Exploring the Concept of Fitness in CrossFit

People have asked us many times what we think of CrossFit, so it's about time we just laid it all out. In this episode we work our way through CrossFit's various philosophies, protocols, and teachings and highlight where we agree and where we don't. In general, the first half of the conversation is more critical while the second half is more positive.

If you want to dive in on your own, we framed this conversation around the CrossFit Level 1 Training Guide, which you can download for free. They describe it as "the most comprehensive CrossFit training resource available" and "foundational to the CrossFit methodology" so it's arguably the best primary source for understanding the CrossFit system.

We talk about all the classics in here:

- Defining "fitness" and CrossFit's "fitness in 100 words"
- What "functional fitness" means
- Kipping
- Nutrition (including Paleo and Zone)
- Olympic Lifting
- Uncle Rhabdo and Pukey the Clown

And so much more...

In one section we mentioned a series of articles on hydration. The Hyponatremia of Exercise is a 12 part series by Tim Noakes. Here's a link to part one which links to all the subsequent parts. Skip to part 4 if you want to see where the Army (and specifically USARIEM) got involved, but it comes back up throughout the series.