FRI: Why I Opted Out

I don’t inherently have anything against people in my industry. There’s a lot of smart people doing a lot of great things for their clients, whom I learn from daily. The advent of social media has created unparalleled access to great, to-the-point information that serves to benefit us all.

The underbelly is that we’re increasingly becoming an industry where making a name for yourself, getting exposure, and slinging product is becoming more important than putting out quality work. Scarier, it’s becoming more important than putting out the actual truth. Where algorithms to gain followings are trumping educational content to get followings, and frankly, where accuracy just doesn’t fucking matter anymore.

So I opted out. Had to. Things got too damn noisy and the chest pounding competition became way too exhausting for me. It’s why I don’t really write directly about fitness anymore. You’ll learn fitness by showing up here, at our gym, so I’d rather share thoughts that might help you achieve success in a different way. Some of you probably are not interested in this, and I respect that. I do. But I just can’t continue to be another guy who says he is positive he has the right way and that everyone else has the wrong way. I’ve played that role and it’s exhausting.

I had to internally confront this frustration last week when many conventional fitness professional shared a study about the injury rate in CrossFit (I am purposefully not linking it). Now, you’d think I’d jump all over this being that we compete directly with CrossFit, but it didn’t interest me at all for two reasons.

First, the airwaves were already crowded and noisy enough.

Second, I appeared to have done with most didn’t.

I read it.

It was littered with poor science, unreliable data collection methods, and skewed demographics. I was astounded at the opinions of reputable sources who either didn’t read the study or were so eager to “take a stand” and impress their fellow professionals that their bias disallowed them to see the study for the numerous flaws it possessed.

It was a who’s who of not so subtly pushing their own agenda.

Welcome to science in 2018.

Truth is, I don’t love my industry. We need to be better.

-Dave

Friday, 1.26.18

First, for Mobility.
12′ Windmill Work
—
Then, for Conditioning in Teams of 4.
A: 300m Row
B: 8 Burpee Pull-Ups
→ 8 Squat Jumps + 8 Pull-Ups if bar is too high
C: 12/s Same Side Plyo Lunge Jumps
D: 1 Barbell 21
(x21′)