So a few weeks back, the coaches and I got into a little…discussion…about what we should call the fitness we do in our group classes. To spare you all of the gory details, they maintained that what we do is mainly CrossFit, while I argued that we did something else (of which I do not currently have a catchy name for.) Here’s my reasoning:
First, as you may have seen in the title, CrossFit is a brand, and to use their name you have to pay an affiliation fee- we did that for the first few years we were open, but haven’t for many more. So, in case any of their attorneys are reading- we definitely don’t do CrossFit. 🙂
With that out of the way, here’s the crux of my argument- CrossFit has a bit of a “Theseus Paradox” problem. For those of you out there who aren’t double whammy Greek Mythology/Political Science nerds, the Theseus Paradox is a thought exercise derived from the Athenian tradition of taking a yearly pilgrimage in Theseus’ famous ship. Over time as the years wore on the ship they replaced nearly every piece on the ship until the point that they began to ask themselves “is this still Theseus’ ship, or something else entirely?”
From the early days of CrossFit, people have been tweaking, adding, subtracting, and putting their stamp on things. Most affiliates no longer follow “classic CrossFit” style programming principles and most rarely or never perform some movements that were core pieces of original CrossFit (medball cleans, sumo deadlift high pulls, etc.) Many gyms, ourselves included, program varied intensity (gasp!) or even prescribe moderate to low intensity work (double gasp!) which would be verboten OG CrossFitters.
At Lumos we do all that, and we also scale movements differently, offer parallel program tracks, and do other things at odds with the CrossFit methodology. To be clear, CrossFit is a huge, probably the prime influence of what we do and what we program in group class, but it is not the only influence. We work very hard crafting, refining, and constantly tinkering with our methodology and what we think offers our members the best experience possible- to just say “we do CrossFit” like it’s an off the shelf product feels to me like it cheapens what we do.
CrossFit also has a bit of a self-created identity problem- in that CrossFit refers to both their methodology, the community, the “sport of fitness,” and probably some other things I’m forgetting. Since it’s an inherently “broad and inclusive” program, it sometimes tries to claim everything under its banner, as if everything the light of fitness touches is CrossFit. Sometimes when you define something so broadly, it can make it feel meaningless, because if it can be anything, what really is it?
So, then what do we call it? Functional Fitness is a bit overcooked, Mixed Modal Varied Intensity Exercise (MMVIE?) isn’t catchy. And really, anything we arrive upon, while good for branding and marketing, would tether us to a dogmatism that I don’t really subscribe to. What we do at Lumos is take the best training methodologies we can find (CrossFit definitely included, ground them in community and culture, built on structures of accountability and flexibility. If you have a good name for that, I’m listening!
