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>>The answer to every single complaint this guy has is that he is in a terrible crossfit gym with terrible coaches. Granted, there are a lot of terrible crossfit gyms out there and a lot of terrible coaches. That doesn't make crossfit in general bad.

First of all, Erin Simmons is a woman. Second of all, she addresses this argument in the very last paragraph. You may want to read the whole thing before commenting on it.

>>It boggles my mind sometimes. Why are people so offended by Crossfit?

It boggles my mind sometimes. Why are Crossfitters get so incredibly defensive whenever someone criticizes them? What's with the fucking creepy cult mentality?

My bad. Did not realize it was a woman. I did read the whole thing. Her last paragraph is like me saying, "If you do any sort of MMA programming it is terrible for you. You will get hurt. Period. No exceptions. Don't listen to your coaches." Just because she says something doesn't mean it is true.

Second point, I should have asked, Why are people so offended by crossfit in particular? Seems like a disproportionate amount of hate toward crossfit as opposed to other sports. I guess you could attribute it to popularity though. Bigger target, more pageviews/reactions if you bash it.

>>Her last paragraph is like me saying, "If you do any sort of MMA programming it is terrible for you. You will get hurt. Period. No exceptions. Don't listen to your coaches." Just because she says something doesn't mean it is true

No it is not. The logic is both solid and easy enough to follow: Crossfit gyms are about Workouts of the Day. Every gym does them. And they are dangerous as hell. Therefore every Crossfit gym is dangerous. Another commenter gave this accurate analogy:

"It’s like saying I don’t need to visit every movie theater in America to know that they all show movies at regular intervals."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762796

Her premises is flawed. Workout of the day is a prescribed set of movements with a particular goal in mind. You scale and change the weight movement and reps with your coach each day based on skill, and ability. The author seems to think there is no wiggle room. Also most gyms week have several workout of the days to pick from based on experience level.

The mark of a good crossfit gym is individualization. This author seems to think those kinds of gyms don't exist.

> Crossfit gyms are about Workouts of the Day. Every gym does them. And they are dangerous as hell. Therefore every Crossfit gym is dangerous.

Huh? That's like saying "if you step in a car, you will get in accident. Period." That's not logic, that's just called chasing black swans.

No, it is like saying, "if you speed past every red light at 100 mph, you will probably get into an accident."

A Workout of the Day (which every Crossfit gym does) is basically doing a perfectly fine movement at very high repetition. The higher the reps of these complex movements, the riskier they are. Therefore, every Crossfit gym is dangerous.

My affiliate's most recent WOD was a 3RM squat ladder with 2:30 rest between each set. There is nothing "high repetition" about it and there are specifically timed rest intervals to allow for ATP regeneration, etc.

You should refrain from claiming knowledge about the programming of every CF affiliate on the planet. You're absolutely wrong about every single thing you have claimed in this comment thread.

> Crossfit gyms are about Workouts of the Day. Every gym does them. And they are dangerous as hell.

If you are saying that every CF-affiliated gym takes the WOD from the main site and tells its members to do it as prescribed, you're wrong.

If you are saying that every CF-affiliated gym comes up with its own WOD, and tells all its members to do it with no adjustment in weights or tailoring to the needs and abilities of individual members, you're also wrong.

How can anyone credibly claim "The WODs programmed by CF gyms for their members are always, inherently dangerous," or make this analogy to movie theaters, when there's not even a single, authoritative source of the programming?

My best guess is that noticeable opposition to Crossfit is directly proportional is the pervasiveness of Crossfit. It is popular enough that a few lovers and haters have dramatically increased the number of times you've heard about Cross fit, over say the single lover and hater of a random workout.

I'm sure there's a more math-y argument than mine.

    > Why are people so offended by Crossfit? Who cares what
    > other people do to get in shape? [snip] Why is Crossfit
    > special?

Because there is a perception that Crossfit aficionados spend an inordinate amount of time telling everyone else how Crossfit is the One True Sport and that everyone else is fat and stupid for not doing Crossfit.

Proselytizing people should probably prepare for pushback.

> Why are people so offended by Crossfit?

To be honest, most people couldn't give two shits about Crossfit. It's the Crossfitters that are the problem. They tend to act like newly converted religious acolytes, annoying the hell out of everybody they come in contact with by constantly proselytizing Crossfit.

It's kind of like any other activity that a person has to choose to make serious and comprehensive lifestyle choices that remove them from what they perceive to be mainstream society. They have to constantly justify their choice and one way of doing that is to build a circle of like-minded people you can echo chamber off of, another way to do it is to announce it all the time and assert the choice as part of your identity, yet another way is to convince themselves it's a moral conviction and their chosen social isolation is simply a result of them finding some true path and people who haven't found that path are immoral or crazy or whatever.

You know how to tell somebody does Crossfit? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Why am I offended? Because I've suffered the pain of joints injured by high strain repetitive movements, and don't want others to endure the same. There's something to be said about letting someone make their own mistakes, but this is something that screws you over for life.

With regards to the "Just a bad gym; just a bad coach" argument... I think the article goes over that sufficiently. It's not just a gym or a coach which is the problem, it's the core philosophy of the workout that's the problem.

>Why are people so offended by Crossfit? Who cares what other people do to get in shape?

This same comment can be applied to the visceral rage that people feel towards elements of the technology world, where commentary on database technologies, programming languages, or testing approaches sees far more emotion that it reasonably should.

In all cases I think it is a facet of attaching your ego to an opinion. If you have stated or believe x, when people do y it seems like a personal affront that needs to be confronted. People get far too invested in these sorts of arguments, and grow increasingly agitated over inconsequential decisions of others that otherwise have absolutely no impact on their life.