But what if we take a more chilled, eclectic approach – what’s wrong with developing workouts based on a strength & conditioning template that uses functional movements (you know, push / pull / squat / hinge / loaded carry), employing exercises from Olympic Weightlifting, Powerlifting, and Gymnastics ?

Is it too much to ask to ignore the hype, ignore the fatso coach, ignore the militant cultists, but take whatever makes sense and adapt / adopt ?

For the record – I am 45 year-old amateur athlete, and I find CrossFit to be a refreshing return to forgotten fitness methods. And I emphasize “forgotten” – there is nothing new here. I see the cultish elements, I see the shortcomings of certain individuals, but as an independent individual able to think critically, I am able to extract from CrossFit that which makes sense.

Longevity in fitness is really quite an elusive thing. If you run marathons, you will have bad knees when you get older. You don’t see people that coach boxing in a boxing match, frequently because they were injured at some point in their career – or because the goals that they were setting out to meet in their training faded away with time.

You keep on pointing to Glassman as the poster child for doing CrossFit long term and using this one statistical outlier as the basis of your entire argument. I disagree with your rationale. Glassman is what – 53 years old? You can’t exactly expect him to be the worlds pinnacle of fitness – despite the success of his program.

The big problem with your rationale is that it takes almost no factors into consideration except that Glassman has been practicing CrossFit principles for longer than anyone else.

Let’s take a track athlete for instance. Most people who compete in the same event on a high school track team are going to participate in roughly the same training regimen. However, you are going to have some athletes that are more successful than others. Your success in fitness is not 100% determined by the training regimen you follow. There are other considerations to factor in:
1) Genetics
2) How frequently does the athlete follow the program?
3) To what intensity does the athlete train?

In the Army, we use the FITT approach to fitness: Frequency, Intensity, Type, Time. Each of these 4 factors are components of the end result. It’s not as simple as “Who has been in the Army the longest?” to determine the most fit person in the room – as you will likely find that the two questions produce very different answers.

And also, to what standard do you judge fitness? Are you calling Glassman unfit based on comparison to other (younger) CrossFit athletes? Are you comparing him to olympians? Average people? Average people his age? You have not quantified what you consider to be fit and neither have you quantified his level of fitness. You have simply made claims that he is unfit.

Beyond that, I have been to a CrossFit gym twice – once to check it out and again to actually work out. While speaking with the owner of the gym, we talked about how he is drastically fallen out of shape since starting the gym – because it is much harder to stay on a strict regimen when you are running a business. I think this pertains to Glassman on much larger scale. So back to my factors of fitness –
I think we can agree that his age plays a factor into the role his genetics play. Sure, he may have been a great athlete at one point in time – but people deteriorate as they age – so his fitness is going to deteriorate with age.
I think we can also agree that being a trainer does not necessarily mean you are fit. In fact, I think it should be easy for a trainer to make their students more fit than they themselves are. Half of the reason for this is competition. Glassman no longer competes. Competition is one of the elements of any elite athlete – it makes you better.
This leads me into my next factor – intensity, which has undoubtedly decreased for Glassman as he is no longer competing which is where the most intense physical activity occurs.

Now, personally I am not an avid CrossFitter. I do follow the WOD from time to time and I do recommend elements of the fitness technique to anyone who is trying to improve their fitness – it is built on sound principles, combining the the best principles of every successful training regimen. I myself like to think of CrossFit.com as kind of a Fight Club organization. It’s interesting that so many people will simply “do as told” on such a large scale. Kind of interesting to see the discipline in my opinon – and really not scary like some other cults such as the Church (the world’s religious organizations are the largest of the slave nations) as the goal is basically of self improvement.

Anyway, I’m wandering now – I guess I would like to see you clean up your argument before continuing:
To what degree is Glassman “unfit”?
How exactly is his state of unfit relevant.

Rather than posting a largely irrelevant post, please organize your argument in such a manner that someone can intelligently respond – I’d be happy to do so as a more or less neutral party.

For example, he talks about infinite scalability, we see Kyle Maynard working out, No Excuses CrossFit, etc., yet Glassman apparently does not work out. A little contradictory.

Oh, Greg Glassman also said Dan John has no squat. This is Dan John we’re talking about. Does Greg Glassman have ANY squat?

As a Personal Trainer of 15 years who’s looked into and tried many methods and paths… I feel a little sympathy for Glassman as he could be injured + demotivated or just has an eating and drink problem for all we know… we all have our own demons don’t we?

As to the $1000 which seems to piss you guys off, well that’s about £650 in my money and for that you would only get about fifteen 45 minute sessions with me

However, I do admit to being more than a little sad to find footage of a non adonis like Glassman, when researching Cross fit ( Because someone has challenged me to their How Fit Are You test in June)

Think I will go and start a cult of my own now… at least when people find my footage my belly ain’t hanging over my belt (YET

I think the @fit founder had a background in gymnastics, and the injury might have happened from that.