there. That said I still work out and do the WODs that proved to make all of better.
One reason is it's no longer seen as going to the gym and getting fit. It's turned into a sport that has qualifying rounds and an annual games event to crown the fittest among the very, very fit. And we asked for it so we really can't complain even though we do. Add what's already been said about the firing of the media team in 2017, the craptastic coverage of the Games the last few years, and HWPO and PRVN being "hands off" compared to Fronting, Bridges, Bailey and others of that generation and you have....indifference. I do still love watching the Rogue Invitational though. The fact that they added the Strongman competition to the weekend makes it all even better.
Could it not just be simply down to CrossFit was something perceived as new and exciting and like anything in life once the excitement had died down and people had tried it, it naturally reached its peak?
Absolutely I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years, and fads come and go. I would like to think that CrossFit was a bit more than a spinning or step aerobics class, but taking a step back and looking at the big picture from a far. Probably much the same.
@@michaelstas9811CrossFit is just a horrible methodology that is amplified by if you don’t have someone doing top-notch programming it amplifies the problems. Average person without training experience will get in better shape with 80% or more being the diet changes. Someone that comes from athletic background and just does classes might stay the same or get better at some things and regress with others. Time invested doing tradition classes gives you orders of magnitude worse results than specializing strength/hypertrophy (which ever you prefer and they definitely are different) and/or cardio/speed (again, two different things that are against each other). If you really just focus on strength or hypertrophy and/or cardio/speed you can make insane gains. It’s not anywhere near as optimal but you could even do whole body 3 days and your endurance/speed training the other two days or do 4 days push/pull/legs split with endurance/speed the other two days and be way ahead. So many people do CrossFit and just stay average and realize it’s times to move on. That’s because constantly varied/keep the muscles guessing is scientifically BS and actual repeated and measurable progressive overload is what creates results and it takes a long time until your body truly adapts and you get diminishing returns. Which is why CrossFit athletes… which look like everyone pictures they’ll look like when they do CrossFit… actually have a lot of repeat training and progressive overload when they program. Of course they’re not doing 5 classes for everyone a day.
@@christianpilola1157 not every box has a “community” feel to it. I was turned off by cattiness, gossip and political discussions. I left my box after 7 years. I workout at home doing HWPO60. Physically I feel better because I don’t feel pressure to compete against the person next to me or go heavier than I need to because a coach thinks I can go heavier and faster. I have no plans to go back to a box.
The sport of crossfit should be run by a separate entity then the brand of crossfit. The brand should stick to its core principles and should only allow crossfit co branding at the sport of crossfit events if the brand feels like it will add to the brand(enhance its core values). So crossfit should focus on affiliates and education nothing else. The idea of the glassman’s was not to make athletes(or affiliate owners)rich but to make the best possible athlete out of anyone who would step into a crossfit box. This is the only goal, if that is achieved making money would not be a problem.
We do fall league at our gym. People pay $60 for 4 weeks of “Thursday Night Lights”. Something like 40 teams of 4. Every cent goes to new gear for the gym. And a few of us have a Sunday afternoon pizza gathering to assemble it all.
I used to do the Open and convince other people to do it because I saw it as a better year over year comparison of your own fitness improvement. In the local box it may not be as noticeable how much more fit you have become. If you are always the 3rd best time at your local affiliate then it may feel like you are the same even if your time(s) have improved. But when you compare yourself to the whole world you can see that you were in the 50th percentile and now in the 40th. Or whatever it is.
I started CrossFit in 2009. The “Nasty Girls” video was my introduction to CrossFit and I wanted to be those ladies. I loved how the last person to complete a workout was just as important as the first person to finish. Back then, the CrossFit website had a page full of videos you could watch…I watched them all!!! I invested in CrossFit. I had an L-1, and went to several other cert seminars. I loved the community. Loved Fight gone Bad for the Wounded Warriors But things changed…I changed …but I do miss the old community.
You suggest we buy your programming and do it at the affiliate…we’ll, at my affiliate, there is NO individual programming , workouts, no open gym without paying another $150 ON TOP of my affiliate monthly membership of $135. I’m not allowed to do any accessory exercises or workouts with paying MORE $. It’s disappointing!
Firing the media to let other content creators foot the bill of games and community coverage was short sighted. They had the capacity to make the type of sports documentary series now popular on streaming back in the day and could have been one of the first to bring it to a wider audience. Also Disney are in trouble so they would be better off losing ESPN and either go it alone or use a platform on the rise like DAZN
I think this is my favorite video you've done so far. I hope someone at CrossFit HQ is listening, there are people who still love and believe in the CrossFit lifestyle. We don't want it to die but if HQ won't listen to "we the people" then it is only a matter of time.
I also think Greg Glassman leaving/selling CrossFit did a lot to kill it. His polarizing ideas made CF different. I haven’t seen anything to replace that since he left.
2017 was peak Glassman madness. His attack on big soda, the firing of the media team to focus on Archie bunker, the Russell controversy, Glassman’s divorce. One man is responsible for the death of CF… Greg. Also, let’s add the context that all fitness methods go in fads…. Remember hot yoga, Pilates, Zumba, boot camps, spin, soul cycle, etc. All of them were popular enough they became people’s personalities… their social circle, their clothing choices, their stress relief… until they weren’t. Also, the current athletes grew up in Boxes. The 2015-2018 bunch of personalities didn’t. You had gymnasts (Katrin), runners (Briggs), sprinters (bailey) , weightlifters (mat) who would excel at some events and lose horribly at others. They had different histories and personalities. Now everyone is generic CF, who grew up in the boxes and learning media from each other. It’s boring.
My 2 cents: 1. Firing of media team 2. Less interesting characters/athletes now then before 3. More regular gyms/functional gyms doing the same thing without being an affiliate, for a cheaper monthly fee 4. Earlier adopters getting older and body says no (me😅) so we start doing other things. 5. Events like Hyrox gaining more traction 6. Glassman stepping down and all the weird decisions made by new management ever since, lack of consistency in implementing rules etc etc
No. 3 my globo gym has a functional area that has so much clean and functional traditional CrossFit kit it’s actually bordering on crazy I’m talking 15 of every piece of cardio equipment etc. it also has 3 pools, cold dunk, hydrotherapy, epic cafe, beautiful changing rooms etc. half price of a CrossFit gym in my area with half the equipment
You highlighted the exact issues and clearly Dave and Sevan get it as well. Coming up with their own brands/training is wild. It saturates the methodology and people think it’s something else, which it is. It’s a cluster f*ck of people taking from CrossFit and giving nothing back. Almost 0 support for the local affiliate in any of these athletes, and their programming sales.
Games aren’t as fun, athletes don’t have the personality they used too (thanks Brent and vellner for still being around), the community aspect has definitely decayed. Feels way too commercial focused now compared to years ago. Media team being fired definitely screwed them, the current streaming is glitchier then it used to be and the announcers now seem like dummy’s with half of what they say during events.
From the perspective of a Stay at home mom who isn’t going to a local affiliate and who always watches CrossFit media stuff (minus the long drawn out talks). - 1. I’m always wondering why CrossFit isn’t highlighting athletes throughout the year and posting them to their CZcams page. For example YETI has the best CZcams videos and they’re incredibly inspiring and well done. They find inspiring people and highlight them. CrossFit doesn’t even have to look hard for content to make they have it right at their fingertips. -2. Refer to what I said about not going to an affiliate. I had no idea that the open cost $20 I’ve never had an interest in doing it. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard an elite athlete make the open sound like the most pointless thing. I’m pretty shocked considering how it all feeds back to their earnings and their job really. Attitudes of the athletes is like what you described they use it while it serves them but they don’t really love the brand. That’s translating to the consumer.
I’m going to weigh in with my own personal observations and opinion on why it would be dying. 1. Athlete sponsorships and inauthenticity. A lot (not all, but a good amount) are simply walking advertisements. They aren’t relatable or enjoyable anymore because all they do is push product. Top example is Brooke Wells. I can’t stand her page anymore because all she pushes is $1000 trash cans for ice baths and her supplements. It’s annoying, point blank. 2. Market saturation. Every athlete and their dog has a CZcams. What makes them different and unique from each other? Nothing. A person can only watch the same boring routine before they move on. 3. Can’t relate. This ties in to number 1. But the original buy-in message for CrossFit is gone. The idolizing of the elites doesn’t work anymore because they don’t live the same lives as us common folk and it’s frustrating. They have all the latest and greatest equipment in their home gyms gifted to them, while most people barely make it to an affiliate between their careers and home obligations. Again, just personal opinion but I can see those points as contributions to crossfit’s drop in interest
There’s been some great points captured couple i feel strongly about is the cost is so high to participate in a gym and the CrossFit brand and ethos has been so watered down
Personally I hated having 5 weeks of OPEN workouts. As a gym owner, it's super demanding to run 5 extra long nights, organize everything, etc. I think 3 weeks is perfect. That said, I have no problems in doing 2 WODs in a week timeframe. So we could have 5-6 total scored challenges. Also a lot of people in the spring time travel, and 5 weeks often will run into holidays. CrossFit isn't our life for 99% of us, but we still want to participate in the OPEN and give it our all. 3 weeks is enough.
Agreed. Was always over it by week 4. Honestly the 3 week open + break + 2 week quarterfinals has the same feel as the 5 week open but with less demand as a manager & as a masters athlete is easier on the body too haha
Just a thought... what if they only allowed people who actually affiliate members be a part of the games. Only People who are engaged in a local affiliate... doesn't the team side already have some rules like that in place? 😊
It’s dying because the everyday people simply cannot relate to pretentious hyper elite athletes in my opinion. Also CF HQ messed up & overly politicized fitness, which was an escape for most of us & the best part of our day. just sayin’.
Additionally the everyday person can't afford much at all in this day and age, let alone a gym membership that costs 4-6x the average fee. In the UK I can sign up to my local PureGym and it'll cost roughly $20 a month; including unlimited classes (spinning, circuit training, yoga etc). My CF membership costs a little over $130. I don't want to quit because I love the sessions, coaches and my friends there, but when money is this tight "luxuries" need to take a back seat.
@@EromasinI just wonder how many people actually use the gym they pay $20 a month for and actually use the equipment they have vs people that pay the CF memberships and actually use them. I’m willing to bet there are more people that pay for CF and go vs those that pay a globe gym membership and go. I know people paying a globo membership for years and haven’t gone in years. They def aren’t doing that with CF. People will afford what they want to afford depending on where their priorities are.
@@dhall75608That’s true to a certain extent but that’s also CF marketing BS TBH. Someone willing to pay that much is by more default more invested in their health to begin with by shelling out that money. It’s really in the inverse of the CrossFit marketing. Those people want to have something they’ll stick to so bad that they are willing to pay that much money. Not paying that much money makes them stay. Otherwise, they would never pay that or any money to begin with. When it no longer serves them they’ll drop the CrossFit membership right away. “Globo-gym” is a low to no risk investment so people will throw money at it that aren’t serious. However, those that are serious ALSO don’t hesitate to put their money towards that cheaper membership and will work out and if they research and such just like many people that get into CrossFit do… they’ll see results (better results TBH) than CrossFit. It’s all mindset. People with the same mindset will be successful no matter which one they choose. The difference is “globo-gym” allows the less committed to join because the cost is minimal. Therefore the ratios look worse. CrossFit (gym) price point is so high it doesn’t allow uncommitted (unless they got that dumb money) to even join which skews the data and makes nice propaganda.
For me, it's a question of the athletes being compelling to watch. When you have all these very popular athletes drop out for whatever reason, fans drop out too. Haley Adams - dropped. Mal O'Brien - dropped. Tia Clair - also out. Mat Fraser - also dropped a couple of years ago. That's just my perspective from the outside looking in. Also - it's harder to watch the open given the way they run it, so the past two years, I haven't seen any of the events except the games. And yeah, I really enjoyed listening to Sherwood and the rest of the media folks - that certainly was a factor as well.
Does anyone want to ring in how much it is just to go to a box? 200+ per month is getting more and more difficult for even the middle class to afford. It's more than just the CF games.. CF is getting smashed by the economy too
I go to a global gym it’s the face of America, with all races and income levels I go to a CrossFit box and it’s upper middle class white people who pray a lot
Crossfit needs to hire people who care about the sport like Brett Fikowski. He has time and time again came up with solutions to many of the problems that have occurred throughout the years.
I know that 2023 is 2 months away from the end but there is no way for a more complete video to come out at that time about not only the biggest problems that CFHQ is facing at the moment, but also the potential solutions to these… please prove I’m wrong 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
I don’t think it’s the athlete’s responsibility to help grow the sport. They are there because they want to compete, earn money and build a platform they can capitalize on after their competitive careers are over. Jordan never went out of his way to do anything to help grow the NBA, he just competed, won and built his brand. People were attracted to him & wanted to watch him. Every major sport, people love the teams. They don’t love the “league”. CrossFit doesn’t know how to navigate this. People love the training camps, they don’t love the brand of “CrossFit”. CrossFit will die due to 1) self inflicted wounds (ie firing the media staff) 2) Not knowing how to grow and evolve with the current changes
Great as usual. I would just like to add one thing. Why is the CrossFit Games still using large venues? It seems to me they are still holding on to the Paleolithic CrossFit era. Maybe scaling down the venue and using those funds for other things such as media and building momentum for CrossFit's brand. I do not want TEF to think I do not have any solutions to contribute. Would NoBull even notice?
It’s so simple. People keep getting broken at their local Box. CF sells people on achieving fitness and looks. But ends up hurting all those out of shape obese people who shouldn’t be snatching at 5:00AM or ever actually. So when people pay for the brand they get a PT for rehabilitation in 6 months. But hey CF gave the box owners a 1 day certification what could go wrong!
Since lockdown the lack of support affiliates got plus the Greg Glassman scandal, really made people question their association to CrossFit. I LOVE the community vibe of the CrossFit gym, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore. Now whereic live there are 2 CrossFit gyms and 4 CrossFit style gyms that are not affiliated. So the potential community is fragmented. Also for competitions, there would need to be a baseline of training aka CROSSFIT. Not all of the variations of programs! It really is declining and also the price has gone up in my city so it is becoming less inclusive. People trained isolated on lockdown and these programs coming out are encouraging that even more, and that is a huge problem in fuelling the spirit of community and CrossFit
Since 6 months, I would call myself as a CrossFit Nerd. I am consuming everything about crossfit (Around your crossfit bubble , not Greg Richy anymore). As I saw the Fraser Roagen podcast, i had no idea who is Ben Smith. Fraser told in Rogen "he lost against some random, no name dude. Since there months I didn't look at anything from Fraser. I don't know Ben still (in person) but I know that he are longer in crossfit word then Fraser and are extern involved and contributing to crossfit. I am done with Fraser. How fit he was doesn't matter what he it matter how you talk about your competitors.
Mat Fraser has like middle child syndrome. He expressed in various videos how offended he has been when Greg Glassman wasn’t starstruck meeting him or not being invited to participate in CF teams competition. He has resentment towards Ben Bergeron. He use to train a lot with Alex Anderson. I’d love to hear what he has to say about Mat. I know Mat resents Cole Sager. He also shat on CF as a company and did not separate it from the methodology and now he makes money off of CF. He’s entitled to his feelings and opinions. 💯 I just have never really liked him or felt compelled to follow him. His camp loves him though, stand by him, and say he’s a good dude. I’m sure he is, just not my cup of tea. Every sport needs a villain. 🤷♀️
@@kathleenpodlipni6952Don’t know much about him or looked into him. Seems like an arrogant person (of course all time greats usually are). Of course I’m not coming to the defense of people like the word salad charlatan Ben Bergeron either.
I think it's very telling that Matt used to train on his own in his basement and only did CrossFit cos he got dragged into it and chance to exploit his Olympic lifting background, like i'm pretty sure he looked down his nose at the people in the box and only went there cos they had bumper plates etc for him to do his oly lifting stuff, he is not CrossFit DNA and i knew there was something that i could never get behind him for and it makes sense when he has such little respect for it, shame Rogan will only get on people willing to trash it@@kathleenpodlipni6952
1 thing it’s a disingenuous sport. PED’s are prevalent. Yet, Ricky Garard got villainized for being caught with RAD-140 in his system. (RAD-140 isn’t even a steroid.) All the atop athletes have taken PED’s at some stage (not saying they’re on during the Games but they have been on at some point) Yet they all make their money through sponsorships and falsely having you believe that they are these genetically superior elite specimens who just train and eat right. Bodybuilding community mocks CrossFit for other reasons. But yano, CrossFit deserves to be mocked sometimes with how naive people in this sport are.
But it’s a SARM which is a banned PED. It doesn’t have to be a steroid to be banned. A steroid is a type of PED, just like a SARM is. I’ll tell you a secret….CF isn’t the only sport where PEDs are prevalent. Every sport has their users. Some are just better at not getting caught than others.
01) The R.Garard comment: How is it different from any other sport? One gets caught yet 4 others escape. Doesn't make CF as a sport disingenuous. Is police disingenuous because they don't catch everyone who speeds down public roads? 02) Everyone does it.: Quite a blanket statement. They do what? RAD-140? HGH? EPO? Maybe they ALL do, just need more proof before everyone gets thrown under the bus. 03) If you or anyone else believes that they're all on bread and water, that's on you/them, not on CF or any other pro sport on earth. It's just marketing, like X brand of toothpaste will get you white teeth like Y Hollywood actor/actress. 04) Why would body building mock CF? If I want an opinion on how to train for tennis, I ask a tennis coach, not a soccer coach. Stay away from CZcams videos claiming to know what's wrong with [insert sport here], especially from click baiters that have nothing to do with said sport.
@@mikeg5372Just do some basic research on the human body and it’s capabilities as far as work capacity… building muscle… recovery… etc… Everyone is varying degrees of different but the science is pretty clear. You can also read plenty of articles like some from T-Nation where someone talks about how they help top athletes (they don’t name names) beat drug tests and how easy it is. Of course bodybuilding community and others mock CrossFitters because paleo and what ever else is the same thing as “chicken, rice and broccoli.” They know better than anyone else what the PED bodies like look and that’s why they find it hilarious when CrossFitters be like “it’s all thanks to God, low carbs, theragun and FitAid.”
Do you think affiliate participation would improve if affiliates bought better programming for members rather than having an inexperienced coach at their gym or the affiliate owner write the programming? affiliates loose members due to poor programming and encourage the popularity of programs like HWPO which a lot of people follow in a normal englobo gym
This. I got my start at an affiliate with experienced coaches who wrote their own programming. It’s what made me drink the kool-aid. Then I moved, started at a different affiliate with inexperience coaches who literally didn’t know what they were doing and some of the worst programming I’d ever seen. It was eye-opening for me. I don’t think HQ can reel this in now that it’s out there.
I could give like 50 reasons why crossfit is "dying" from a normie non-crossfitter perspective, but having a media team would provide some positive results. Not like I pay particular attention to crossfit when i'm out or surfing the internet, but it's definitely less noticeable than before. I don't do crossfit, but I do like this channel.
In my mind Cross Fit is like the NFL, there are teams (affiliates) that belong to the NFL organization and there are athletes that belong to the teams. I can't imagine a random non-NFL team showing up at the play offs to compete against the NFL. It would seem that all the athletes competing in Cross Fit should belong to a Cross Fit affiliate, even if they create their own affiliate. By limiting the playoff to affiliate athletes the athlete has a reason to invest in the communtiy, advancing their affiliate while advancing Cross Fit and its goals. Allowing un-affliated athletes to come in and benefit from community without really investing in the community doesn't make sense. NFL team owners work to improve the NFL because if the NFL grows, then the team owners benefit and the players benefit.
“If you just focus on the games and lose track of the affiliates”…however, right before it, it was “games, games, games”. I didn’t join CF because of the games, I joined because of the community. What fuels CF is the community. As you said, they do nothing for the affiliate but give them the brand name. More and more people are making “functional fitness” gyms, because and I quote from a gym owner, “all I’m paying for is the brand”. Annual insurance fees, comp fees, etc. However, besides the open, CF is for the 1% now and that’s what changed. Pl
I said this in 2022 to my business partner as he wanted to affiliate to help with advertising and I said CrossFit as an organization has made some bad moves and has slowly been declining on Google search but we ended up doing it anyway and was the biggest marketing waste ever. We didn’t get any more calls for it unfortunately. I’m no longer and owner of the gym for a magnitude of reasons but also didn’t feel great about being a CrossFit gym and just didn’t feel good being tied to CrossFit itself. Now I’m in the recruit class for firefighting(graduate Friday) and am known as the crossfitter and I hate it cause though crossfit has done some right in the past… I don’t agree with it all. Especially the L1 and being able to open a gym with just that but that’s a whole different topic.
I love CrossFit was an L1 owner a box pre rona and even then I got 100% thought it was a pyramid scam. But in my town the last box is not just fit and dropped the 3k affiliate fee to be called CrossFit anymore 😅 CrossFit didn’t invent a pull up or burpee they just found a way to market it
People might say that the UFC is what it is today because of Conor McGregor. But what really happened is the A1 media team at the UFC saw McGregor, recognized his star power, and jumped on it. The amount of media surrounding him, his fights and his life made him a star, but it made the UFC BILLIONS because they were smart enough to capitalize on someone like him. It's the willingness to take risks and invest in story lines, events, and media coverage that gets more eyeballs onto not just the sport, but CrossFit as a whole. If I was in CrossFit's shoes I'd invest as much money as possible to either contract out or hire on a media team that are diehard CrossFitters with a talent for creating content. Then we'll see the rise of CrossFit because the methodology works, but not enough people know that, yet.
Well, i am from Brazil. And I get interested about Crossfit when I watched the Doc in the NetFlix. Why they don’t do this anymore? So yes I agree with you about this topic (media team).
I used to love all the media CF put out before 2017. I would search CrossFit all the time, watch the redshirt videos, learn how to be a better coach, and see the “a day in the life of” and thought it was great. Since then I don’t really search it anymore because it’s like you said. It’s a camp, it’s an elite in their own garage by themselves, it’s…boring….
Maybe they should make it a requirement that if you want to participate in higher level competitions for CF, you have to show documentation that participated in class or volunteered at a CF affiliate for at least X hours. It might sound dumb but even most trail races/ultra marathons require that you not only pay a hefty entry fee, but also devote at least 8 hours doing trail maintenance or volunteer at a different trail race. It is such an easy way to get you involved in the community and to give back. That might force big name athletes to get out among the pleebs and be involved more, or show face at local competitions to hype up the CF name and community.
HILLER HILLER HILLER! Your 1 person who joined an Affiliate because of DS was at my box! She walked in saying she wanted to join because she wanted to look like DS. Unfortunately as we all know tho doing a CF class won’t “make” you look like anyone but yourself tho - she only lasted 2 months & ghosted us, but yeah it happened DS inspired someone to join a box haha
I’ve done CrossFit 3 days a week for a year back in 2017, here’s why it didn’t work for me. ❌Too bloated - by the time you get back to one one lift it would take months, you couldn’t progress in anything. ❌Too much gossip: people were more into wasting time talking about work than working out. 30 minutes if you’re lucky and I paid 205 a month. ❌Odd WODS: why would I do deadlifts as fast as possible, then run for 800 meters on repeat? Dead lifts should come to a dead stop, not tap and go. Not to mention all the filler WODs that were just boring af. ❌Pricey: after a while I was realizing that most workouts could be done at home and on an app for free. ❌Wall balls: making men throw it at one point on the wall and women throw it lower point makes zero sense. Height should be the only factor not gender. Plus I’d rather squat and do shoulders on a different day. ❌Kipping “‘pull ups” so what happens if you need to get up over a wall? you cant Kip. It’s silly af. ❌Obligation: the guilt you feel when you don’t go because of the money you pay and it’s on their schedule, not your own. ---- It can be a useful tool depending on your job such as military. But power lifting 4 days a week, body building and running 2 days a week is more than enough for me. Crossfit is trying to reinvent a wheel that turns just fine.
I wouldn’t say it’s dying. It won’t be dead in 3 years. But we have definitely seen peak CrossFit and it ain’t ever coming back. Lots of factors besides media and promotion. CrossFit just plain doesn’t work for a lot of people. It’s too hard, it wears you down over the long term and the results don’t come after the newbie gains unless you’re using stuff that CrossFit allegedly bans. We know games athletes don’t even do CrossFit as defined by Hiller. We’ve seen the pictures with donuts and Fireball shots. Yeah, “the Community” can be great, but even for the tiny, shrinking minority that value health and fitness, in a time where most are struggling to afford gas, groceries and housing, paying the CrossFit premium for benefits you can get 100 different other ways no longer makes sense. If it ever did.
I went to a CrossFit gym for a year. I was pretty faithful, and I did have some fun, but the longer I was there, the stranger it got. I felt like I was in a cult, and it felt more like a cult, when I decided to terminate my membership.
@@dontreply69 you have no idea how hard I worked. You trolls are all over. I was a division 1 wrestler. I have a feeling, that you don’t know what hard work is.
I might be wrong, but I feel like a lot of the top athletes don't even train at Boxes aside from maybe Rejkavik. Seems like when you see a lot of their social media posts, they're in private gyms or boxes at off-hours when nobody else is around. I think there's a lack of a connection with that. It's not much of a community when it's just you in your private gym.
Dude…. As a guy who started CrossFit in 2010 at age 16 there is nothing like the old days…. And no one other than Froning and his mayhem team are preserving and advancing the legacy. Great video.
@@chrisflores9030 im with you brotha. I also started in 2010. Nice to see a fellow OG. Crossfit shoes weren’t even a thing yet and I was paying 75/month at my gym. Just a bunch of people all getting better together.
@@christianpilola1157 dude I had those new balance minimalist shoes lol can’t believe I would snatch in those 😂 that’s what made it awesome. We had one cd playing for the like the first 2.5 years too lol
This is a multifactorial problem. Media is one issue (large issue). Athlete engagment to the community is another. However, Crossfit's greatest problem is the relationship with its affiliates. They are the outward face of Crossfit, however, affliation has very little benefit. As a Crossfit gym owner it has been frustrating to see the lack of vision and missed business opportunities by HQ (there are so many its hard to even keep track of). Affiliates recognize this and are evolving their business model away from Crossfit which ultimately affects future growth. I'm finishing up my MBA and used Crossfit in one of my cases for my strategy class. Crossfit needs help.
I started losing interest when crossfit turned into the handstand walk games. The reduction of weeks and events for the Open was also downer. Third thing was it was getting hard to believe a Medeiros body type is "the fittest man on earth". The events did not line up with the fitness levels and athleticism of popular sports.
Chris Spealler pointed out in the 2014 documentary that there was a split between the methodology and doing CF for the Games. Everyone has to work their hustle, and most of it is springboarded off - not through - CrossFit and the grassroots community
1. Crossfit games coverage is terrible and confusing. So much better pre-2018 or so. 2. People doing reps to infinity in a shed now have plenty of examples of friends just doing 3 sets of 10 and eating right looking just as good or better. 3. Training like a Navy SEAL 5 days a week isn’t necessary to be healthy and can actually mess you up.
Here’s something to consider, around he peak years of CrossFit. Prior firing the media team. ThenFittest on Earth docs use to be on Netflix. Hence one of my first exposures. They were on Netflix before F1, NFL, PGA, and NASCAR. Now WWE is heading to Netflix. They need to get on Prime or Netflix because it helps put more eyes on the sport. While also putting live coverage on there.
I predict HYROX, ATHX (and similar) will grow at the same rate that CF declines. I've done both in the last year and will definitely compete again. Moreover my local affiliate is taking steps to 'double hat' as a CF & Hyrox facility, one foot in the old another in the new, hedging bets......
CrossFit vs. Programming, 💯 The name/mission doesn't carry the same brevity. There was a stretch where I wore CF t-shirts from vacation box drop-ins (New Zealand, Thailand) or my old box; maybe that was just a phase, and attire is an oversimplification of the sport's landscape, but the CF buzz on a public level isn't the same as years ago.
I have heard several times that CrossFit is a media company; I do not understand that. Isn't most of their revenue generated from the seminars and affiliate fees?
I do CF. My wife goes to a functional fitness gym that just closed. Tried to get her to come to CF with me; “no, I can’t do CF - too hard”. I think the Games hurts the affiliates because my wife thinks it’s too hard from watching Tia - and she has me to explain it to her. We need an “Everday CrossFit” and a media team pushing it
It depends on who writes the workout .. but if you want to get better and have more conditioning the daily wods never really work .. they can beat you down sure .. but most people have to hybrid there training to get anywhere physically .. I saw people never progress on pull-ups for example .. if you can’t get someone to get a pull-up in 3 to 6 months then are they getting better or stronger .. I really think it just depends on what that coach is like and the overall training at that box . Your wife could find a CrossFit app better suited to her needs for much cheaper and just hit a functional global gym even
@@Kwildcat13Programming is the most important. Sorry but most coaches and from what I’ve seen with things like L1 have almost no knowledge of actual human anatomy and progressive overload. Banded pull-up is one of the easiest examples. Bio-mechanically the band helps on THE EASIEST part of the pull-up and gives no aid aid at the hardest part of the movement. It also makes the bottom of the eccentric easier so you can’t get that hypertrophic stretch at the bottom. The best way is the assisted pull-up machine because it gives equal and and your body still does the intended motion. The probably second best way (which I’ve seen some coaches do) are slow negatives. Right around there is body weight rows on a racked barbell or ring rows but making sure you are consistent with doing them once or twice weekly and inching them to a flatter position to make it more difficult.
if Crossfit had an annual T-shirt design for the Open, they could charge me $30-40 and I'd probably sign up every year... sort of like what murph/chad1000x does
An almost overwhelming amount of stuff I never really knew about the industry and how deeply the Games really tied into things. Harsh, brutal, but Hiller is right to point out the importance of having champions with real skin in the game. Champions in more than than one definition of the word, not just prizefighters.
I used to like Castro and others doing Open Workouts at CrossFit affiliates, and making a great show of it. Doing CrossFit box focus visits with the media team. All pretty much gone now. We don’t see epic box level comps. You are spot on with the lack of media team at. RossFit. It feel completely like a cash cow now. No real leadership, no real CrossFit HQ personalities. No engagement with CrossFit Games athletes and local boxes. Just a slow cash out.
I think 2 things are contributing to this. 1 is the firing of the media dept. and 2 is that the athletes aren’t immersed in the community like they were in the Froning era.
Damn you summed up my 30 minute video in 3 sentences
@@hillerfit100%
Those reasons seem true but I am new gen cross-fitter, i started crossfit because of BTS popping up in youtube feeds.
@@ramblr5900 that’s awesome how you found it. It’s just hard to put into words how CrossFit was in that era. The media they would put out then was unreal. And not just on the road to the games. But on real people in the affiliates that lost a bunch weight, reversed their diabetes. I remember they had this series of this guy that was doing CrossFit while he was in prison.
@@hillerfit you said it better.
I started CrossFit in 2011. The reason I quit CrossFit in 2017 was due to these changes.
$200/month
No open gym
Culture changed from athletes to God people.
Coaches that weren’t athletes, but non athletic cheerleaders who didn’t know shit about coaching techniques
YEP agree!
SO MUCH THIS. After having soooo many bad experiences with “coaches” especially after doing CrossFit for more years than these “coaches” and then learning how easy it is to be a CF L-1 “coach” - it ruined the affiliate experience for me and now I do it all at home. And, for the first time in 7 years…. I don’t plan to send any $$ to HQ for the Open.
Also agree with this. I go to a good box now but I know more from training then the Lvl 1 and 2 coaches we have
Is this as localized a comment as it seems? Or do others find the same at the gyms/boxes that they’ve left or are tempted to leave?
I go to a cross fit style gym and personal training and open gym are $200/mo.
Rory working for Mayhem Nation seems to say it all. Froning made Cookeville the epicenter of CrossFit and welcomed all of his competitors to train with him. Fraser, Bridges, Bailey, Hobart training at the Barn with Rich. Rich runs Level I seminars, trains at CF Mayhem, has 2 competitive teams in the Games etc. Rich, Dan and Josh trained at Josh's San Diego house. I know more about Rich than I do about Mat and Tia combined. Rich continues to give to his community and to CrossFit but others seems to just take and take.
Wow suck his parts any harder.
Good take, especially the “I know more about rich, than Tia and mat.” That says something
!!!!!!!!
Umm except Rich is on record he didn't want to work out with Matt since he literally couldn't keep up. He only invited people he was better than.
@@stevegaspar😂😂😂😂😂😂
One of the big nails in the coffin was athletes shifting to training in their own facility instead of the affiliates. Having star athletes training along side regular classes helped motivate members, and act as a sort of free advertising was pivotal for years. Team division mattered a hell of a lot more because it was members of the community, people that live in the area, and not just a field of people that didn't qualify as individual that year. If you hear about a new up and coming athlete it'll be out of a training camp, not an affiliate.
In the UK Hyrox has taken over from crossfit. London May 2023 Hyrox was the largest indoor fitness event in the UK ever with over 10,000 competitors. Even crossfit boxes now are focusing on Hyrox. Mainly down to the fact that crossfit is now seen as just unattainable to even get into a local low level competition, whereas Hyrox the entry bar is low. Every year crossfit gets heavier and more technical gymnastics.
Yes ! Agreed it’s easier to run and do a simple movement then learn freestand handstand or whatever I agree ..
I love constantly developing skills in CrossFit like improving Olympic lifts and gymnastics. It keeps me interested in the sport seeing numbers or technique improve but I couldn’t agree more when you see things like crossover double unders and all the variations of HSPU and handstand walks come out. It seems unobtainable to remain a RX athlete even if your training 90 mins to 2 hrs a day
I'm mostly doing Hyrox at my crossfit gym these days as we were the first gym affiliated to Hyrox in France. There are several good points to Hyrox.
1) It resonates with people who just want to come in the gym, sweat their ass off and go home. You don't need to go through cycles of skill work with low intensity to develop the skills to do kipping pullups, hold a hand stand and do a snatch. crossfit prones to develop technic before intensity but to a part of the population they know they'll never pass the technique threshold and just want to move with intensity.
2) Since there are less skills required, you can have a bit of a larger group to coach in a session, thus making it more economicaly sustainable.
3) Since there is less skills required, the shit coaches (and there are too many) will send less people to the physio cause they are hurting themselves in the long term.
The main bad point I see with Hyrox is the format of the event, the fact that it is standardised and never change so far makes me feel that the trend will be risk to fall off quicker than crossfit is right now. They'll need to diversify and offer a variety of events in my opinion or people will get bored.
@@tracybriggs3542 yep agreed. By the time I'd learnt HSW and muscle ups that was no longer good enough. It just felt like an endless moving bar to even enter a competion.
@@ar3sgaming514 agreed. I think the beauty of it at the moment is you can really track your progress in this race. With the low bar to entry you can compete right away and then work hard to improve. Hyrox in the UK is absolutely insane now, you can't go to a gym without seeing the logo or people training for it.
I did Crossfit from early 2012 , which looking back, was probably the very end of the "underground" era (i.e., paleo diet, pre-bock, vibram sneakers, super grungy small "boxes" etc). The athletes back then were to some extent "one of us", your local gym hero had a shot at regionals (albeit very small), and elites were heavily invested in the community. It somehow made it seem like the $20 five week open fee had some value. Even down to the teams division in the Games...they were for the most part actual members of the affiliate, guys we trained with every day, and when the team made Regionals it felt like the ENTIRE GYM made Regionals. As a more general CF fan, the media team provided some real good content, some as simple as "Dan Bailey performs mainsite workout XYZ", or "a Day in the Life of....", and the setting was based around a Crossfit affiliate. Maybe it was because it showed the athletes doing "typical Crossfit" stuff (metcons).
Anyway I wrote all this but don't quite know what point I'm trying to drive home lol. I haven't done CF since 2019 and the ONLY reason I have ANY interest whatsoever is because of Sevan and Hiller. Keep up the good work!
This resonated with me. I started in 2013 and felt a lot of similar things back then
I’m jealous of people who got to start back then. I started maybe 2018 or 19 fell off hard, came back 2019 into 2020 and then Covid shut me down which destroyed me and then took me another year or so to finally get back to it again.
Things do just change sometimes. I don’t know everyone else’s experience but here’s mine.
When I started we had a very large box with a lot of personality of people (some of which I’m still friends with).
It seemed like the coaches lost interest (and TBH even though they were in shape they knew jack shit about the human body or programming).
The programming just got worse and TBH I didn’t seem to get in better shape (arguably I became in worse shape). I “got better” at some things so it had the illusion of becoming stronger or better shape. Most of that was probably poor programming. So finally I just had to drop the membership because I wanted to put some size and strength on that I lost joining CrossFit.
So long story longer you REALLY need someone that is great at programming because inherently CrossFit is at a disadvantage in the way people usually see it because it doesn’t progressively overload consistently enough. You see so many people just stay the same.
I started back in 2014 and have since built a home gym and follow mayhem programming out of my house. I prefer my resources to go to the areas that bring mutual benefit (Mayhem, Rogue Fitness, Sevan and Hiller)
You hit the nail. Froning era athletes were bought in. They believed in it which made us believe it. Compare that to the IG model/influencer era of current crossfit elite.
its also a 'sport' thats hard to consistently do for a decade without a litany of injuries. So many top athletes left because the training load is too hard.
Whatever happened to the international crossfit competition where the top atheletes from each country would compete? That would also help if they bring it back, it was fun to watch!
I started CrossFit about 6 months ago. My wife got me into it and I didn’t really watch any documentaries or video on it. In fact I was at the CrossFit semis in Orlando. The buttery bros were in the workout with me and I literally had no idea who they were and the guy next to me acted like they are famous.
CrossFit is definitely getting less popular and people like me do it because it’s fun and it makes me feel like I’m working out hard. I’ll never have a shot to win anything but I enjoy the workouts.
“My wife got me into it”
Of course she did, the cult leader at her local CrossFit gym asks all of their disciples to indoctrinate their family members 😂
Same here. Im not sure about the dying part though. Seems like my box gets more members everyday. Also in the best shape of my life. Lean as fuck with a visible 6 pack. Mental toughness too.
Bro I am in stitches… keep doing your thing man!! Raise awareness my guy !!!
As a masters age group “athlete”, I have less of a interest in CrossFit because of their lack of care/commitment/coverage of masters and adaptive. They’ve focused solely on the corporate future of CrossFit itself which is understandable to a point. I do enjoy seeing the main events and new athletes themselves, I am a big fan. But I feel the rest of the community has been discarded for a paycheck. That is only my opinion. The games certainly feels more like the NFL and the average Joe no longer truly has the ability to qualify unless they make it their focus and career. Certainly not the grass roots I’ve come to love and appreciate. #opinionpiece 😜😂
Yes !
THIS.
I think CrossFit should do an affiliate tour in the off season. I suggested it to Dave. Similar to how the Olympic gymnastics team does a tour of champions. Could be different athletes for different regions but get a handful of games athletes to go around to some affiliates and do workouts and hangouts. Just a thought.
The Games were started to help market CrossFit. And you're 100% correct that today's Games' athletes, for the most part, give nothing back to the affiliates or the community.
The Open should be for the community, not for the Games' athletes. If Games' athletes are not part of an affiliate make them pay $3,020 to join the Open.
I've been a member of a CrossFit affiliate that was "all in" on Games. It sucks!! The gym caters to the egos, the Games' athletes are arrogant and give off the vibe that they are better than you. They take equipment, even if you are in process of using it. They cause drama, etc etc.
The Games are great for the affiliates to get together. Would a CrossFit expo do the same? If you eliminate the Affiliates, the Games disappear. What if you eliminate the Games? I would argue that the Affiliates would thrive.
I have zero interest in supporting competition athletes that give nothing to the CrossFit community. I have voted by keeping my $20 and buying/donating items for my affiliate.
To play devils advocate here (and this may be a totally wrong take, but may as well put it out there) I would potentially argue that the elite Crossift athletes give less these days because it takes so much more to be an elite athlete. The level that these athletes need to be at to make it to the games, let alone perform well at the games, is hugely different to what it was ten years ago. It feels like they need to give their whole life to training and have very little room for much else. Mat has definitely spoken about this in the past. I would love to see athletes get more involved again in the community but I'm not sure they have much of a capacity to do so?
Hell most elite athletes wouldn't know a gym member if they walked up to them and introduced themselves as a gym member.
I think that craig richey's channel hasn't done as well as in the past is because he is not actively doing crossfit. I stopped watching for that reason. I think craig feels he has to do his crossfit content but it doesn't resonate anymore, at least to me.
That is 100% the reason I stopped watching Craig. I honestly do not give a shit about his 130kg+ snatches and that’s it. CrossFit isn’t just Olympic lifting.
Same
I actually stopped before that even though I stopped CrossFit before he stopped. I still watch some CrossFit content.
He personally just kind of got “click-baity” and such… everything from him was just different.
Kind of the same if ObesetoBeast if anyone watched him. Just changed what he was putting out and then now I don’t know if he does a podcast or just all “click bait” drama looking videos. As a general statement I don’t care what people do but he’s got the painted nails I think, nose ring, colored hair and such… and saying THIS IS THE REAL ME. Reminds me of my best friend’s ex wife who tattooed freckles on her face like an Instagram filter and always talked about her being her real self between that and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing says “the real you” like changing everything natural about you and posting it on the internet.
Literally watched his videos 4 years ago and it got my into CrossFit. Him not doing CrossFit hurt that. I don’t watch his vids anymore.
Maybe the brand is dying, but my observation is the methodology is gaining some popularity. I belong to both a CrossFit affiliate and a Lifetime fitness (they build that lifetime right next door…I couldn’t resist😂😂). Lifetime has those ‘Alpha’ classes, which look an awful lot like a crossfit class. I’m sure there are other non-affiliates using the methodology, yes?
I love what Dave says. I am one of those people whose life completely fucking changed in the last year or two after stepping into my local box, and I think Crossfit needs to focus WAY more on that. Does that mean more docs like that recent Mayhem one? Maybe. But the magic WAS the media team tbh. I mean, I only started Crossfit because of Heber and Marston and their content (both their docs and their youtube channel post firing). So yeah, I agree they need a media team. But it might be too late for that now. FWIW i don't think Crossfit will ever die, but focusing SOLELY on the games and athletes is not the way forward.
Funnily enough, this was the direction Glassman was focusing on. I don’t think his exit was necessarily bad, but maybe he saw more than we realized.
Ending Regionals may have had something to do with CrossFit dying.
Yep! I miss regionals.I never expected to make the games but I did enjoy doing the open to see how close I could get to
Regionals.
I think at the core of the issue and you highlight it throughout is without a common vision/greater mission you do not have something that attracts ppl. As Sevan has said on his podcast for years whoever bought CrossFit treats i like an F45 or Orange Theory instead of the Hells Angels. AKA what attracted sooooo many people to the CF Cult was how focused Greg/Methodology was and how its stances on nutrition and movements did not change no matter who tried to attack it aka how CF would go after anyone legally if needed etc. The core of CF has been stripped with the lost of connection involvement of athletes and affiliates, firing media team and Greg selling which then removed the unique value prop. CF had.... so now its becoming like any other fitness company... shallow without a greater purpose or meaning so ppl are not drawn into it etc. I do not know if any of that made sense...
Keep up the great work! You, Sevan, and team have kept up the fight that CF originally had. Thanks!!
Reasons CrossFit is dying:
1) media sucks, a doc is good but people need golden age CrossFit media team/butterybros content.
2) it’s expensive, and there’s a high price point of entry. I remember being a broke college kid and paying $150 a month was not an option. No way for lower income people to get into a gym unless they’re doing occasional drop-ins
Um. You don’t have to pay to do CrossFit.
@@mlreynolds21most people don’t want to buy equipment or workout at home. I do by the way.
@@JB11334 same. I started in a garage, was L2 coach until 2018, and have been garaging it since. I prefer it. I do understand the community aspect. But I’m not that guy. I need my alone time and that is preferred when working out. I feel like a lot of gyms are just cool guy clubs, and you get shamed when you leave. No matter the reason.
@@mlreynolds21 very true but I would’ve hurt myself trying to do a lot of the high skill movements they program withoutht prior coaching and trained supervision from a community of other trained crossfitters (a CrossFit gym)
@@victorandrew646Plus I would imagine $150 is fairly cheap anymore.
I’m I a good size city in the state I live in but still very small in comparison to large US cities. I think a new member joining the box I quit was almost $200…
None of it was getting better either. Not the community feel. Programming. The equipment. Etc.
Hard to escalate the price that much (I think 8 years before it was maybe $90) for a product that was arguably getting worse.
Richey comments on decline of his views are incorrect in regards to popularity of CrossFit. With time your views go up. His likes have been pretty stable. The real problem with Richey was that he quit CrossFit, when his mantra is “We don’t quit”. He did a great initial job of coverage of the games, but the final day content he didn’t publish for a week. That’s nuts, and doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. You didn’t see that with the Buttery Bros. They made sure to release content the next day, and continued edits. Richey has always struggled on pure endurance, it’s his Achilles heel. He likes the Olympic Lifting, but give him a grinder and he hates it. Hence quitting CrossFit. He would be 100% out, but he knows his subscriber base is mainly CrossFit community. He hasn’t really found his next yet. But he will likely end up like Sika Strength rather than Zelander.
Richey sucks. Wish he would just quit making videos all together. That alone would probably be a net positive for CrossFit.
This is absolutely true - spot on analysis on the Richey channel
Craig has done a few different evolutions of content. His early stuff was great and had a lot of workout content. As he became popular he transitioned to more athlete cameo content. Since that time I noticed that he struggled getting final day content posted for the games or other big events.
When Craig evolved to the OLY competitions I lost interest. Fortunately Sevan and Hiller started showing up in my feeds and now I’m hooked.
Richeys content went downhill when he stopped actually doing CrossFit and when the clothing company seemingly started to really pick up. He doesn’t make his money from CZcams, he makes it from clothes and that’s why his IG and CZcams channel is just one big advertisement for HSTL. That’s all it is at this point.
Early TeamRichey vids were pure and they lit a fire under me but i think it gets difficult to do the same thing over and over again and have the same enthuisiasm for it, afterall you can only cut the content so many ways before it's something that's already been showcased 100x over already
You hit all the points with this one, when I started I saw the video series "Killing the Fat Man" and I was part of a great affiliate. This was during the early time 2010 thru 2014 and we had a games athlete as well as a masters level athlete which owned the gym. The open was important because it was the way to check your fitness and it was the way to the games. Unfortunately the gym got some additional owners and destroyed the community there. That said I still work out and do the WODs that proved to make all of better.
Wish I understood that last part.
I'm glad your videos are getting longer. Good for your algorithm and good for me cuz I'm too busy to be switching videos all the time
Love your content. Don’t know why it’s not on my feed as much but I’m back. 😁
One reason is it's no longer seen as going to the gym and getting fit. It's turned into a sport that has qualifying rounds and an annual games event to crown the fittest among the very, very fit. And we asked for it so we really can't complain even though we do. Add what's already been said about the firing of the media team in 2017, the craptastic coverage of the Games the last few years, and HWPO and PRVN being "hands off" compared to Fronting, Bridges, Bailey and others of that generation and you have....indifference. I do still love watching the Rogue Invitational though. The fact that they added the Strongman competition to the weekend makes it all even better.
Could it not just be simply down to CrossFit was something perceived as new and exciting and like anything in life once the excitement had died down and people had tried it, it naturally reached its peak?
Absolutely
I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years, and fads come and go. I would like to think that CrossFit was a bit more than a spinning or step aerobics class, but taking a step back and looking at the big picture from a far. Probably much the same.
Yes
@@michaelstas9811CrossFit is just a horrible methodology that is amplified by if you don’t have someone doing top-notch programming it amplifies the problems.
Average person without training experience will get in better shape with 80% or more being the diet changes.
Someone that comes from athletic background and just does classes might stay the same or get better at some things and regress with others.
Time invested doing tradition classes gives you orders of magnitude worse results than specializing strength/hypertrophy (which ever you prefer and they definitely are different) and/or cardio/speed (again, two different things that are against each other). If you really just focus on strength or hypertrophy and/or cardio/speed you can make insane gains. It’s not anywhere near as optimal but you could even do whole body 3 days and your endurance/speed training the other two days or do 4 days push/pull/legs split with endurance/speed the other two days and be way ahead.
So many people do CrossFit and just stay average and realize it’s times to move on. That’s because constantly varied/keep the muscles guessing is scientifically BS and actual repeated and measurable progressive overload is what creates results and it takes a long time until your body truly adapts and you get diminishing returns. Which is why CrossFit athletes… which look like everyone pictures they’ll look like when they do CrossFit… actually have a lot of repeat training and progressive overload when they program. Of course they’re not doing 5 classes for everyone a day.
ya just like UFC right?
This. You’re spot on.
A lot of ppl bought fitness equipment before covid, me included. If you can do crossfit at home, why pay exorbitant prices to go somewhere else. 😂😂
Community. It’s always been about community. You’re comment is the mindset of all the new age Crossfitters
@@christianpilola1157 community if you have money to spend
@@christianpilola1157 not every box has a “community” feel to it. I was turned off by cattiness, gossip and political discussions. I left my box after 7 years. I workout at home doing HWPO60. Physically I feel better because I don’t feel pressure to compete against the person next to me or go heavier than I need to because a coach thinks I can go heavier and faster. I have no plans to go back to a box.
@@michelleg9697 thats great and to each their own. I agree with you. You could have found a new box though
@@christianpilola1157 Maybe... I only had one in may area. Can't assume too much
The sport of crossfit should be run by a separate entity then the brand of crossfit. The brand should stick to its core principles and should only allow crossfit co branding at the sport of crossfit events if the brand feels like it will add to the brand(enhance its core values). So crossfit should focus on affiliates and education nothing else. The idea of the glassman’s was not to make athletes(or affiliate owners)rich but to make the best possible athlete out of anyone who would step into a crossfit box. This is the only goal, if that is achieved making money would not be a problem.
There is a direct correlation to the popularity of CrossFit and when Netflix had the documentaries available
Your videos have been fire lately and from the heart. Must be that time off between videos
We do fall league at our gym. People pay $60 for 4 weeks of “Thursday Night Lights”. Something like 40 teams of 4. Every cent goes to new gear for the gym. And a few of us have a Sunday afternoon pizza gathering to assemble it all.
"It's been replaced by the Mayhem shirts... you're now part of a camp" Rory wearing a Mayhem shirt trying to defend CrossFit 👀 ...
I used to do the Open and convince other people to do it because I saw it as a better year over year comparison of your own fitness improvement. In the local box it may not be as noticeable how much more fit you have become. If you are always the 3rd best time at your local affiliate then it may feel like you are the same even if your time(s) have improved. But when you compare yourself to the whole world you can see that you were in the 50th percentile and now in the 40th. Or whatever it is.
I started CrossFit in 2009. The “Nasty Girls” video was my introduction to CrossFit and I wanted to be those ladies. I loved how the last person to complete a workout was just as important as the first person to finish. Back then, the CrossFit website had a page full of videos you could watch…I watched them all!!! I invested in CrossFit. I had an L-1, and went to several other cert seminars. I loved the community. Loved Fight gone Bad for the Wounded Warriors
But things changed…I changed …but I do miss the old community.
great comment
You suggest we buy your programming and do it at the affiliate…we’ll, at my affiliate, there is NO individual programming , workouts, no open gym without paying another $150 ON TOP of my affiliate monthly membership of $135. I’m not allowed to do any accessory exercises or workouts with paying MORE $. It’s disappointing!
Firing the media to let other content creators foot the bill of games and community coverage was short sighted. They had the capacity to make the type of sports documentary series now popular on streaming back in the day and could have been one of the first to bring it to a wider audience. Also Disney are in trouble so they would be better off losing ESPN and either go it alone or use a platform on the rise like DAZN
I think this is my favorite video you've done so far. I hope someone at CrossFit HQ is listening, there are people who still love and believe in the CrossFit lifestyle. We don't want it to die but if HQ won't listen to "we the people" then it is only a matter of time.
I also think Greg Glassman leaving/selling CrossFit did a lot to kill it. His polarizing ideas made CF different. I haven’t seen anything to replace that since he left.
2017 was peak Glassman madness. His attack on big soda, the firing of the media team to focus on Archie bunker, the Russell controversy, Glassman’s divorce. One man is responsible for the death of CF… Greg.
Also, let’s add the context that all fitness methods go in fads…. Remember hot yoga, Pilates, Zumba, boot camps, spin, soul cycle, etc. All of them were popular enough they became people’s personalities… their social circle, their clothing choices, their stress relief… until they weren’t.
Also, the current athletes grew up in Boxes. The 2015-2018 bunch of personalities didn’t. You had gymnasts (Katrin), runners (Briggs), sprinters (bailey) , weightlifters (mat) who would excel at some events and lose horribly at others. They had different histories and personalities. Now everyone is generic CF, who grew up in the boxes and learning media from each other. It’s boring.
It was Gregs to ruin tbf, it would be nothing without him
My 2 cents:
1. Firing of media team
2. Less interesting characters/athletes now then before
3. More regular gyms/functional gyms doing the same thing without being an affiliate, for a cheaper monthly fee
4. Earlier adopters getting older and body says no (me😅) so we start doing other things.
5. Events like Hyrox gaining more traction
6. Glassman stepping down and all the weird decisions made by new management ever since, lack of consistency in implementing rules etc etc
No. 3 my globo gym has a functional area that has so much clean and functional traditional CrossFit kit it’s actually bordering on crazy I’m talking 15 of every piece of cardio equipment etc. it also has 3 pools, cold dunk, hydrotherapy, epic cafe, beautiful changing rooms etc. half price of a CrossFit gym in my area with half the equipment
The irony is that Crossfit was founded under libertarian concepts and the free market just improved upon it while CFHQ became stagnant.
You highlighted the exact issues and clearly Dave and Sevan get it as well. Coming up with their own brands/training is wild. It saturates the methodology and people think it’s something else, which it is. It’s a cluster f*ck of people taking from CrossFit and giving nothing back. Almost 0 support for the local affiliate in any of these athletes, and their programming sales.
One of my favorite videos of yours so far.
So Absolutely Love this commentary!!
Spot On!!
Nice!!
I’d be interested to see how the trends of CrossFit sponsors(current and former) compare to CrossFit’s google trend
Games aren’t as fun, athletes don’t have the personality they used too (thanks Brent and vellner for still being around), the community aspect has definitely decayed. Feels way too commercial focused now compared to years ago. Media team being fired definitely screwed them, the current streaming is glitchier then it used to be and the announcers now seem like dummy’s with half of what they say during events.
From the perspective of a Stay at home mom who isn’t going to a local affiliate and who always watches CrossFit media stuff (minus the long drawn out talks).
- 1. I’m always wondering why CrossFit isn’t highlighting athletes throughout the year and posting them to their CZcams page. For example YETI has the best CZcams videos and they’re incredibly inspiring and well done. They find inspiring people and highlight them. CrossFit doesn’t even have to look hard for content to make they have it right at their fingertips.
-2. Refer to what I said about not going to an affiliate. I had no idea that the open cost $20 I’ve never had an interest in doing it. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard an elite athlete make the open sound like the most pointless thing. I’m pretty shocked considering how it all feeds back to their earnings and their job really. Attitudes of the athletes is like what you described they use it while it serves them but they don’t really love the brand. That’s translating to the consumer.
I’m going to weigh in with my own personal observations and opinion on why it would be dying.
1. Athlete sponsorships and inauthenticity. A lot (not all, but a good amount) are simply walking advertisements. They aren’t relatable or enjoyable anymore because all they do is push product. Top example is Brooke Wells. I can’t stand her page anymore because all she pushes is $1000 trash cans for ice baths and her supplements. It’s annoying, point blank.
2. Market saturation. Every athlete and their dog has a CZcams. What makes them different and unique from each other? Nothing. A person can only watch the same boring routine before they move on.
3. Can’t relate. This ties in to number 1. But the original buy-in message for CrossFit is gone. The idolizing of the elites doesn’t work anymore because they don’t live the same lives as us common folk and it’s frustrating. They have all the latest and greatest equipment in their home gyms gifted to them, while most people barely make it to an affiliate between their careers and home obligations.
Again, just personal opinion but I can see those points as contributions to crossfit’s drop in interest
There’s been some great points captured couple i feel strongly about is the cost is so high to participate in a gym and the CrossFit brand and ethos has been so watered down
Personally I hated having 5 weeks of OPEN workouts. As a gym owner, it's super demanding to run 5 extra long nights, organize everything, etc. I think 3 weeks is perfect. That said, I have no problems in doing 2 WODs in a week timeframe. So we could have 5-6 total scored challenges. Also a lot of people in the spring time travel, and 5 weeks often will run into holidays. CrossFit isn't our life for 99% of us, but we still want to participate in the OPEN and give it our all. 3 weeks is enough.
Poor baby
Agreed. Was always over it by week 4. Honestly the 3 week open + break + 2 week quarterfinals has the same feel as the 5 week open but with less demand as a manager & as a masters athlete is easier on the body too haha
Just a thought... what if they only allowed people who actually affiliate members be a part of the games. Only People who are engaged in a local affiliate... doesn't the team side already have some rules like that in place? 😊
It’s dying because the everyday people simply cannot relate to pretentious hyper elite athletes in my opinion. Also CF HQ messed up & overly politicized fitness, which was an escape for most of us & the best part of our day. just sayin’.
Additionally the everyday person can't afford much at all in this day and age, let alone a gym membership that costs 4-6x the average fee. In the UK I can sign up to my local PureGym and it'll cost roughly $20 a month; including unlimited classes (spinning, circuit training, yoga etc). My CF membership costs a little over $130. I don't want to quit because I love the sessions, coaches and my friends there, but when money is this tight "luxuries" need to take a back seat.
@@EromasinI just wonder how many people actually use the gym they pay $20 a month for and actually use the equipment they have vs people that pay the CF memberships and actually use them. I’m willing to bet there are more people that pay for CF and go vs those that pay a globe gym membership and go. I know people paying a globo membership for years and haven’t gone in years. They def aren’t doing that with CF. People will afford what they want to afford depending on where their priorities are.
@@dhall75608That’s true to a certain extent but that’s also CF marketing BS TBH.
Someone willing to pay that much is by more default more invested in their health to begin with by shelling out that money.
It’s really in the inverse of the CrossFit marketing. Those people want to have something they’ll stick to so bad that they are willing to pay that much money. Not paying that much money makes them stay. Otherwise, they would never pay that or any money to begin with. When it no longer serves them they’ll drop the CrossFit membership right away.
“Globo-gym” is a low to no risk investment so people will throw money at it that aren’t serious. However, those that are serious ALSO don’t hesitate to put their money towards that cheaper membership and will work out and if they research and such just like many people that get into CrossFit do… they’ll see results (better results TBH) than CrossFit.
It’s all mindset. People with the same mindset will be successful no matter which one they choose. The difference is “globo-gym” allows the less committed to join because the cost is minimal. Therefore the ratios look worse. CrossFit (gym) price point is so high it doesn’t allow uncommitted (unless they got that dumb money) to even join which skews the data and makes nice propaganda.
The cost of training is 2 high. Down in Houston Texas metroplex the monthly fee for a CrossFit gym is more then $150 per month.
Quick note, there are two stair steppers in CrossFit Mayhem's gym in Cookeville.
for Mayhem Hunt program In guessing. Training for the hike up the elk mountains 😂
Bingo Paul
For me, it's a question of the athletes being compelling to watch. When you have all these very popular athletes drop out for whatever reason, fans drop out too. Haley Adams - dropped. Mal O'Brien - dropped. Tia Clair - also out. Mat Fraser - also dropped a couple of years ago. That's just my perspective from the outside looking in. Also - it's harder to watch the open given the way they run it, so the past two years, I haven't seen any of the events except the games.
And yeah, I really enjoyed listening to Sherwood and the rest of the media folks - that certainly was a factor as well.
Does anyone want to ring in how much it is just to go to a box? 200+ per month is getting more and more difficult for even the middle class to afford. It's more than just the CF games.. CF is getting smashed by the economy too
I go to a global gym it’s the face of America, with all races and income levels
I go to a CrossFit box and it’s upper middle class white people who pray a lot
Anecdotally, I have more athletes in my gym than ever. 🎉
please do a video on everything related to the updates for the adaptive teen and masters divisions in the games
Crossfit needs to hire people who care about the sport like Brett Fikowski. He has time and time again came up with solutions to many of the problems that have occurred throughout the years.
I know that 2023 is 2 months away from the end but there is no way for a more complete video to come out at that time about not only the biggest problems that CFHQ is facing at the moment, but also the potential solutions to these… please prove I’m wrong 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
I don’t think it’s the athlete’s responsibility to help grow the sport. They are there because they want to compete, earn money and build a platform they can capitalize on after their competitive careers are over. Jordan never went out of his way to do anything to help grow the NBA, he just competed, won and built his brand. People were attracted to him & wanted to watch him. Every major sport, people love the teams. They don’t love the “league”.
CrossFit doesn’t know how to navigate this. People love the training camps, they don’t love the brand of “CrossFit”.
CrossFit will die due to 1) self inflicted wounds (ie firing the media staff) 2) Not knowing how to grow and evolve with the current changes
Great as usual. I would just like to add one thing. Why is the CrossFit Games still using large venues? It seems to me they are still holding on to the Paleolithic CrossFit era. Maybe scaling down the venue and using those funds for other things such as media and building momentum for CrossFit's brand. I do not want TEF to think I do not have any solutions to contribute. Would NoBull even notice?
It’s so simple. People keep getting broken at their local Box. CF sells people on achieving fitness and looks. But ends up hurting all those out of shape obese people who shouldn’t be snatching at 5:00AM or ever actually. So when people pay for the brand they get a PT for rehabilitation in 6 months. But hey CF gave the box owners a 1 day certification what could go wrong!
19:37 agree with the 5 weeks test of fitness, we need to give back the Open to the affiliate
Since lockdown the lack of support affiliates got plus the Greg Glassman scandal, really made people question their association to CrossFit. I LOVE the community vibe of the CrossFit gym, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore. Now whereic live there are 2 CrossFit gyms and 4 CrossFit style gyms that are not affiliated. So the potential community is fragmented. Also for competitions, there would need to be a baseline of training aka CROSSFIT. Not all of the variations of programs! It really is declining and also the price has gone up in my city so it is becoming less inclusive. People trained isolated on lockdown and these programs coming out are encouraging that even more, and that is a huge problem in fuelling the spirit of community and CrossFit
Since 6 months, I would call myself as a CrossFit Nerd. I am consuming everything about crossfit (Around your crossfit bubble , not Greg Richy anymore). As I saw the Fraser Roagen podcast, i had no idea who is Ben Smith. Fraser told in Rogen "he lost against some random, no name dude. Since there months I didn't look at anything from Fraser. I don't know Ben still (in person) but I know that he are longer in crossfit word then Fraser and are extern involved and contributing to crossfit. I am done with Fraser. How fit he was doesn't matter what he it matter how you talk about your competitors.
Fraser said that about Ben Smith. He called him a nobody? Wow!
Mat Fraser has like middle child syndrome. He expressed in various videos how offended he has been when Greg Glassman wasn’t starstruck meeting him or not being invited to participate in CF teams competition. He has resentment towards Ben Bergeron. He use to train a lot with Alex Anderson. I’d love to hear what he has to say about Mat. I know Mat resents Cole Sager. He also shat on CF as a company and did not separate it from the methodology and now he makes money off of CF. He’s entitled to his feelings and opinions. 💯 I just have never really liked him or felt compelled to follow him. His camp loves him though, stand by him, and say he’s a good dude. I’m sure he is, just not my cup of tea. Every sport needs a villain. 🤷♀️
@@kathleenpodlipni6952Don’t know much about him or looked into him. Seems like an arrogant person (of course all time greats usually are).
Of course I’m not coming to the defense of people like the word salad charlatan Ben Bergeron either.
I think it's very telling that Matt used to train on his own in his basement and only did CrossFit cos he got dragged into it and chance to exploit his Olympic lifting background, like i'm pretty sure he looked down his nose at the people in the box and only went there cos they had bumper plates etc for him to do his oly lifting stuff, he is not CrossFit DNA and i knew there was something that i could never get behind him for and it makes sense when he has such little respect for it, shame Rogan will only get on people willing to trash it@@kathleenpodlipni6952
People are smarter now, they now understand there are more Zones other than 4 and 5. Crossfit was great to get people out of their couch.
1 thing it’s a disingenuous sport. PED’s are prevalent. Yet, Ricky Garard got villainized for being caught with RAD-140 in his system. (RAD-140 isn’t even a steroid.) All the atop athletes have taken PED’s at some stage (not saying they’re on during the Games but they have been on at some point) Yet they all make their money through sponsorships and falsely having you believe that they are these genetically superior elite specimens who just train and eat right. Bodybuilding community mocks CrossFit for other reasons. But yano, CrossFit deserves to be mocked sometimes with how naive people in this sport are.
But it’s a SARM which is a banned PED. It doesn’t have to be a steroid to be banned. A steroid is a type of PED, just like a SARM is. I’ll tell you a secret….CF isn’t the only sport where PEDs are prevalent. Every sport has their users. Some are just better at not getting caught than others.
01) The R.Garard comment: How is it different from any other sport? One gets caught yet 4 others escape. Doesn't make CF as a sport disingenuous. Is police disingenuous because they don't catch everyone who speeds down public roads?
02) Everyone does it.: Quite a blanket statement. They do what? RAD-140? HGH? EPO? Maybe they ALL do, just need more proof before everyone gets thrown under the bus.
03) If you or anyone else believes that they're all on bread and water, that's on you/them, not on CF or any other pro sport on earth. It's just marketing, like X brand of toothpaste will get you white teeth like Y Hollywood actor/actress.
04) Why would body building mock CF? If I want an opinion on how to train for tennis, I ask a tennis coach, not a soccer coach. Stay away from CZcams videos claiming to know what's wrong with [insert sport here], especially from click baiters that have nothing to do with said sport.
@@mikeg5372 It’s disingenuous cause all other athletes make you believe they’re natty when they’re not.
@@mikeg5372Just do some basic research on the human body and it’s capabilities as far as work capacity… building muscle… recovery… etc…
Everyone is varying degrees of different but the science is pretty clear.
You can also read plenty of articles like some from T-Nation where someone talks about how they help top athletes (they don’t name names) beat drug tests and how easy it is.
Of course bodybuilding community and others mock CrossFitters because paleo and what ever else is the same thing as “chicken, rice and broccoli.” They know better than anyone else what the PED bodies like look and that’s why they find it hilarious when CrossFitters be like “it’s all thanks to God, low carbs, theragun and FitAid.”
Do you think affiliate participation would improve if affiliates bought better programming for members rather than having an inexperienced coach at their gym or the affiliate owner write the programming? affiliates loose members due to poor programming and encourage the popularity of programs like HWPO which a lot of people follow in a normal englobo gym
This. I got my start at an affiliate with experienced coaches who wrote their own programming. It’s what made me drink the kool-aid. Then I moved, started at a different affiliate with inexperience coaches who literally didn’t know what they were doing and some of the worst programming I’d ever seen. It was eye-opening for me. I don’t think HQ can reel this in now that it’s out there.
I could give like 50 reasons why crossfit is "dying" from a normie non-crossfitter perspective, but having a media team would provide some positive results. Not like I pay particular attention to crossfit when i'm out or surfing the internet, but it's definitely less noticeable than before. I don't do crossfit, but I do like this channel.
This is the most spot on video you have made. Everyone knows the issue. As a fan since 2010 and owner since 2011 i approve this message
In my mind Cross Fit is like the NFL, there are teams (affiliates) that belong to the NFL organization and there are athletes that belong to the teams. I can't imagine a random non-NFL team showing up at the play offs to compete against the NFL. It would seem that all the athletes competing in Cross Fit should belong to a Cross Fit affiliate, even if they create their own affiliate. By limiting the playoff to affiliate athletes the athlete has a reason to invest in the communtiy, advancing their affiliate while advancing Cross Fit and its goals. Allowing un-affliated athletes to come in and benefit from community without really investing in the community doesn't make sense. NFL team owners work to improve the NFL because if the NFL grows, then the team owners benefit and the players benefit.
Lots of thoughts going through my head being an ex affiliate owner. Good video and thank you,
“If you just focus on the games and lose track of the affiliates”…however, right before it, it was “games, games, games”. I didn’t join CF because of the games, I joined because of the community. What fuels CF is the community. As you said, they do nothing for the affiliate but give them the brand name. More and more people are making “functional fitness” gyms, because and I quote from a gym owner, “all I’m paying for is the brand”. Annual insurance fees, comp fees, etc. However, besides the open, CF is for the 1% now and that’s what changed. Pl
Why can’t CrossFit rule that anyone at the games must be linked to an affiliate
I said this in 2022 to my business partner as he wanted to affiliate to help with advertising and I said CrossFit as an organization has made some bad moves and has slowly been declining on Google search but we ended up doing it anyway and was the biggest marketing waste ever. We didn’t get any more calls for it unfortunately. I’m no longer and owner of the gym for a magnitude of reasons but also didn’t feel great about being a CrossFit gym and just didn’t feel good being tied to CrossFit itself.
Now I’m in the recruit class for firefighting(graduate Friday) and am known as the crossfitter and I hate it cause though crossfit has done some right in the past… I don’t agree with it all. Especially the L1 and being able to open a gym with just that but that’s a whole different topic.
Is it possible to buy an affordable shirt that just says crossfit on it?
I love CrossFit was an L1 owner a box pre rona and even then I got 100% thought it was a pyramid scam.
But in my town the last box is not just fit and dropped the 3k affiliate fee to be called CrossFit anymore 😅
CrossFit didn’t invent a pull up or burpee they just found a way to market it
People might say that the UFC is what it is today because of Conor McGregor. But what really happened is the A1 media team at the UFC saw McGregor, recognized his star power, and jumped on it. The amount of media surrounding him, his fights and his life made him a star, but it made the UFC BILLIONS because they were smart enough to capitalize on someone like him. It's the willingness to take risks and invest in story lines, events, and media coverage that gets more eyeballs onto not just the sport, but CrossFit as a whole. If I was in CrossFit's shoes I'd invest as much money as possible to either contract out or hire on a media team that are diehard CrossFitters with a talent for creating content. Then we'll see the rise of CrossFit because the methodology works, but not enough people know that, yet.
Well, i am from Brazil. And I get interested about Crossfit when I watched the Doc in the NetFlix. Why they don’t do this anymore? So yes I agree with you about this topic (media team).
F1 did this years later (a doc listed on Netflix) and they grew in popularity in US.
I used to love all the media CF put out before 2017. I would search CrossFit all the time, watch the redshirt videos, learn how to be a better coach, and see the “a day in the life of” and thought it was great. Since then I don’t really search it anymore because it’s like you said. It’s a camp, it’s an elite in their own garage by themselves, it’s…boring….
Maybe they should make it a requirement that if you want to participate in higher level competitions for CF, you have to show documentation that participated in class or volunteered at a CF affiliate for at least X hours. It might sound dumb but even most trail races/ultra marathons require that you not only pay a hefty entry fee, but also devote at least 8 hours doing trail maintenance or volunteer at a different trail race. It is such an easy way to get you involved in the community and to give back.
That might force big name athletes to get out among the pleebs and be involved more, or show face at local competitions to hype up the CF name and community.
HILLER HILLER HILLER!
Your 1 person who joined an Affiliate because of DS was at my box!
She walked in saying she wanted to join because she wanted to look like DS. Unfortunately as we all know tho doing a CF class won’t “make” you look like anyone but yourself tho - she only lasted 2 months & ghosted us, but yeah it happened DS inspired someone to join a box haha
I’ve done CrossFit 3 days a week for a year back in 2017, here’s why it didn’t work for me.
❌Too bloated - by the time you get back to one one lift it would take months, you couldn’t progress in anything.
❌Too much gossip: people were more into wasting time talking about work than working out. 30 minutes if you’re lucky and I paid 205 a month.
❌Odd WODS: why would I do deadlifts as fast as possible, then run for 800 meters on repeat? Dead lifts should come to a dead stop, not tap and go. Not to mention all the filler WODs that were just boring af.
❌Pricey: after a while I was realizing that most workouts could be done at home and on an app for free.
❌Wall balls: making men throw it at one point on the wall and women throw it lower point makes zero sense. Height should be the only factor not gender. Plus I’d rather squat and do shoulders on a different day.
❌Kipping “‘pull ups” so what happens if you need to get up over a wall? you cant Kip. It’s silly af.
❌Obligation: the guilt you feel when you don’t go because of the money you pay and it’s on their schedule, not your own.
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It can be a useful tool depending on your job such as military. But power lifting 4 days a week, body building and running 2 days a week is more than enough for me. Crossfit is trying to reinvent a wheel that turns just fine.
Spot on and a HUGE reason I now workout at home!
@@sandrap6022 yep same here. I now have a 12x15 shed I do everything in. Buy once cry once.
I wouldn’t say it’s dying. It won’t be dead in 3 years. But we have definitely seen peak CrossFit and it ain’t ever coming back. Lots of factors besides media and promotion. CrossFit just plain doesn’t work for a lot of people. It’s too hard, it wears you down over the long term and the results don’t come after the newbie gains unless you’re using stuff that CrossFit allegedly bans. We know games athletes don’t even do CrossFit as defined by Hiller. We’ve seen the pictures with donuts and Fireball shots. Yeah, “the Community” can be great, but even for the tiny, shrinking minority that value health and fitness, in a time where most are struggling to afford gas, groceries and housing, paying the CrossFit premium for benefits you can get 100 different other ways no longer makes sense. If it ever did.
I went to a CrossFit gym for a year. I was pretty faithful, and I did have some fun, but the longer I was there, the stranger it got. I felt like I was in a cult, and it felt more like a cult, when I decided to terminate my membership.
You were too worried about how you felt versus how hard you need to work. Sad excuse Daniell-son.
@@dontreply69 you have no idea how hard I worked. You trolls are all over. I was a division 1 wrestler. I have a feeling, that you don’t know what hard work is.
@@justfine77777 And you also have no idea how hard, how many hours of crossfit and calenthenics I do. Im not the quitter here....
@@dontreply69 who gives a 🐀’s 🫏. The whole comment of mine had nothing to do with work. Pipe down you weirdo. You are probably a vegetarian too. 🙄
I might be wrong, but I feel like a lot of the top athletes don't even train at Boxes aside from maybe Rejkavik. Seems like when you see a lot of their social media posts, they're in private gyms or boxes at off-hours when nobody else is around. I think there's a lack of a connection with that. It's not much of a community when it's just you in your private gym.
Dude…. As a guy who started CrossFit in 2010 at age 16 there is nothing like the old days…. And no one other than Froning and his mayhem team are preserving and advancing the legacy. Great video.
I agree. All these popular new age Crossfitters have all these contracts and online popularity and feel they are above the community of Crossfit
@@christianpilola1157 we use to keep people like that away from our box, it was a family.
@@chrisflores9030 im with you brotha. I also started in 2010. Nice to see a fellow OG. Crossfit shoes weren’t even a thing yet and I was paying 75/month at my gym. Just a bunch of people all getting better together.
@@christianpilola1157 dude I had those new balance minimalist shoes lol can’t believe I would snatch in those 😂 that’s what made it awesome. We had one cd playing for the like the first 2.5 years too lol
My affiliate gives me a reason to sign up for the Open.
This is a multifactorial problem. Media is one issue (large issue). Athlete engagment to the community is another. However, Crossfit's greatest problem is the relationship with its affiliates. They are the outward face of Crossfit, however, affliation has very little benefit. As a Crossfit gym owner it has been frustrating to see the lack of vision and missed business opportunities by HQ (there are so many its hard to even keep track of). Affiliates recognize this and are evolving their business model away from Crossfit which ultimately affects future growth. I'm finishing up my MBA and used Crossfit in one of my cases for my strategy class. Crossfit needs help.
I started losing interest when crossfit turned into the handstand walk games. The reduction of weeks and events for the Open was also downer. Third thing was it was getting hard to believe a Medeiros body type is "the fittest man on earth". The events did not line up with the fitness levels and athleticism of popular sports.
Chris Spealler pointed out in the 2014 documentary that there was a split between the methodology and doing CF for the Games. Everyone has to work their hustle, and most of it is springboarded off - not through - CrossFit and the grassroots community
1. Crossfit games coverage is terrible and confusing. So much better pre-2018 or so.
2. People doing reps to infinity in a shed now have plenty of examples of friends just doing 3 sets of 10 and eating right looking just as good or better.
3. Training like a Navy SEAL 5 days a week isn’t necessary to be healthy and can actually mess you up.
We're all waiting for the CrossFit ultimate fighter style show. This would be a hit and potentially span several seasons
Here’s something to consider, around he peak years of CrossFit. Prior firing the media team. ThenFittest on Earth docs use to be on Netflix. Hence one of my first exposures. They were on Netflix before F1, NFL, PGA, and NASCAR. Now WWE is heading to Netflix. They need to get on Prime or Netflix because it helps put more eyes on the sport. While also putting live coverage on there.
I predict HYROX, ATHX (and similar) will grow at the same rate that CF declines. I've done both in the last year and will definitely compete again. Moreover my local affiliate is taking steps to 'double hat' as a CF & Hyrox facility, one foot in the old another in the new, hedging bets......
CrossFit vs. Programming, 💯 The name/mission doesn't carry the same brevity. There was a stretch where I wore CF t-shirts from vacation box drop-ins (New Zealand, Thailand) or my old box; maybe that was just a phase, and attire is an oversimplification of the sport's landscape, but the CF buzz on a public level isn't the same as years ago.
I have heard several times that CrossFit is a media company; I do not understand that. Isn't most of their revenue generated from the seminars and affiliate fees?
I do CF. My wife goes to a functional fitness gym that just closed. Tried to get her to come to CF with me; “no, I can’t do CF - too hard”. I think the Games hurts the affiliates because my wife thinks it’s too hard from watching Tia - and she has me to explain it to her. We need an “Everday CrossFit” and a media team pushing it
It depends on who writes the workout .. but if you want to get better and have more conditioning the daily wods never really work .. they can beat you down sure .. but most people have to hybrid there training to get anywhere physically .. I saw people never progress on pull-ups for example .. if you can’t get someone to get a pull-up in 3 to 6 months then are they getting better or stronger .. I really think it just depends on what that coach is like and the overall training at that box . Your wife could find a CrossFit app better suited to her needs for much cheaper and just hit a functional global gym even
@@Kwildcat13Programming is the most important.
Sorry but most coaches and from what I’ve seen with things like L1 have almost no knowledge of actual human anatomy and progressive overload.
Banded pull-up is one of the easiest examples. Bio-mechanically the band helps on THE EASIEST part of the pull-up and gives no aid aid at the hardest part of the movement. It also makes the bottom of the eccentric easier so you can’t get that hypertrophic stretch at the bottom.
The best way is the assisted pull-up machine because it gives equal and and your body still does the intended motion. The probably second best way (which I’ve seen some coaches do) are slow negatives. Right around there is body weight rows on a racked barbell or ring rows but making sure you are consistent with doing them once or twice weekly and inching them to a flatter position to make it more difficult.
Have you showed her the Instagram pages of local affiliates?
if Crossfit had an annual T-shirt design for the Open, they could charge me $30-40 and I'd probably sign up every year... sort of like what murph/chad1000x does
An almost overwhelming amount of stuff I never really knew about the industry and how deeply the Games really tied into things.
Harsh, brutal, but Hiller is right to point out the importance of having champions with real skin in the game. Champions in more than than one definition of the word, not just prizefighters.
3 minutes in and I already know this one is going to be brilliant.
I used to like Castro and others doing Open Workouts at CrossFit affiliates, and making a great show of it. Doing CrossFit box focus visits with the media team. All pretty much gone now. We don’t see epic box level comps. You are spot on with the lack of media team at. RossFit. It feel completely like a cash cow now. No real leadership, no real CrossFit HQ personalities. No engagement with CrossFit Games athletes and local boxes. Just a slow cash out.