The CrossFit Tribe

A while back I read Seth Godin’s book, Tribes.  If you haven’t read it, or you don’t like reading things, check out this video of Seth talking about tribes and their effect on our lives.

In his book, he explicitly mentions CrossFit as a tribe, and he’s spot on.  Coach Glassman is the leader of our tribe, and the CrossFit tribe is worldwide.  There’s no real control, regulation, or oversight other than what you find on crossfit.com.  Glassman has created a community that organizes itself around the common goal of lifestyle improvement through diet and fitness, with methods backed by research and practical application.

I had the amazing opportunity to work the media end of the Black Box Summit this weekend, and of the many things that became crystal clear to me, the one thing that stands out the most is CrossFit is a powerful tribe.

One more time: this is a powerful tribe.

Not just in the fitness and diet sense… I mean, yeah, we can squat and lift and perform random feats of strength that maybe 1% of the general population can do.

There’s much more to it.  Walk into just about any CrossFit box and you’re instantly welcome.  You already know what to do because the tribal knowledge is so pervasive that we all know the movements and how to conduct ourselves in the box.

During one of the Summit sessions, Jeremy brought in an anecdote from Born To Run about the tribe that Christopher McDougall was following.  This tribe loved to run… it was playful for them.  They have smiles on their faces.  They don’t see it as work, they truly love it.  Jeremy’s point was that our gym trains that way.  At CrossFit Central, we love CrossFit.

It’s apparent that CrossFitters worldwide love CrossFit.  But why?

CrossFit gives us back something that many of us lose — childhood.  The box is our playground.  We’re constantly discovering new abilities, and we’re constantly playing new games in the form of the WOD.  Hell, speaking of games, I played dodgeball at CrossFit Invictus last week, where the penalty for being tagged out was 5 reps of some movement (I ended up with burpee pull-ups).  Those new abilities not only make you a better athlete and a healthier person, they install a level of self-confidence that we often times lose right along with childhood.  If I can do Angie, Fran, Diane, or Elizabeth, those achievements flow into my daily life.  I feel better, look better, and I’m in the best shape of my life.  And it’s only going to get better.  I love CrossFit and what it’s brought to me, it has (and continues to be) a transformative experience.

CrossFitters understand this.  If you’re reading this and you don’t CrossFit, consider that CrossFit fills a void that many of us never knew we had.  That’s why we’re so fucking crazy about it.  That’s why it’s all we talk about when we get together outside of the box.

I bet you’ve got that void too — your childhood called, it wants to come back and change your life.