In Defence of CrossFit

Despite wanting to write this post for a long time, I’ve only just sat down to begin now. The reason? Rebecca Adlington. Specifically this letter to Rebecca from Laurie Penny.  For those of you who don’t know, Rebecca Adlington is a retired Olympic swimmer. She won two gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games and two bronze medals at the 2012 Olympics in London. She, together with Katherine Grainger, is Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian. Basically, she’s incredible. But In 2013, she went on ‘I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!’, and thus went from a role model and national treasure, loved and held in high regard by the British public, to a victim of narrow minded, shallow internet trolls.

Rebecca Adlington

In I’m a Celebrity, she starred alongside beauty model Amy Willerton, and the public, being the fickle mass it so often is, saw this as an opportunity to compare the two, and bully, tease and taunt Rebecca from behind the safety of a computer screen. Granted, as she said, she has always struggled with her self esteem, and being around a bikini clad model 24 hours a day certainly didn’t help. She even admits to being concerned about her looks at the Olympics, worrying that people would judge her on how she looks rather than her performance.

In Laurie Penny’s letter to Rebecca she says, “By the way, Becky, you're beautiful. I'm not sure if I should say so, because the whole point is that whether or not a woman is good-looking should not determine her value as a person. No, you don't look like a catwalk model, and you never will, and if you did you probably wouldn't have had the success you've had as a swimmer. But I happen to think that your strong, powerful athlete's body is desperately sexy, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.”

Talking about strong women is something I’m seeing more and more of. Yes, it’s probably because I like a lot of CrossFit pages on Facebook so articles pop up in my feed relatively regularly, but it doesn’t matter if they’re all written by CrossFitters; what matters is that the common understanding of what ‘feminine’ is, or what a woman should look like, is being challenged. We’re seeing more physically strong women than ever before.

We’ve been told for decades that women with muscles 'look like men' or are unattractive. There’s too much ‘why would they do that to themselves’, or ‘they don’t look like real women’ going around. I’m not sure what a ‘real woman’ is, and I presume that women ‘do that to themselves’ for exactly the same reason that men ‘do that to themselves’. CrossFit isn’t just about muscle though, it’s about fitness; running, swimming, weights, rowing - you name it, CrossFit does it. And it’s also not just about fitness; it’s about community. It’s about fun, admiration and acceptance.

Not me, unfortunately, but Jessica Ennis

For me (and I’d be curious to know if this is a common view) it wasn’t until the London 2012 Olympics that the tide really began to change towards women and the athletic body (let’s face it, people put Sporty Spice in a box). Perhaps it was down to Jessica Ennis, our great medal hope and the woman on whose shoulders London 2012 rested. She delivered, and we loved her for it. Suddenly, her incredible, athletic body was everywhere. She was sporty, she was beautiful and she was British. Suddenly, being a woman who was into sports didn’t automatically slap labels on you. So what went wrong with Rebecca? As far as I can tell, it’s because she has a swimmer’s body, i.e. broad shoulders and more bulk than Jessica. She doesn’t fit into the box -  which Jessica does more so - despite her body and sport.

It was around this time I began CrossFit. I was pretty much hooked straight away. I began to follow groups and pages, and other online communities. There was a sense of community I had never experienced before and a completely sense of respect between everyone - no matter what country, age, sex, religion, or race. You go to a CrossFit class to get fit. End of story. I began to see incredibly fit, athletic and muscular women who were (are!) absolutely beautiful.

Andrea Ager

I began to read articles about the CrossFit woman, like this great paragraph, “Crossfit has created a breed of women who aren’t afraid of lifting weights, or getting out of breath. A woman that doesn’t mind chalk under her nails, and her calluses and bruised shins are proof of her strength, determination and fitness. She knows the names of all the Olympic lifts and doesn’t need a man’s help to put her bar back into the rack, or anything else for that matter. Crossfit has taken down the “reserved” sign and opened up a third option for women who have decided that skinny, frail and nymph just isn’t their body type. Welcome to the world of the Crossfit chick: mum or student, professional or labourer, young or old- athletes.” Or this; “Something amazing is happening around the world! The eyes of women (and men) are being opened to the elephant in the room when it comes to women and their body shape, ability and strength, and for this Crossfit should be exalted.

Jackie Perez

I began to follow online communities where people share their thoughts, their worries and their progress, and watched as everyone in the community rallied around them, gave advice, encouraged and congratulated them. I started to see - and am still seeing - more and more women, proud of their strength, or starting out, curious about what their bodies can do, eager to leave their heels in the changing room and sweat it out, climbing ropes, throwing wall balls, and gasping after countless burpees. It is, to be frank, liberating.

So it angers me when I read articles that dismiss CrossFit as a dangerous fad, a form of exercise that promotes injury, and even liken it to cockfighting. What these people fail to realise is (among other things), that within any sport - even bricklaying - are idiots. These range from those people who pump themselves full of steroids, to those people who don’t listen to their body. Now this is a whole other debate, as I know that in order to push past your best weights and times, you have to push yourself. Personally, I’m not out to compete, and while I do enjoy beating my personal best, I will always put my health first. I think that goes for most people - regardless of what sport they do. The people who push themselves so far that they fall prey to Rhabdomyolysis have only themselves to blame, most certainly not CrossFit, and despite what you read, Uncle Rhabdo is not a mascot.

Julie Foucher

They are right about one thing though - CrossFit is just another sport. I’ve never been involved with any other sport outside of school, but I should imagine that there are communities just like those of CrossFit all over the world, where people are kind, supportive and love what they do. They might also promote women's involvement. I hope so.

I hope that when the next generation gets to my age, strong women aren’t a taboo. That women like Jessica Ennis and Rebecca Adlington are seen as the beautiful, athletic women they are, no matter what their body shape.