CrossFit at the Core:
CrossFit’s methodology is founded on the first precise, scientifically rigorous definition of fitness, and the program produces results that can be measured and replicated. Our methodology is a set of universal principles and definitions that can be applied in many different contexts and that make CrossFit accessible to both athlete and coach.
The stimulus — what CrossFit is: constantly varied functional movement executed at high intensity combined with eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no added sugar in quantities that support exercise but not body fat.
The adaptation —what CrossFit achieves: increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains. Pursuing this goal is pursuing fitness, and aiming to maintain your work capacity over your lifetime is pursuing health.
These elements are the basis of the CrossFit methodology, and we’ve precisely and comprehensively defined each element — from work capacity to fitness to health — in quantifiable terms.
These definitions did not exist before CrossFit. Our contribution to fitness is that we have defined fitness and health in a way that can be measured.
CrossFit’s methodology differs from other fitness programs in its commitment to defining its stimulus and results. It is precisely these definitions, and the elements within them, that provide our athletes a clear and distinct understanding of what CrossFit is and the results they will achieve.
The methodology is the mechanism that enables athletes and coaches to understand the what, how, and why of CrossFit in order to optimally apply the methodology to an individual in service of their health and fitness goals. It also provides a framework for our education that makes developing professional coaches a robust, repeatable, and scalable process. In fact, we have yet to find anything that comes close to CrossFit in producing a broad, general, and inclusive fitness; for forging elite fitness; and for staving off or reversing chronic disease as safely, effectively, and efficiently as CrossFit.
