Yesterday on my Facebook profile I published a post, or rather a question, on this topic and I must say that the answers did not take long. Having taken note of the comments, I now give you a point of view from my perpective.
That CrossFit is for everyone is a fact supported primarily by CrossFit HQ that supports its dissemination to anyone who is basically able to move regardless of age, sex and good company.
Many have commented that “CrossFit is for everyone but not everyone is for CrossFit” and on this I basically agree since I also wrote a post like that six years ago, so I won’t dwell on it.
Others have subordinated the topic to the Trainer’s ability to “please” this type of training for people and here too there is no doubt that a good trainer makes the difference. So to speak, I remember that the first two years of high school I was a “goat” in mathematics but when in the third year another professor arrived who knew how to explain and really loved it, I became very good.
However, if the kind of training is in itself affordable for everyone, not the same we can say about the cost, for the boxes are, by their nature, in a situation that places them in a “medium-high” price range and not certainly popular. And this in fact makes the practice of this type of training reserved for people with good financial resources.
Oh God, I wrote it. The provocation has started but if you have the goodness to read the following you will understand where I want to go.
Let’s start with Fitness, or rather with commercial gyms. I speak about Globo Gym, or rather those chains of gyms that have standardized the practice of activities, let’s call them Fitness, to the point of making them accessible to everyone. Their average subscription has a cost that can be faced by most people, always obviously having an interest in doing so.
The Globo Gym, which usually are corporations, have the sole purpose of earning monies and so far nothing wrong. We can perhaps discuss the way in which their services are provided, although many factors should be considered here that I would let go, but the fact remains that their main purpose is to make money.
On the other side of the Fitness offer we have Sports, that is all those activities that in some way are attributable to some Federation which is recognized globally, organizes competitions and issues regulations. In this case we are almost always to do with associations of various kinds which, precisely according to their purpose, spreading the practice of a certain sport, do not have the profit as their main purpose.
And so the cost of subscription to the association and that of the courses or practice is relatively low, compatibly with the type of sport and the maintenance of the facilities. However, this latter aspect is often covered by various municipalities and institutions.
Then we have the commercial gyms disguised as an association that in theory should not be for profit but in practice they try to struggle as they can in a borderline situation linked to taxation, benefits and good company, although normally the cost of the subscription is in line with that of the gymnastics for “obvious” reasons of competition.
And now here is the Box CrossFit, the hybrid of hybrids, sports associations that offer a physical activity that is not officially considered a sport, so much so that they must affiliate with similar sports federations, but that ask for higher average figures of those of other associations and Globo Gym. In reality it is an exquisitely Italian situation as in the rest of the world we talk about commercial Box but the juice is the same.
All right, let’s be clear, I am the first to insist that Box should significantly increase prices in light of the type of service they offer and on the basis of their business model, but surely this places the CrossFit outside of a popular context, transforming it into an elite activity, sporting or otherwise that can be considered.
So in my opinion, those whom say that CrossFit is for everyone who can afford it says it well. Then we can discuss the fact that 10 aperitifs and three dinners largely cover the cost of an annual, but here we go to another cultural ground.
And that’s where I wanted to go because if you really want everyone to approach CrossFit, you need to make it known for what it is, or a form of training suitable for everyone, eliminating all those urban legends and popular beliefs that have made their way over the years because of those who have distorted the speech a little and got carried away by the competitive aspect.
If you still wonder why CrossFit has embarked on the path of “wellness lifestyle” it is clear that you have not yet understood that all this serves to give more authority to the practice of CrossFit, to make it popular as a remedy against aging and all those other diseases that the journal and the CrossFit website treat every day and ultimately, make sense of a higher cost of this service than other similar ones.
In the end CrossFit HQ is doing everyone a big favor by paving the way for huge business opportunities that are ready to be seized by the next generation of Box Owners; fitness entrepreneurs.
And I assure you that, numbers in hand, so far we have only played.
