Last week, I was at the grocery store when I heard someone talking about their fitness camp that they attend, and I heard them say, “It’s CrossFit-ish.”

I have been training people for ten years, and let me tell you this, if you are not in a CrossFit gym, you are probably not doing CrossFit.

CrossFit has many variations and can be done with minimal equipment, but it is different at a CrossFit gym. Most ‘CrossFit-ish’ workouts are missing is the “Evidence-Based” practice of fitness that makes CrossFit, CrossFit.

The three most important and interdependent facets of any fitness program can be supported only by measurable, observable, repeatable facts.

The CrossFit methodology’s implementation starts by defining what we are looking for by creating absolute metrics in every workout. In layman’s terms, each workout has movement standards so we can accurately retest. If everyone is doing a different type of squat (not out of the need for modification) on the retest, how could you know if you got better if you are unsure of your squat depth or lockout?

The value behind this information is what our program is designed around is one of the reasons why the winner of the CrossFit Games can be crowned, “Fittest on Earth.”

Our ultimate goal is to create healthier and fitter people. “Health can now be concisely and precisely defined as increased work capacity across broad time, modal, and age domains. Work capacity is the ability to perform real physical work measured by force x distance/time (which is the formula for calculating power).”

The program design is meant to be inclusive but stretches across a broad range of movements and stimuli. While we are always reaching for our goal of increasing work capacity, we can also see an increase in many sport-related attributes. The most common attributes being body composition, increases in max VO2 and lactate threshold, and strength and flexibility.

True CrossFit is unlike any other program. When someone describes their program as CrossFit-ish, they are selling an incomplete product, a Mercedes without any emblems, wheels, or engine. There are other popular programs out there that test fitness at times, but nothing as data-driven as CrossFit. Our space is designed for creative fitness and not for packing in 100 people per 1,000 square feet for linear, single-focused training. We have machines like fan bikes and rowers, dumbbells, barbells, pull-up bars, medicine balls, sandbags, kettlebells, boxes, and many other pieces of equipment that we can create infinite numbers of workouts to achieve the desired days stimulus.

Fitness is necessary, and I am all for anyone doing anything fitness related. You have to enjoy what you are doing for it to stick. Find something and stay with it. CrossFit is its own thing. Its a methodology and a lifestyle, not just a fitness program. Do not be suckered into paying for a program that is CrossFit-ish because it is not.

Richard