Greg Glassman

30 whether he’s on 60 Minutes, lecturing at Harvard, or meeting with politicans. “Can we all agree something’s GREG wrong with the health system?” he GLASSMAN asks. The doctors lean in, sucked COFOUNDER, CROSSFIT // FOR FIRST into the Glassman vortex. “Show of DISRUPTING THE FITNESS INDUSTRY hands.” Every doc reaches skyward. AND NOW TAKING ON THE “You’ve seen things about health that HEALTH-CARE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. are essential and true, and when your lying eyes are at odds with your medical training, you need to rethink your education,” he explains, methodically is—they’re all just numbers and data pacing with a mild limp, the result of sets, equations you can solve with a childhood polio and bone-breaking lot of sweat; a few knock-down, drag- dismounts as a high school and college outs; and big, disruptive ideas. gymnast. “That’s why I’m here.” “Here” is CrossFit Holy Land: “the 20,000 Ranch” in Aromas, the site in 2007 of “There are at least 20,000 of you train- the first CrossFit Games, a weekend ing in CrossFit boxes,” says Glass- when 400-plus stupid-fit people do man, addressing 40 doctors inside stupid-hard workouts to determine an 8,000-square-foot barn nestled in the fittest humans on earth. Glass- GregG Glassman is a numbers guy. For central California’s farm country. It’s Glassman, below, man invited the doctors here to indoc- that he thanks his father, a rocket a diverse group—a neurologist from has seen Cross- trinate them with a CrossFit MDL1 Fit grow rapidly scientist for Hughes Aircraft who Boston, a trauma surgeon from San since 2001. course, a certification reserved for was “always up my ass about science, Francisco, an orthopedic surgeon There are now M.D.’s. There’s a 400-doctor waiting data, and what science is and isn’t,” from Jackson, Mississippi. Glassman more CrossFit list for future courses. boxes than says Glassman, 62. Fitness, fatness, is wearing jeans, graphic T-shirt, and Across more than 20,000 hours of Wendy’s and Taco fraudulence, and what a stupendous backwards camouflage hat—that Bell restaurants medical school, physicians receive mess the American health system California-casual getup he rocks combined. about 25 hours of lecture on nutrition. Courtesy CrossFit Inc. 104 November 2018 / MEN’S HEALTH 88 18 As for exercise? LOL. What really digs at Glassman is that docs do, however, spend semesters on pharmacology. “The CDC estimates chronic diseases [and mental-health conditions] account for 86 percent of health-care “F**k injuries. You think spending and 70 percent of deaths,” he says. “If people would just get off the couch and off the processed carbs, we got to 15,000 boxes by 40 percent of those deaths could be hurting everyone? avoided.” Enter CrossFit Health, Glassman’s shotgun blast at America’s obesity cri- sis: It’s a steady stream of these MDL1 “Fuck injuries. You think we got to pullups, back squats, bench press, and courses, which will create a network of 15,000 boxes by hurting everyone?” bike sprints,” he says. The method was CrossFit-friendly doctors who might “No, not me,” the orthopedist says. fast and loud. It monopolized equip- prefer to prevent and fix couch-and- “I’m asking for other doctors. .” ment. Its followers breathed heavy and carb-induced lifestyle diseases by “Yeah, I get that,” says Glassman. sweat hard. But it worked, and soon sending you to a box instead of a phar- “But see, we gotta unfuck the doctors people were bailing on other trainers macy or a surgeon. It’s the brand’s ” first.” The most controversial man to work with Coach Greg. And because attempt to huddle the overweight, dia- in fitness is at it again, picking fights he rarely meets a confrontation that betic masses. On Instagram, CrossFit with the establishment. doesn’t tickle him, “I got thrown out posts fewer images of jacked 20-some- of a lot of gyms,” he says. things doing reps to infinity and more 21–15–9 After moving to Santa Cruz and shots of what CrossFit does for people An hour before Glassman’s speech, the getting fired from the last gym in you might see at Walmart: a diabetic M.D.’s did an eight-minute workout town, Glassman, with his then-wife, woman doing her first box jump, an of 20 medicine-ball cleans and situps Lauren Jenai, opened his own spot 80-year-old lifting a dumbbell from done AMRAP-style: as many rounds in 2001: CrossFit, a catchy name for the floor, a daily flow of before-and- as possible. Each doc was equally a storage unit filled with equipment after weight-loss shots. gassed afterwards. Fast, hard, short like climbing ropes, bicycles, row- CrossFit Health is about increas- workouts like this started it all. ing machines, and barbells. He then ing the number of CrossFit boxes, In the ’70s, Glassman, a high school started posting his far-out workouts creating access for all. It’s also about gymnast and avid cyclist despite of the day (WODs) to CrossFit.com. fighting the establishment: lawsuits his polio, began developing a radical “It was like a SETI experiment where against fitness organizations trying to physical practice in his parents’ San scientists send a signal of the number bring down the brand as well as junk- Fernando Valley garage. With a Sears pi, 3.14159265, out into the universe,” food companies that fund nutrition weight set and a doorframe pullup he says. “If you hear back, it means science. Hell, it may eventually be a bar, “I did 21 front squats to overhead there’s intelligent life out there. We health-care association and insur- presses followed by 21 pullups. Then I heard back.” Glassman’s rule: Inten- ance package for the 4 million Cross- immediately did 15, then 9,” Glassman sity and results are directly propor- Fitters. It is seemingly many things, says. “In just three minutes, I had that tional. He says this isn’t masochism all of which are evolving organically, nasty, vomitus feeling you have after for masochism’s sake. “It’s physics.” exactly how Glassman likes. “It would a competitive gymnastics routine. I His equation: You’re fitter when you be a mistake to engineer this from the couldn’t get that from bodybuilding. can do equal or more work faster. top down,” he says. I’ll never forget that lesson.” Which A doctor interjects, “What do we say was this: Doing basic human move- 2.1 per 1,000 if our patients have seen the Games ments at a high intensity will get you Soon a couple of guys in Seattle who and say ‘That’s not for me’?” really, really fit. The descending-rep followed Glassman’s online WODs “Invite them to the gym,” says scheme ensured that he could main- asked if they could open a CrossFit Glassman. “For each athlete who’s tain intensity throughout. affiliate. “I said, ‘What the fuck’s an gone to the Games, we have 15 peo- Glassman, who says he was the affiliate?’ ” Glassman says. “They said ple who’ve used CrossFit to lose 100 “Albert Einstein of recess,” dropped ‘We’re going to use your name and do pounds or cure their diabetes.” out of college and pursued his passion what you’re doing.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll “What about concerns that they’ll for movement. He started training charge you $500 and then I’ll waive get injured?” asks an orthopedist. clients in Los Angeles’s gyms, which your fee.’ And that’s what we did.” That i-word pulls the trigger. favored bodybuilding: muscle-iso- By 2005, the brand had a small but “Jesus, as a vast discipline, you ortho- lating exercises, typically using rabid online following and the number pedists can’t get enough of football machines on (insert the body part) of CrossFit gyms had jumped from 15 and running, but somehow CrossFit days. “I’d have clients at Gold’s Gym to 50. The method proved especially is the boogeyman,” Glassman says. do things like five-minute rounds of popular among police, firefighters, MEN’S HEALTH / November 2018 105 30 soldiers, MMA fighters, professional manufactured hit piece(s)” engi- Glassman coach- reduce the load, drop the reps, or swap athletes, and other “overachievers.” neered to injure CrossFit’s business. ing a CrossFit in a similar but less technical exercise. seminar in the CrossFit hit 500 affiliates by 2009, The claims at first seemed conspira- mid-2000s; the boxes now drawing a wider crowd torial, but the evidence revealed the Tia-Clair Toomey 10 who loved the camaraderie, hard truth: CrossFit won the suit, the study and Mat Fraser What’s fit? For powerlifters it’s pick- workouts, and ensuing results—with was retracted for shoddy science, its compete in ing up heavy stuff. For runners it’s the CrossFit each new CrossFitter becoming a author and editor stepped down, and Games in 2018. quickly covering ground. For Glass- walking, talking billboard who’d love the judge accused the NSCA of perjury man, fitness revolves around the skills to tell you anything and everything and concealing evidence. humans have needed to hunt and about their CrossFit workout, CrossFit Given CrossFit’s popularity and the gather for 2 million years. He iden- friends, and CrossFit diet. injury question, there’s been no short- tified ten in The CrossFit Journal in With the manic intensity and age of additional study on the topic.

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