Why not CrossFit..?

We recently decided to rebrand our business. We’ve been doing business as Move Functional Fitness officially for a few months now but were formerly called CrossFit East Decatur (2008 to November 2015.) A lot of people know that I’ve been doing this CrossFit thing for a very long time now. I started coaching CrossFit in 2007 (although I started teaching exercise in 1995), got my Level 1 while Coach Glassman was still lecturing in 2008 and shortly after, opened my affiliate, CrossFit East Decatur. We’ve been (and are still) affiliated for 8 years now. I’ve been to CrossFit’s Level 1 seminar at least 6 times (a few at which I was interning to be an HQ trainer which I decided wasn’t for me), the Level 2 seminar, the CrossFit weightlifting seminar, the CrossFit Gymnastics seminar, the CrossFit Kids seminar, the CrossFit Running and Endurance seminar (twice, then was part of Brian Mackenzie’s coaching staff for a period of time), the CrossFit Movement and Mobility seminar (three times) and the CrossFit Competitor’s seminar.

I watched the 2008 CrossFit Games on my computer from the East Coast and thought it looked like something I’d like to try so I started training in late 2008 for the 2009 CrossFit Games Southeast Regional. I placed second and participated in the 2009 CrossFit Games in Aromas, CA at the orignal ranch. Since that first year, every single year that I competed, I qualified for Regionals. I’ve had some of the best coaches in the business including C.J. Martin, Doug Chapman and Mike Bledsoe.  I earned spots to and competed as an individual in the CrossFit Games in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The only year I placed outside the top 10 at Regionals was 2013 — I was disqualified after the “OHS-Heard-Round-The-World”  incident. I had a huge year of competing in multiple sports in 2014, to the detriment of my health (a story for another day,) and decided not to compete in 2015. I describe all of this not as any type of glorification of what I’ve accomplished, but instead to illustrate how deep down into the CrossFit rabbit hole I’ve been. I’ve traveled all over the country and spent thousands of dollars on CrossFit education and competition. I think it’s safe to say that CrossFit has been a huge and important part of my life. I’ve eaten, slept and breathed CrossFit now for the better part of 10 years.

In 2007, CrossFit was pretty much unheard of. Many of us within the community really loved the underground, rebellious, hard-core, down and dirty style that the brand seemed to endorse. The CrossFit Journal article from July 2005, “CrossFit: An Open Source Model” was one of my favorites. I loved the idea of all of us being in different locations but being together by virtue of the fact that we were all doing the same workouts and posting our results to contribute to the data that would continue to shape the way the program evolved. In the early days, the CrossFit Games were just another way for us to test our fitness. When someone asked me what I did for a living, and I told them I owned a CrossFit affiliate, invariably they would ask me “What’s CrossFit?” and I would have the opportunity to explain to them (or try to explain LOL) what we did. The types of folks that worked out with us in the early days were extremely diverse, not only in body type, age and level of fitness but in an emotional/psychological way. They came in with no expectations, were given great coaching and many of them are still with us, 8 years later!

I’m not sure when that started to change — and this is a nebulous change that is impossible to nail down to one particular factor  — but at some point it started to feel like CrossFit WAS the CrossFit Games. Along with the broadcast of the CrossFit Games on ESPN, and the pressure to get all of your gym members to sign up for the Open, it became difficult to distinguish between CrossFit for fitness and CrossFit Games training. Don’t get me wrong, I do think there’s room for a healthy amount of competition in the gym. When one of us raises the bar, many more will rise to meet it and that is one of the things I love about the CrossFit method. However, there is a nugget of truth in some of the negative attention that CrossFit has received. Irresponsible affiliate owners, with not enough coaching experience and WAY too much gung-ho-ness for the Sport of Fitness, do irreparable damage by neglecting to educate themselves and their members about the importance of moving well and instead prioritizing “intensity” and “winning the workout.” [I’m not just blaming the coaches, I do believe that each athlete has to take personal responsibility as well. But when the coach you just hired to teach you how to move, not only doesn’t know how to fix your broken movement patterns but doesn’t even have a trained enough eye to SEE them, then it IS on the coach or whoever put that coach in charge.] As the name became more recognizable, as CrossFit established itself as a force in the commercial fitness world, the more butt-hurt haters spewed negative press about our beloved methodology.

The more popular CrossFit became, the more the name began to come along with associations that have been difficult to overcome, speaking as a business owner. It’s hard enough to own a service-related company, but when you add to that the mental barriers that come along with convincing an inactive or sedentary population to exercise, your job just got that much harder.  At some point over the last 3 or 4 years, when someone asks me what I do for work, and I tell them I own a CrossFit gym, the responses are no longer open-minded and curious. Nearly 100% of the responses are along the lines of “Oh my gosh, be careful. CrossFit is dangerous. Everyone gets injured doing CrossFit. Wow, those people are crazy, I’ve heard that every workout makes you puke. I’ve seen that CrossFit stuff on ESPN. There is no way I can do any of that. I’m sure CrossFit isn’t for me. I’ve heard that none of the trainers have any idea what they’re doing. It’s just too hardcore for me. My co-worker did CrossFit and got injured. It’s just not for me.”  I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to explain to people that we are nothing like all of those stories they’ve heard. Not only that, the ones who HAVE heard of CrossFit, who DO like the idea of it based on its reputation, come in expecting us to be something like what they’ve heard about – and, well, we’re just not. We don’t have a gym culture that matches the pervasive reputation- the one that represents every one of our affiliates.

The people, the real people in the world around me where I live, ARE. SCARED. SHITLESS. of CrossFit. And while, I could continue to try to run a business with a name that pretty much universally scares the bejeezus out of people, I decided that it made much more sense for us to develop our own identity. The people who know us and love us and sing our praises daily have done a great job of bringing us word-of-mouth business and helping us keep our heads above water. They’ve certainly done their part to try to undo some of the negative ideas about what CrossFit is. But we don’t have to waste all that energy anymore trying to change people’s minds.  NOW when someone asks me what I do, I get to tell them “I own a gym called Move Functional Fitness.” I get little goosebumps when I say it. We believe that a healthy body is the birthright of every generation. We provide high-level functional fitness training to all generations. Our philosophy is to teach that exercise is an important part of a well-rounded, healthy lifestyle. Regardless of age, color, race, sex, or starting point, moving well is vital. We are successful if every individual feels empowered and accomplished when they walk out of the building. Our unique programming is designed specific to our gym population and will foster constant progress. Education is a goal for both staff and clients. We are a group of highly motivated, educated trainers. We are different from regular gyms in that we care not only about your performance, but what your experience is like. We value empowerment, acceptance and community. If you are able to adapt and transfer your fitness to real-life applications, then we will consider ourselves, and you, successful.

Having a new name and new identity means now I get to spend my time telling people WHO WE ARE instead of who we aren’t. And I really love that.

🙂
-s.

Move Functional Fitness will celebrate its Grand (re)Opening with a HUGH open-house next Saturday, February 27th, 2016 from 12-3PM. We’ll have a DJ, vendors, delicious foods, feats of strength and much more!! CLICK HERE to view our event page on Facebook. All are welcome so consider yourself invited!!