CrossFit Trivia
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This CrossFit trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole world of the sport of fitness: how Greg Glassman went from a Santa Cruz garage gym to the biggest fitness chain on earth, what a WOD, a box and Rx'd actually mean, the stories behind benchmark workouts like Fran and Murph, and the CrossFit Games from a ranch in Aromas to arenas in Madison and Fort Worth. There are questions on the champions too: Rich Froning, Mat Fraser, Tia-Clair Toomey, the Icelandic 'Dottirs' and the years they won. It works as a warm-up game for a box's social night, a Murph Day fundraiser or anyone who wants to check how well they know the sport beyond the barbell. Difficulty ranges from questions any member could answer to hard ones about affiliate numbers and prize money. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and cited on the question, so you can see where each fact comes from.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who founded CrossFit, incorporating the company in 2000 with Lauren Jenai?
Greg Glassman
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.
Q 02In which California city was the original CrossFit gym located?
Santa Cruz
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.
Q 03What is a CrossFit-affiliated gym commonly called?
A box
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.
Q 04What does WOD stand for?
Workout of the Day
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.
Q 05The benchmark WOD Fran combines pull-ups with which movement, in rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps?
Thrusters
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.
Q 06Benchmark workouts such as Fran, Grace and Helen belong to which named group?
The Girls
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.
Q 07When a WOD is done exactly as written, without scaling, what is it called?
Rx'd
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.
Q 08Which momentum-based pull-up technique is common in CrossFit and controversial outside it?
Kipping
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.
Q 09The three CrossFit modalities are gymnastics, barbell lifting and what?
Metabolic conditioning
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.
Q 10Helen is three rounds of a 400 m run, 12 pull-ups and 21 swings of what?
A kettlebell
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.
Q 11The benchmark Karen is 150 reps of which movement, for time?
Wall-ball shots
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.
Q 12How many affiliated gyms did CrossFit have in 2005?
13
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.
Q 13To whom did CrossFit's founder sell the company in 2020 after his George Floyd comments?
Eric Roza
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.
Q 21The first CrossFit Games took place at a ranch in which California town?
Aromas
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.
Q 22What title does the CrossFit Games champion receive?
Fittest on Earth
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.
Q 23How much prize money did the winners of the inaugural 2007 Games receive?
$500
$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.
Q 14Which dangerous muscle-breakdown condition has the press long linked to CrossFit's intensity?
Rhabdomyolysis
Rhabdomyolysis: damaged muscle fibres release myoglobin and other proteins that can overwhelm the kidneys, and several highly publicised cases followed intense CrossFit workouts.
Q 15Which gymnastics movement pairs with deadlifts in the benchmark Diane?
Handstand push-ups
Handstand push-ups: Diane borrows Fran's 21-15-9 scheme but swaps in 225-lb deadlifts and a press done upside down.
Q 16The Hero WOD Murph honours a Navy SEAL killed in 2005 in which country?
Afghanistan
Afghanistan: Lt. Michael Murphy was killed in Kunar Province on 28 June 2005 during Operation Red Wings and posthumously received the Medal of Honor.
Q 17The Hero WOD Murph is traditionally performed wearing what extra piece of kit?
A weighted vest
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'.
Q 18Fight Gone Bad was designed to mimic a three-round bout for which UFC fighter?
BJ Penn
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'.
Q 19What does AMRAP stand for in CrossFit programming?
As many rounds as possible
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.
Q 20What got athletes into the first CrossFit Games?
Showing up
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.
Q 24Which sportswear brand sponsored the CrossFit Games from 2011 to 2020?
Reebok
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.
Q 25From 2010 to 2016 the Games were held at the Home Depot Center in which California city?
Carson
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.
Q 26Which city hosted the 2024 CrossFit Games?
Fort Worth
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.
Q 27The online Open, launched in 2011, replaced which earlier first stage of Games qualifying?
Sectionals
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.
Q 28How many athletes signed up for the Open at its 2018 peak?
415,000
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.
Q 29Who created and directed the CrossFit Games until being dismissed in 2022?
Dave Castro
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.
Q 30Which man was the first to win the Games four times, taking the title from 2011 to 2014?
Rich Froning
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.