{"id":1818,"date":"2023-09-20T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2023-09-19T10:41:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T14:41:02","slug":"laughter-the-body-and-the-grotesque-realism-of-crossfit-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/2023\/09\/20\/laughter-the-body-and-the-grotesque-realism-of-crossfit-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Laughter, the Body, and the Grotesque Realism of CrossFit Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
CrossFit workouts incorporate a variety of high-intensity exercises, such a running with medicine balls (photo by CrossFit Fever<\/a> licensed under CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most brands, especially those that generate more than $100 million<\/a> in annual revenue, don\u2019t begin with a story about vomit<\/a>. Yet, according to CrossFit, Inc. founder and former<\/a> CEO Greg Glassman, the \u201ceureka moment\u201d of his now astronomically popular fitness program began just like that\u2014with a teenage Glassman, having subjected himself to a grueling combination<\/a> of barbell push presses and pull-ups, barfing on his garage floor. At the center of CrossFit\u2019s origin story and its subsequent success is the human body at its most beautiful, its most playful, and its most grotesque. Indeed, in a previous article in Engaging Sports<\/em>, Matt Crockett and Ted Butryn compellingly argue how CrossFit expresses a collective anxiety<\/a> surrounding how our bodies atrophy in increasingly sedentary workplaces.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Other studies<\/a> have examined the cultural and discursive dimensions of CrossFit in a similar vein\u2014how Glassman\u2019s business model, exercise regime, and community speak to the particular character<\/a> of our times<\/a>. Especially suggestive analyses<\/a> describe CrossFit\u2019s focus on individualism, competition, and self-sufficiency. These studies characterize the sport and its community as exemplary of what political theorist Wendy Brown refers to as the biopolitical imperative of \u201cresponsibilization<\/a>,\u201d whereby individuals are impelled to maintain and advance their own human capital via activities involving hygiene, self-care, and education. We are all entrepreneurial beings, hoping to maximize our human capital vis-\u00e0-vis market imperatives.<\/p>\n

Yet, still understudied is one of CrossFit\u2019s most palpable elements\u2014its willingness to laugh at itself: the laughable<\/a> team names, the multicolored socks<\/a>, and the endless complaints<\/a> about workouts. Given that humor, whimsy, and ironic self-awareness are central elements to our historical moment (a period evocatively labeled by some as \u201clate capitalism\u201d), it is surprising that such factors have been largely ignored in research on CrossFit. Dating to roughly the year 2000, Glassman\u2019s now famous exercise routine has been around for almost a quarter of a century. But the emotions, celebrations, and jokes associated with CrossFit largely remain overlooked.<\/p>\n

As an avid CrossFitter but also a scholar, my perspective on the sport is somewhat unique: informed by literary criticism, cultural studies, and critical theory. Specifically, I propose that Mikael Bahktin\u2019s concept of the carnivalesque, as it is detailed in Rabelais and His World<\/em><\/a>, serves as an ambitious and accurate toolkit with which to understand CrossFit. Born in Russia, Bahktin (1895-1975) was a philosopher and literary theorist who has had wide-ranging influence on various forms of cultural analyses\u2014especially academic disciplines like communication studies<\/a>, linguistics<\/a>, and sociology<\/a>. In Rableis and His World<\/em>, Bakhtin forwards a notion of the \u201ccarnival\u201d as joyfully ribald, profoundly democratic and ultimately, transformative. During a celebration, time stops, identities are upended, and social hierarchies are, at least for a fleeting moment, overturned. Like CrossFit, these carnivals are meant to include everyone. Bahktin explains:<\/p>\n

Carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators\u2026Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an activity that promotes an extraordinary care for the self<\/a>, CrossFit strikes a balance between agony and ecstasy, body and spirit\u2014even soul and vomit. The culture associated with the sport challenges us to accept personal responsibility for the condition of our minds and our bodies\u2014our health status and particularly in opposition to an inadequate healthcare system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this way, CrossFit aims to balance the earnestness of responsibilization with the ludic self-awareness of our ironic times. How can we crack a smile even while confronting serious health concerns, and finding ourselves abysmally alone in the world? As an early client of Glassman’s described the experience, CrossFit is \u201cagony coupled with laughter<\/a>.\u201d Bahktin himself couldn\u2019t have said it better.<\/p>\n

CrossFitters expend their sweat, tears (and sometimes, even blood) in order to transcend the humdrum of everyday life. Workouts delineate a fleeting moment when we can leave behind our stultifying workplace lives. Like Bakhtin\u2019s carnival, CrossFit, too, is understood as deeply democratic and barrier-breaking: it challenges both elite athletes and underdogs so that we may transform ourselves into something uniquely human. The most \u201cadvanced\u201d or high-tech equipment found in so-called \u201cglobo-gyms<\/a>\u201d (namely, Universal Fitness equipment<\/a>) is rarely used. Rather, CrossFitters seek excellence via everyday items<\/a> lying around the house. As CrossFit legend Rich Froning Jr. explained in his 2013 autobiography<\/a>, \u201cOne of the beauties of CrossFit\u2014and one of the big reasons for its incredible surge in popularity\u2014is that anyone can watch a video of CrossFit athletes doing a workout and then go do the same thing.\u201d The fact that CrossFit has been so successful and has such devoted followers, too, adds to both its equalitarian and ritualistic character. As an anonymous CrossFitter explained in the 2009 Crossfit documentary Every Second Counts<\/em><\/a>: \u201cFitters tend to only associate with other CrossFitters. Now, is it a good cult? It\u2019s a fitness cult\u2014it\u2019s making you better. Is it a cult? Yeah, it is.\u201d As ritual acts, Bakhtin\u2019s carnivals remind us that structures can be questioned and (perhaps) even toppled. His ambitious toolkit (again, the carnivalesque) challenges us to make fun of institutions\u2014to understand their transitoriness and vulnerability. Appropriately, in his biographical documentary The Fittest Man on Earth<\/em><\/a>, five-time CrossFit Games champion Mat Fraser recounts the first time he stepped inside a CrossFit gym, with its \u201cchaos going on, with the loud music.\u201d Previously, as he describes it, he had only exercised in traditional weightlifting gyms (think Gold\u2019s Gym<\/a>) where the heaviest lifts demanded solemnity and seriousness<\/a> on the part of gymgoers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
CrossFit Gym (photo by IKjub<\/a> licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like Bakhtin\u2019s carnivalesque, CrossFit suggests the power of metamorphosis, while risking a type of death\u2014when former selves are sloughed off and a new being is born. Every workout thus constitutes a celebration of life. Bakhtin asserts that the carnival is characterized by \u201ca naked posing of ultimate questions on life and death.\u201d Furthermore, for the Russian philosopher, death is not a negation of life but part of life as a whole\u2014an indispensable component, the condition of life\u2019s constant renewal and rejuvenation. Even death, Bakhtin explains, \u201cbecomes pregnant\u201d within the carnival.<\/p>\n

For both CrossFitters and Bakhtin, these birth-death processes happen through a type of initial degradation. As CrossFit\u2019s founder, Glassman, tells it, his workouts were developed to leave gym goers \u201cflat on [their] back, staring up at the sky, wondering what the hell happened.\u201d Like Bahktin, CrossFit\u2014with its focus on the squat as a staple movement<\/a>\u2014charges us to consider the lower stratum of the body, the belly, and the buttocks. To degrade something does not imply merely hurling it into the garbage, but also rescuing it from oblivion. In CrossFit-speak, this might be understood as a deep dive into the travails of a \u201cbutt-wink<\/a>\u201d in hopes of acing the perfect squat. Indeed, as claimed by George Bataille<\/a>\u2014a fellow philosopher and, tellingly, a contemporary<\/a> of Bahktin\u2019s\u2014the body\u2019s lower half, the bowels, and the viscera are all deeply associated with death. These nether regions are also central to CrossFit.<\/p>\n

In order to gain life, CrossFitters risk death. As the community<\/a> has known and debated for a long time, the programmatic breakdown of the body during exercises may even cause rhabdomyolysis<\/a>. In an appropriately sarcastic (even rogueish<\/a>?) way, CrossFit has embraced a buff, vomiting clown named \u201cUncle Rhabdo<\/a>\u201d as an unofficial mascot.<\/p>\n

Recently, gyms have stepped away<\/a> from being associated with zany, protein spilling<\/a> cartoon jesters. Yet, as a CrossFitter myself, I wouldn\u2019t count on tomorrow\u2019s WOD<\/a>\u2014that is, the \u201cWorkout of the Day\u201d\u2014being any less challenging, less Bahktinian, or less low-minded. In an almost<\/em> wholly non-ironic way, I believe that nothing tests my body more than getting up at 4:45 AM to lift odd objects<\/a>. As I have proposed here, I also surmise that CrossFit explains much about how playful and focused on the body our historical moment really is.<\/p>\n

Author Biographical Note:<\/h3>\n

Dr. Kevin M. Anzzolin, Lecturer of Spanish, arrived at Christopher Newport University in 2021, where he teaches a wide range of classes. His scholarship, mostly focused on Mexican cultural studies, can be found here<\/a>, and his monograph on Mexican journalism will be published in 2024. He has been an avid albeit amateur CrossFitter since 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most brands, especially those that generate more than $100 million in annual revenue, don\u2019t begin with a story about vomit. Yet, according to CrossFit, Inc. founder and former CEO Greg Glassman, the \u201ceureka moment\u201d of his now astronomically popular fitness program began just like that\u2014with a teenage Glassman, having subjected himself to a grueling combination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2075,"featured_media":1820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Laughter, the Body, and the Grotesque Realism of CrossFit Culture","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[103732],"tags":[172396,103701,172395],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-injury-violence","tag-carnivalesque","tag-crossfit","tag-mikael-bahktin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/files\/2023\/09\/crossfit3.jpg?fit=2048%2C1150&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8iFlL-tk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2075"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}