50 Fun Facts About CrossFit

Who founded CrossFit, incorporating the company in 2000 with Lauren Jenai?

Greg Glassman, a former gymnast, is said to have built his first CrossFit-style workout at 16 by adding weightlifting to gymnastics; it became the benchmark Fran.

In which California city was the original CrossFit gym located?

Santa Cruz: the gym opened there in 2001 and posted its workouts online for clients; police, soldiers and firefighters picked them up and began asking to affiliate.

What is a CrossFit-affiliated gym commonly called?

A box is what CrossFitters call an affiliated gym; the first, CrossFit North in Seattle, signed up in 2002, and each one is independently run rather than a franchise.

What does WOD stand for?

Workout of the Day: CrossFit has posted a free daily WOD for the public since 2001, so anyone can follow the programme without joining a gym.

The benchmark WOD Fran combines pull-ups with which movement, in rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps?

Thrusters: each rep is a front squat driven straight into an overhead press, and CrossFit's founder is said to have devised the pairing with pull-ups as a teenager.

Benchmark workouts such as Fran, Grace and Helen belong to which named group?

The Girls: Fran, Grace and Helen belong to the benchmark workouts CrossFit began giving women's names in 2003. Murph, by contrast, is a Hero workout named for a fallen Navy SEAL.

When a WOD is done exactly as written, without scaling, what is it called?

Rx'd, from the prescription symbol Rx, means the workout was done as prescribed. Reducing reps or weights or swapping movements to fit the athlete is called scaling.

Which momentum-based pull-up technique is common in CrossFit and controversial outside it?

Kipping uses a hip-driven swing to add momentum to each pull-up, so more work gets done in less time; outsiders call it cheating so often that CrossFit's FAQ answers the charge.

The three CrossFit modalities are gymnastics, barbell lifting and what?

Metabolic conditioning, or 'metcon', covers running, rowing, cycling and double-unders; a WOD may mix it with gymnastics and weightlifting or use one modality alone.

Helen is three rounds of a 400 m run, 12 pull-ups and 21 swings of what?

A kettlebell: CrossFit's standard swing takes it all the way overhead, the 'American' swing, and Helen asks for 21 of them in each of its three rounds.

The benchmark Karen is 150 reps of which movement, for time?

Wall-ball shots: Karen is one movement done 150 times, squatting with a 20 lb ball, throwing it to a 10-foot target and catching it again.

How many affiliated gyms did CrossFit have in 2005?

13: CrossFit had just 13 affiliated gyms in 2005, three years after the first affiliate opened in Seattle; the number grew into the thousands within a decade.

To whom did CrossFit's founder sell the company in 2020 after his George Floyd comments?

Eric Roza, a former Datalogix chief executive, bought CrossFit in July 2020 after the founder's tweet about George Floyd drove away affiliates and the company's main sponsor.

Which dangerous muscle-breakdown condition has the press long linked to CrossFit's intensity?

Rhabdomyolysis: damaged muscle fibres release myoglobin and other proteins that can overwhelm the kidneys, and several highly publicised cases followed intense CrossFit workouts.

Which gymnastics movement pairs with deadlifts in the benchmark Diane?

Handstand push-ups: Diane borrows Fran's 21-15-9 scheme but swaps in 225-lb deadlifts and a press done upside down.

The Hero WOD Murph honours a Navy SEAL killed in 2005 in which country?

Afghanistan: Lt. Michael Murphy was killed in Kunar Province on 28 June 2005 during Operation Red Wings and posthumously received the Medal of Honor.

The Hero WOD Murph is traditionally performed wearing what extra piece of kit?

A weighted vest: the original post says to wear a twenty-pound vest or body armor if you have it, and Lt. Michael Murphy's own name for the workout was 'Body Armor'.

Fight Gone Bad was designed to mimic a three-round bout for which UFC fighter?

BJ Penn: CrossFit's founder built the five-station workout for him, and Penn is said to have remarked afterwards that it felt like 'a fight gone bad'.

What does AMRAP stand for in CrossFit programming?

As many rounds as possible: an AMRAP sets a time cap, such as Cindy's 20 minutes, and scores the athlete on completed rounds and reps.

What got athletes into the first CrossFit Games?

Showing up was enough: the first two Games had no qualifying process at all, and qualifying rounds were only introduced for 2009 after a far larger field turned up in 2008.

The first CrossFit Games took place at a ranch in which California town?

Aromas: the first Games in 2007 were held on a family ranch there, and the finals returned to the ranch in 2020, when the pandemic ruled out spectators.

What title does the CrossFit Games champion receive?

Fittest on Earth: champions earn it on workouts announced only hours in advance, sometimes with surprises such as a rough-water swim or a pegboard climb.

How much prize money did the winners of the inaugural 2007 Games receive?

$500: the inaugural 2007 Games paid $500 to each winner. By 2011 a title sponsorship had pushed first prize to $250,000, and it reached $300,000 by 2019.

Which sportswear brand sponsored the CrossFit Games from 2011 to 2020?

Reebok signed a ten-year deal that ran from 2011 to 2020, and its money lifted the winner's prize from $25,000 to $250,000 in a single year.

From 2010 to 2016 the Games were held at the Home Depot Center in which California city?

Carson: the Games moved to the Home Depot Center in 2010 because the crowds had outgrown the original ranch, and stayed seven years before leaving for Madison, Wisconsin.

Which city hosted the 2024 CrossFit Games?

Fort Worth, Texas hosted the 2024 Games at Dickies Arena; a competitor died in the opening run-swim event, and the Games moved to Albany, New York, a year later.

The online Open, launched in 2011, replaced which earlier first stage of Games qualifying?

Sectionals: the in-person qualifiers lasted only a year before the online Open replaced them, and 26,000 athletes signed up for the first one.

How many athletes signed up for the Open at its 2018 peak?

415,000 athletes registered for the 2018 Open, its peak, and the five-week online contest has been described as the world's largest participatory sporting event.

Who created and directed the CrossFit Games until being dismissed in 2022?

Dave Castro ran the Games for 15 years from their start on his family's ranch; dismissed in January 2022, he returned in 2023 to lead the sport team.

Which man was the first to win the Games four times, taking the title from 2011 to 2014?

Rich Froning won four straight individual titles from 2011 to 2014, then switched to the team event and led CrossFit Mayhem to six team titles between 2015 and 2022.

CrossFit Mayhem, home of several Games-winning teams, is in which Tennessee town?

Cookeville: the gym's founder worked for the town's fire department while studying at Tennessee Tech, where a professor introduced him to CrossFit in 2009.

Who won the men's Games in 2021 and 2022?

Justin Medeiros had finished third as a rookie in 2020; once the five-time champion retired, the title was open and he won the next two Games.

Tia-Clair Toomey, the most decorated Games athlete, competes for which country?

Australia: Tia-Clair Toomey, from Queensland, was runner-up in 2015 and 2016 before winning her first title in 2017.

Toomey also competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics in which sport?

Weightlifting: Toomey lifted in the 58 kg class at Rio 2016, weeks after finishing second at the CrossFit Games, and won her first Games title the following year.

Which Icelander was the first woman to win the Games twice, in 2011 and 2012?

Anníe Mist Þórisdóttir won in 2011 and 2012, the first woman to take two titles; she had trained as a gymnast, ballet dancer and pole vaulter before finding CrossFit in 2009.

Which athlete, coached by Ben Bergeron, won back-to-back women's titles in 2015 and 2016?

Katrín Davíðsdóttir won in 2015 and 2016 under coach Ben Bergeron, having failed even to qualify in 2014 after a poor rope-climb event at the Europe Regional.

Which firefighter, nicknamed 'The Engine', won the women's title at the 2013 Games?

Samantha Briggs took a career break from firefighting after injury ruled her out of the 2012 season, won the Games in 2013, and retired in 2022 to return to the fire service.

Who won the women's title at the 2023 CrossFit Games?

Laura Horváth, of Hungary, was runner-up on her 2018 debut and won in 2023; a year later she withdrew mid-Games after a competitor's death and publicly blamed the organisers.

Which Games champion wrote the 2022 book HWPO, short for Hard Work Pays Off?

Mat Fraser: HWPO was his motto through five straight titles, and his 2022 book of that name lays out his training and mindset.

Which 2008 Games champion went on to found the gym chain NCFit?

Jason Khalipa won in 2008 and was still on the podium six years later; his gyms began under the CrossFit name and were later rebranded as NCFit.

Russia's cast-iron girya weights are traditionally measured in which unit of about 16.4 kg?

Pood: the girya began as a counterweight for weighing crops, and although the Soviet Union abolished the pood in 1924, CrossFit workouts still prescribe weights in it.

Which exercise began in 1939 as a quick fitness test in a physiologist's PhD thesis?

The burpee: Royal H. Burpee devised it for his doctoral thesis at Columbia, and his original four-count version had no push-up and no jump.

Which equipment maker began in Ohio when a CrossFit gym owner struggled to find gear?

Rogue Fitness began as Bill Henniger's website reselling other makers' equipment, then moved into building its own, and by 2009 it was supplying the CrossFit Games.

Who took over as CrossFit's chief executive in August 2022, months after its owner gave up the role?

Don Faul took over in August 2022, six months after the owner stood down as chief executive, and led CrossFit until he stepped down himself in March 2026.

The benchmark Grace is 30 reps of which barbell lift, for time?

Clean and jerk: Grace is 30 clean and jerks at 135 lb, for time; its sister workout Isabel swaps the lift for 30 snatches at the same weight.

In Fight Gone Bad, athletes switch stations every minute; what does the final score count?

Total reps and calories: each rep scores a point, and on the rower each calorie does, so athletes work flat out at all five stations while the clock never stops.

Which cartoon clown, drawn hooked up to a dialysis machine, drew criticism as a CrossFit mascot?

Uncle Rhabdo appeared in CrossFit's own materials, his kidneys and intestines spilling onto the floor; critics said the cartoon showed a cavalier attitude to a real danger.

Which brand, banned from athletes' feet at the 2015 Games, answered with 'Don't ban our shoe, beat our shoe'?

Nike parked trucks carrying the slogan near the arena entrance; the Games' exclusive footwear deal also stopped Nike calling its Metcon a CrossFit shoe.

Which brand was title sponsor of the CrossFit Games from 2021 to 2023?

Nobull, a Boston brand founded in 2015 and closely tied to CrossFit, was title sponsor from 2021 to 2023; the 2024 Games then ran with no title sponsor at all.

Which Serbian athlete drowned during the first event of the 2024 CrossFit Games?

Lazar Đukić drowned in the 800-metre lake swim that ended the opening event; both 2023 champions were among the athletes who then withdrew from the Games.