“None of these guys are going to come in and do well without any CrossFit training. That will never happen,” Castro says. “They don’t have that mindset to push like CrossFitters do.”

Professional athletes don’t have the mindset to push themselves? I’m sure many would be surprised they lack the mindset to push themselves, to win Super Bowls, gold medals at the Olympics, or win the World Cup. Yeah Dave, they don’t have the mindset you do.

Fun reading some of the comments from the Crossfit Kool-Aid drinkers too.

If you have read the thread you probably came across Greg Glassman’s comment (founder of Crossfit) giving his thoughts on those that disagree with the changes:

“This entire fitness concept was launched amid near universal derision and consternation. I’m quite comfortable making unpopular decisions that irritate the masses and dim-witted. I’m proud of the decisions we’ve made, the deliberative processes we’ve engaged, and our track record generally.”

Kind of a nice thing to say to those that pay you money in some way or another isn’t it?  Many of us know that the whole “open-source” and all the other stuff that CFHQ says is mainly hot-air, CFHQ will listen and discuss things with you as long as you agree CFHQ is right and you are an idiot if you think otherwise. I’ve met Glassman before and heard him speak. He came across as a nice guy that had some information he wanted to share. But reading comments like this above makes him come across as an asshole in my opinion. This isn’t isolated either, many more comments, Glassman has many more comments like the above, not to mention kicking out any subject matter expert that doesn’t tow the CFHQ line 100%.

I don’t do Crossfit, I prefer doing a smarter training program focused on my goals. And I don’t knock people that want to do Crossfit. I would ask those people to stop and consider if they want to send money to someone that makes comments like the above about his customers? Even ig you go to an affiliate money is making its way back to CFHQ. You don’t need to pay anyone any money, especially the $100 a month or more so affiliates charge, you can do it in a home gym, at the local track, or youur local gym that charges you $10 a month. Just something to think about.

“Censoring is what china does, not crossfit.”

Actually Erich Crossfit HQ is very good at censoring those that voice a disagreement with them, much like China. Even posting something CFHQ (Crossfit Headquarters) doesn’t like can get you censored, like one of my last posts on the boards. You can also check out the post made by Emergent Fitness on why they are leaving Crossfit.

Crossfit has some good affiliates out there doing some good programming. Others do not so good programming (main site being one of them). But censorship is something CFHQ  does very well.

This morning I posted a link to a blog post by Robb Wolf. Of course posting links to Robb Wolf’s site on the CF boards is a no-no, just like posting links to Starting Strength, so I used bit.ly to post the link. Now all of my posts have to undergo moderator approval before showing up.

Their boards, their rules, just find it amusing.

“I am writing to thank you for your year of affiliation with CrossFit and to inform you that we will not be renewing your affiliation when it expires on 3/17/2010. ..  Since you are moving in a different direction, we cannot continue to carry you as an affiliate and we feel that our continued association is no longer mutually beneficial. We wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors.”

Seems strange to me. Whole 9 has  a successful and popular program going, but Crossfit doesn’t like the direction Whole 9 was going. Probably too much strength work and not enough met-con for Crossfit’s liking. I could post some of the babble Crossfit posts at time, cream rising to the top, let’s see who has the best program, yada yada yada.

I wonder who will be next to lose their affiliation?

One of the way Crossfit promotes itself is as “open source”, meaning they say here is what you do if you think you have a better way lets hear and debate the issue. Sounds great, unless the Crossfit powers that be don’t like the message. Starting yesterday on the message boards if you posted a link to the Starting Strength website or Robb Wolf’s website the links get filtered, meaning they get changed to *******. In effect those sites are now banned on the Crossfit message board.

Why you may ask? Well those two along with others have stated they think they could do something better than the way Crossfit is currently doing something. In Robb Wolf’s case it is nutrition, for Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength) it’s the importance of strength. In these cases Crossfit becomes closed-source. I’ would guess that it has to do with Crossfit’s tie-ins with Barry Sear’s of The Zone and Louie Simmons.

Crossfit even does some wacky things if you try to link to their message boards and they don’t like you. As an example if you post a link to the Crossfit boards in The couch thread (a thread making fun of Greg Glassman and Crossfit) on the Irongarm boards, you’ll just get bounced back to Irongarm if you click on the link.

As I said, their boards, their rules, but what are they afraid of facing? Someone that may have a better idea?

Best of luck to you Robb, the cream will rise to the top.

Update: Dr. Kurt Harris weighs in on the issue in his blog post Crossfit Nutrition Eats its Young.

Lakewood Police Independent Guild

Rainier Crossfit Fund Raiser

If things played out as Robb describes, Crossfit HQ should be doing some deep soul searching at the people running things for Coach Glassman. I’ve seen shades of this mentality from other Crossfitters before and owe lots of it to them having pride in their organization. Nothing wrong with that but always be open to different thoughts and new ideas, that is how you grow.

The WOD Shop