10 months, 10 years: CrossFit Growth

I was considering my own fitness growth yesterday…incremental, but real. I did 3 real pull-ups this week, and performed the Hollow Rock RX for 4 30-second rounds. These are improvements for a woman who couldn’t actually do 10 sit-ups some 10 months ago.  CrossFit has finally taught me that real growth comes with deliberate work over a period of time.  The CrossFit movement can say the same thing.

CrossFit Journal just published their own articles regarding The CrossFit Games. This year’s games will mark 10 years of competition. There has been so much change since that first “backyard barbeque” version of the Games in 2007. 

2007 was all about meeting face-to-face with the original athletes of this fitness movement that was born in the ethersphere. CrossFit gained its popularity by publishing the WODs online and letting everyone get in on the action. In ’07, the real CrossFit movement began when those athletes got together in “Dave Castro’s mom’s back yard” to perform a tougher workout and see who did it best. 

By 2010, the Games had gained enough competitors and fans to move to a commercial venue: the (then) Home Depot Center in Carson California. The athletes remember it giving the Games a real feel of legitimacy that had not been present before. That ‘backyard bbq’ had grown into a stadium sport. It was ’10 when the Games added the Masters category to the regular Men, Women and Team competitions. The popularity of the sport, including with athletes 40+ years old, was really beginning to show. 

2013 was a year that really illustrated the growth and improvement in CrossFit as a fitness philosophy. Harkening back to the first competition, the Games did the first repeat workout in its history for the final day of competition: they called it the 2007. That original workout had literally been drawn out of a hopper—proving Glassman’s theory that the fittest athletes should be able to surpass others on any randomly drawn challenge.

The workout consisted of a 1000m row, 5 rounds of 25 pullups and 7 push jerks.  Here’s where we see the growth of the sport and the growth of the athletes who practice it. The women’s champion in 2007, Jolie Gentry, finished the workout in 16:22. In 2013, Val Voboril did it in 9:48.4—more than 6 minutes difference—and she was the 3^rd place winner overall. 

2016 marks a decade of finding the Fittest Athletes in the World. We’ve seen men and women compete and improve; we’ve seen the competition grow beyond the confines of even a professional stadium. We marveled at the prowess of athletes like 4-time Champion Rich Fronig Jr. and seen people from 14 to 60+ push themselves to the limits to prove their fitness and their dedication.  

Don’t miss it this year: July 19-24 streaming on YouTube and WatchESPN, with 10 hours of competition broadcast on the ESPN networks.  Read the articles too!  Decade of Dominance