What Is CrossFit?

So what is CrossFit?

To the unknown, it may just look like someone having a seizure; or that they are running around like a chicken with its heads cutoff, while simultaneously throwing an insane amount of weight overhead. However, you have actually just caught them in the middle of a 15-minute test of their level of fittest.

CrossFit is "constantly varied functional movements executed at a high intensity." It is an attempt to perfect your physical aptitude in each of the ten components of fitness: endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, balance, agility, and accuracy, executed through workouts that push you beyond your perceived limits.

While CrossFit consists of daily WODs and competing with other crossfitters to have the best and fastest time of the day or of a particular named/benchmark workout, it all leads up to the annual CrossFit Games. This yearly competition is where the best of the best compete for the title of "Fittest on Earth."

(Below is the trailer for the film "Every Second Counts." A documentary which follows five athletes competing in the 2008 CrossFit Games as they "push themselves beyond limitations imposed by the human mind and flirt with the limits of physical capacity.")

The CrossFit Games is a three-day event where both individuals and teams compete for the title of "Fittest on Earth." The competition entails anywhere from a total of three to eight events, which are not announced until a few days prior to the competition or until you step into the stadium; forcing the athletes to train all year long for a competition whose format is almost a complete mystery.