Whenever someone tells me “I don’t do any sports, can I start CrossFit?”, my immediate answer is “Did you know how to drive a car before passing your driving license?”.

It’s a silly answer, but you get my point.

I recently came across a short video from a famous former CrossFitter / Fitness influencer (Marcus Filly, check him out @marcusfilly) who recommends building some kind of basic fitness level before jumping into our sport.

Although I usually agree with his approach, this statement made me quite angry as a box owner, since it obviously makes people doubt whether they should or shouldn’t cross the door of our gym.

However, I understand why he, and so many people, might think that way. But here is why he is wrong.

Understanding the methodology.

Functional movements, constantly varied, performed at high intensity. This is our methodology. And it works. It works if you’ve never trained a single day in your life; it works if you’re a professional athlete.

That sentence goes together with another famous statement: “Our fitness needs differ by degree, not by kind”. In other words, intensity (or difficulty) will mean something different for you, for me, for everyone.

The success of a good CrossFit session is not incumbent on the weight you put on the bar, or on how many kipping pull-ups you did. It is in the stimulus that specific training gave you. It is in the physiological response and adaptation your body will have in response to that stimulus. And you can achieve that adaptation through many different ways, depending on your level of fitness. And because CrossFit uses functional movements, it is infinitely scalable, which makes it the perfect sport for your 80-year-old grandpa or for your 18-year-old hyper-energetic cousin.

The “problem” of the CrossFit Games.

CrossFit is a new sport, and for a long time (you could argue it still is) has been quite unknown from the public. So, when someone enters a CrossFit gym and sees 15 people sweating, gasping for air, or lying on the floor, of course they will be intimidated.

Worse, someone may just google “What is CrossFit” and ends up looking at short videos of professional athletes during our worldwide competition the “CrossFit Games”. And again; you end up watching insanely fit people achieving amazing feats with their body, and that person will think “There’s no way I can do that!”.

No shit, of course you can’t. But is that your goal?
When you start football, do you expect to play like Messi or Ronaldo?
When you pick up a tennis racket, do you think that you can be as good as Federer or Nadal? And when you go for a Sunday run, do you sprint 100m in less than 10 seconds?

CrossFit may very well be the most holistic, hard and all-rounded sport on the planet, yet many people consider the elite as the norm, and therefore think it is not meant for them.

We can’t blame them. CrossFit has done an arguably terrible job marketing themselves over the years, and the CrossFit Games was the only lens through which you could get a glimpse of what our sport is.

But rather than being intimidated by what the 0.01% can do, let’s inspire people by what the other 99.99% are doing.

The responsibility of the CrossFit Coach.

We know the methodology works – now you need someone to apply it.
The methodology may be simple, yet its application is not. I challenge anyone who says coaching CrossFit is easy to run a class of 18 people with 2 trials, 3 relatively new members, a couple of experience athletes, a bunch of everyday gym-goers and a handful of members still thinking about their workday and making sure that everyone is SAFE, HAPPY and COACHED.

Every member should end a class fitter than when they started. A good coach will say everyone’s name at least once in each class (meaning, gave a cue to everyone), and will make sure everybody had a good time. By itself, this is already quite a remarkable achievement.

But the real art of coaching is in scaling the workout to the need and level of everyone. Choosing the right option for the right person is an art – especially for new people you have never worked with. And even when you found the perfect “scale”, you then need to convince your athlete to do it (wink wink to you and your ego fueled “I can do kipping pull-ups” memberJ)!

Unfortunately, the level of coaching throughout affiliates is too inconsistent. It only takes one inexperienced coach to apply the wrong level of intensity to a new member for that person to then speak shit about the sport to everyone around her. Yet, the problem wasn’t CrossFit, the problem was the coach.

We all drive cars, so we can all do CrossFit.

Nothing is comfortable at first. Nobody put on running shoes for the first time and went for a 42km marathon. But with proper coaching, and the right method, you can get there, in time.

Same goes for CrossFit.

CrossFit is for everyone, and you don’t need to be experienced to start. You need a great coach, the proper mindset, and an understanding of what CrossFit really is about.

Lucky you, we’ve got all this here at White Bull CrossFit.

Boris C.