Bring Back The WhiteBoard

We used to be proud of our discomfort. We used to take pride in our struggle. We used to write our times on a giant whiteboard.

After Prometheus shaped man out of clay, Zeus marveled at the Titan’s creation and said whatever the Greek word is for cool. Shortly after that, he added, glaring at Prometheus, “just don’t give them fire.”

If mankind was allowed the many wonders of fire, Zeus figured, he would presume he doesn’t need the gods anymore and start worshiping himself.

Zeus was pretty sharp.

But Prometheus didn’t buy it, and bestowed his creation with one of man’s greatest tools. After all, selfishly keeping the solution to so many of life’s problems to yourself is something only someone as evil as Hades would do … right?

There were lessons, sure. Fire kills just as well as it saves. Fire divides. Fire frees. Fire feeds. Fire inspires. But more importantly, man learned that with light comes dark, with good comes evil, with progress comes jealously.

Flash forward to today, and there have been more Promethean level events than you can count; the first plane, the atom bomb, the assembly line, the steam engine, the computer. Fires of a different sort, sure, but fires all the same. Fires that changed the game the moment humanity ignited them.

Fires like CrossFit.

Just like there was the world before fire, there was fitness before CrossFit. The same basic tools that make CrossFit what it is existed — barbells, determination, rowers, intensity, jump ropes, and effort — CrossFit just changed the way we use them. The medicine and the means may have been there, but now we had the prescription. And what a prescription at that.

Just look around. You’ll struggle to find anyone engaged in some sort of fitness routine today that isn’t at least partly inspired by CrossFit. They may never admit to it, they may change the name, even and try to hide it, but we know the truth. CrossFit set fire to fitness, and people have been coming from miles to watch it burn ever since.

Not surprisingly, progress begets more progress, and we immediately went to work making CrossFit better. We studied it, performed experiments, more smart people joined in. What was once a tiny flame became a raging inferno full of power and promise.

Unfortunately, what we claim as progress is often just more. More people. More bells and whistles. More availability. But more, as you know, isn’t always better. Especially if more means turning down the heat.

“Men will die for points,” our coach, CrossFit founder, and remarkable man, Greg Glassman, said. It’s of those principles that made the fire of CrossFit spread like it did and serve so many.

Coach didn’t mean exercisers literally died; he meant that when you made fitness measurable, repeatable, and observable, you made it work. All of a sudden it was you competing against the you of yesterday. Are you stronger, faster, leaner?

Are you fitter?

It’s a simple question. One many of us stopped asking because we don’t want to know the painful truth. Because we want all the results with none of the work. Because when we hit on truth we don’t agree with these days, we don’t study it and improve, we cancel it and place blame. The same way we cancel everything that offends us. The same way we canceled the whiteboard.

It used to be, just before every workout, you and a bunch of fitness enthusiasts would gather at a whiteboard full of acronyms and reps to discuss the workout. After, and this is a big deal, you wrote your score on that board for everyone to see.

Back then, it was gospel. Back then, it was freeing. Back then, it was like breathing.

If you struggled, you had to be humble enough to let everyone see. No one cared, of course, but the mind is funny that way. What’s more, you had to take an honest look at your own effort. You had to ask yourself every single day, “what am I doing to get better?” And you had to live with the answer.

So we killed the whiteboard. Because education is exhausting and conformity is easy, because self-improvement is messy and complicated, because the only way to get better is to admit you’re not that great to begin with, we turned down the heat.

And it shows.

Don’t wanna do burpees today because they get your $100 sports bra dirty; fabulous. Don’t wanna learn a new skill because you might look like a noob; cool. Don’t wanna log your times because you believe attendance equals fitness; no problem.

The beauty of CrossFit has always been that everyone can, and should, do CrossFit. But not because we mutilate it to fit the fractured psyche of every geek off the street. Because we build our home on rock and say these are the principles that make CrossFit burn so brightly. And we will not budge.

We will educate. We will never tire. We will not conform.

That means we’ll turn some people off because they’re not ready. And so be it. I’m sure Prometheus had his holdouts as well. Life-altering flames are hot and uncomfortable, after all. Just like CrossFit.

We used to be proud of our discomfort. We used to take pride in our struggle. We used to write our times on a giant white board, and we use to be better for it. And we can be again.

Bring back the whiteboard. Bring back humility. Bring back progress.