I agree completely. Nice to see people getting into their health but I've been crossfitting for 3 years and I'm a little protective of it. My box is a barebones warehouse with sleds and ropes and hoses, atlas stones and lots of other fun stuff to climb on. I like the DIY aspect of the old "prebok" crossfit. This new crossfit is a little to shiny and headbandy for my taste.

I'm new to Crossfit, didn't really started it because of any "fad". I was first made aware of it a couple years ago when my boyfriend at the time was just getting the WODs off the website. After realizing that I was getting bored by my regular workout routine, wasn't pushing myself hard enough in my workouts and finally had a weekly paycheck so I could afford to workout at a box I started at one of the local boxes. I would try to do them on my own but I know that I don't have the skills yet to be able to scale appropriately and have good form so that's my primary reason for joining a box. I love that ours is barebones like was previously mentioned and I love the "community" aspect of it. I have a really hard time finding like-minded driven females to be friends with so that has been one of the best parts of it.

If everyone could have a great fitness experience with Crossfit as I have in the brief time that I've been doing it that would be awesome. But as it becomes more mainstream and boxes are popping up overnight, I doubt that all of these boxes have credible/knowledgeable coaches and that's the part that I don't like about it. Bad coaching leads to injuries, which at the very least just leads to more bashing by people of the "Crossfit Extremist Cult" that anyone who Crossfits seems to get lumped into. Plus injuring people is never a good thing.

I also think its hilarious that people think they need to be decked out with all this Crossfit gear to start it, i.e. the vibrams. Sooo unnecessary. I understand their purpose and why people wear them, but they aren't going to make or break your results from Crossfit.

I'll admit, I'm one of those girls. I wear Lulu everytime I work out. I started out wearing just cotton shorts and Old Navy cotton/ribbed muscle tanks and that worked for a while but as I started becoming more proud of my body and the results from CrossFit, I decided to treat myself with a couple Lulu tops and I was hooked. Another benefit is that my skin appreciates and reacts better to the wicking fabric a lot more than the all-cotton gear I used to wear. Now I don't think I'll ever go back to plain tees and tanks. And if wearing fancier workout gear provides motivation to work out (no matter what gym/program you subscribe to), I say no harm done...other than to my wallet, unfortunately

Other than that, I think there may always be a small divide between pre- and post-Reebok CrossFitters due to the commercial aspect. But I'm happy that this fitness program/"sport" and its sense of community is being promoted to more and more people. If nothing else, people I meet might have at least some idea of what it is that I do.

... While Coach Glassman has shown us that CrossFit is the way to elite fitness, it is about more than that. You'll learn in any (good) on ramp class, cert, or on the journal that CrossFit is about improving where we fall on the spectrum between sick and fit. We will not be content with well, we want to be fit! The more people that want to get fit, makes me happy!

On the other hand - the last thing I want to see is GloboGyms having a "CrossFit" class that's really a boot camp class. Or is a watered down version of CrossFit. I work my butt of both as a CrossFitter and a coach to make sure things are run properly at my box, and I don't want our name to be sullied by people who are half-assing it.

Very well put!! Crossfit is about fitness at a high level but also a community and supporting each other. Some friends talk about crossfit and then I talk about crossfit and it's two different experiences. I hope all the people jumping into the amazing crossfit experience get the true experience and not that "boot camp" one like you mention.