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"Our speciality is not specializing."

Photo from Fit-Zaang.

Exercise, at its roots, was created as a form of discipline. To discipline the human body, to protect and defend one's nation. Disciplined to be a productive citizen.  Disciplined in order to be controlled.  The new exercise 'fad' of CrossFit is exercise revisiting its roots in a steroided version.  The official Crossfit website states that it "is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite professional athletes worldwide."

I write this not as a commentary of whether CrossFit is a viable form of exercise or not because there are plenty of those articles floating around on the internet.  Rather, I write this post as a discussion of how CrossFit serves as a total institution.

Erving Goffman, arguably, one of the most important sociologists of the 20th century first coined the term total institution.  He originally wrote about the total institution with regard to prison systems, asylums and monasteries.  Obviously, a prison and a monastery are viewed as vastly different institutions in almost every aspect except for the fact that they both breed conformity, or as Ignatieff (1983) writes the total institution "[reproduces a] social order in the world beyond its walls" (pg.169).  Goffman observed that common characteristics of the total institution are that they sequester inmates, set schedules and monitor behaviour"; the total institution is a 'forcing house' for changing people." This is where I draw my analogy to CrossFit.

The fact that Crossfit has been well-embraced by North American society is indicative of a larger neoliberal ideology that both nourishes and destroys itself through the promotion of self-improvement, self-reliance and individual achievement.  The fundamentals of CrossFit are to workout as hard as you can as quickly as you can.  Therefore, in our individualistic society, which preaches that you are in charge of your own destiny (i.e. if you don't like your life situation, work hard and get yourself out of it), CrossFit reproduces this ideology through exercise - you are in charge of your own workout and its results.  Sure, each CrossFit gym (or box as they are referred to) have trainers watching and teaching; however, due to the speed factor, CrossFitters are quickly required to monitor one's own form. Thus, in many ways you are both the trainer and the trainee. You police yourself. You push yourself.  Your only opponent is the clock.

How is this different from any other form of exercise? After all, isn't all exercise about self-improvement,  watch your own form and lifting more/running faster/weighing less?  True.  This brings me back to CrossFit as a totalizing institution.  CrossFit is often referred to as a cult and "a way of life" and it is not uncommon for participants to become trainers.  Grant Stoddard wrote about his experience with CrossFit in a Men's Health article (interesting read!), Inside the Cult of Crossfit:

A month later I bumped into a neighbor who'd joined CrossFit Westside around the same time I did. 

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't go to CrossFit anymore," I answered.

She was slack-jawed, speechless.

"You're still going, I take it?"

"Hell yeah!" she said.  "I'm an instructor now. It's the thing I love most in the world.  Well, maybe my husband is first, but CrossFit is a close second, and the gap is getting narrower."

I laughed, but she assured me she wasn't kidding.  It's like a cult crossed with a pyramid scheme, and the base is always widening.

Photo from Living Active & Healthy Blog.

How CrossFit differs from other exercises is that it doesn't become incorporated into your life - it becomes your life.  CrossFit is a community.  It's an all or nothing environment.  As one CrossFit website states "If you decide to join a CrossFit gym you will develop a camaraderie with other members.  Shared suffering creates strong bonds."  The CrossFitter becomes removed from any other exercise methodology because the workouts themselves laugh in the face of traditional physical training.   As with any totalizing institution thinking outside the box and questioning your teacher is not welcome.  Everyone does the same workout (or WOD - workout of the day) and it is decided before you get there.  Results are displayed on the WOD Wall.  You are accounted for and become accountable for your performance.  You become surveilled by your instructors and your fellow CrossFitters.  Sounds a bit like a prison doesn't it?

Ultimately, the total institution is created as a method of controlling and disciplining it's 'disciples'.  The boarding school, convent, sanitarium, and military are all institutions that pride themselves on discipline as a guiding principle and discipline is how the fitness industry continues to be a multi-billion dollar business.  No one makes you go to the gym, you just feel guilty when you don't go.  Citizens are not encouraged to be physically active as much as they are shamed into it.  CrossFit may not be as physically confining as a prison because you can leave once you are done your workout but that does not mean that the mentality doesn't travel with you.   CrossFit is a mobile institution that has managed to infiltrate how its followers think and that is the true phenomenon of CrossFit.  "CultFit" as it is sometimes referred to by its detractors may not necessarily be any more encompassing than being a varsity athlete, but I think that the polarizing views surrounding CrossFit speak largely to the mentality of its followers.  Despite, CrossFit advertising itself as an inclusive workout it can also filter out a large chunk of the population off the bat with signs hanging in the gym like this:

From CrossFit Vacaville website.

Ignatieff, M.  (1983).  Total institutions and working classes: A review essay.  History Workshop, 15, (pp.167-173).

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