"Mass Hysteria" is the New WOD at CrossFit

CrossFit's top management has been rallying the troops (affiliates and athletes) against the possible acquisition of a 50% stake in CrossFit Inc. by Anthos Capital, a growth equity firm. Management claims that the deal would take over headquarters and basically destroy CrossFit, turning it into a franchise concept.

First, let me give you a brief background on the situation: Greg Glassman, the guy who created the whole CrossFit concept, and his wife, Lauren Jenai Glassman, are getting divorced. As part of the divorce, Lauren has signed an agreement to sell her 50% stake to Anthos for $20 million, despite Greg's offers to buy her out for more or less the same amount. His latest offer was for $17.5 million, but while Anthos would pay one lump sum, Greg would pay over a five-year period.

Greg is obviously not pleased that Lauren would rather sell to Anthos than him. He has publicly said that Anthos' intention is to turn the affiliates into company franchisees and to have them sell supplements. It's obvious that the guy wants to stay in total control of his company. Can't blame him for that. After all, not a single cent of the proceeds of the sale to Anthos will go to him or CrossFit.

Anthos, meanwhile, insists that none of this is true. Managing director Bryan Kelly, who claims to have been doing CrossFit for two years, has said over and over that his firm does not take over companies. Instead, it just helps companies it invests in grow by helping them with financial planning and strategic direction. He is absolutely dumbfounded over the hostility CrossFit headquarters is directing his way.

I just think the whole situation is hilarious!

Since CrossFit management took to the interwebz in late June to denounce Lauren's selling out of CrossFit, all hell has broken loose on the internet, with conspiracy theories being plastered on discussion forums and memes spreading like wildfire.

Even well known CrossFit athletes have posted their anti-Anthos stance on You Tube and Twitter.
 
In response, Bryan and Lauren have also entered the internet fighting arena, publishing a video that explains why they want to get this deal done. 

Meanwhile, fitness buffs who aren't very fond of CrossFit for whatever reasons have been laughing their tushies off in their own forum, ridiculing die-hard CrossFitters' blind defense of Greg's stance.  They also ridicule CrossFit management's childish manner of dealing with this situation. Can't say they are wrong. Some of management's public posts are downright silly.

Facebook pages for and against the Anthos deal have also been created and both make for a great laugh.

Funny thing is, it's really up to the divorce court to decide if Lauren even has the right to sell the 50% she claims to own. It must be pointed out that while she may have been intricately involved in CrossFit, it was Greg who came up with the whole concept. So does she really have the right to sell half the company? Anyway, this divorce has apparently been in the works for about two years. I don't think the court is in a rush to decide what Lauren gets to sell.

CrossFit management does not really have a say about the sale either. Of course, they can roll out the scare campaign as they have been doing to encourage the affiliates to say they will drop the CrossFit brand if Anthos gets its stake, but if Lauren wants to sell her stake, she can sell it to whoever she wants and for as much (or little) as she wants.   

So up to now, this all looks like a "he said-she said-he said" situation. I am not taking sides, even if I love CrossFit. I could speculate all day on what Anthos could do to help or hurt the affiliate model. I could also speculate as to why Greg does not want a professional finance firm to help him grow his company further or make its operations at the headquarter level more efficient. But I will not.

I would prefer that affiliates continue to run their boxes as they see fit without intervention from CrossFit headquarters even if Anthos is involved. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

It's all in your head!

Sometimes doing an exercise takes more mental toughness than it does physical fitness.

This is what I have been thinking over the past few weeks as I try to improve my handstand push ups.

Before starting CrossFit in May, I wanted to be prepared to do handstands. I always knew I was capable of pulling them off.  But while part of my brain was saying "piece of cake!", the fear of smashing my head would take over as soon as I stood in front of the wall to try to do a handstand.

I walked away from that wall more times than I'd like to admit because I was irrationally afraid of getting hurt. 

But then my mind wandered back to when I was a little Nadia Comaneci wannabe trying to learn how to do cartwheels. I would stand in a hollow body position, lift both my arms up in the air, take a peek at the floor, lift my right leg slightly for momentum and boom! I'd just go for it.

Sure, the first time I tried to do a cartwheel I thought of how I could smash my head against the floor if I screwed up, but I distinctly remember shaking the thought out of my head and just getting it done. I have never, ever gotten hurt attempting a cartwheel. Ever. And I still do them fairly often because they're so darn fun!

Back in real life, there I was, staring at the wall again, getting ready to do a handstand. "If I can still do cartwheels like when I was a kid, why on earth would I not be able to do a simple handstand against the wall?" I thought. Then I stood in a hollow body position, lifted my arms, peeked at the floor, lifted my right leg slightly and boom! I finally did a perfect handstand! I didn't smash my head, I didn't fall to the side, I didn't pull a muscle... besides the unfamiliar feeling of blood rushing to my head very quickly, everything felt just fine.

After I realized what a wuss I had been for not getting this done earlier, I began doing handstands as often as possible. As a result of all the practice, I no longer feel weird when blood rushes to my head and have been able to progress to handstand push ups. I am still working on lowering my head all the way to the ground (almost there!) and, now that I'm fearless, I know I'll get there soon. 

"Toning" shoes are a scam! Duh!

A pair of unstable sneakers will not strengthen your core, will not firm up your butt and will not help you lose weight. That's what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said, so take those "Shape Up" shoes off before you fall on your ass and hurt yourself.

The FTC, the agency in charge of protecting consumers, on May 16 announced that Skechers USA Inc., the company that makes the Shape Up shoes, agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges that the company deceived consumers by making unfounded claims that Shape-ups would help people lose weight, and strengthen and tone their butt, legs and abs.

But the best part is that the FTC also says that the consumers who bought these “toning” shoes will be eligible for refunds either directly from the FTC or through a court-approved class action lawsuit, and can submit a claim here.

I'm not surprised that a corporation deceived consumers. That happens every single day, unfortunately. What boggles my mind is that people will buy anything that promises an easy solution.

And buy they did. Skechers was the market leader in the toning footwear category, with sales peaking in 2010 at close to $1 billion, according to the FTC. Shape-up fitness shoes, which Skechers introduced in April 2009, cost consumers about $100 a pair. Resistance Runner, Toners, and Tone-ups became available in mid-2010, and retailed for $60 to $100 a pair, the FTC says.

Industry wide sales for these shoes are expected to increase to $1.5 billion this year. People keep buying them even though they don't work.

When I first saw the ads for the Shape Ups I thought of twisted ankles, busted knees and hip replacements. Well, call me psychic! They're an ambulance chaser's dream!

According to an article from San Diego's 10news.com, more than 60 people are being represented by a San Diego law firm in a mass tort case against shoe maker Skechers, with 49 others waiting to join the suit.

Among the injuries the so-called "toning" shoes are claimed to have caused are head trauma, broken hips, broken femurs, broken ankles and even brain injury in one case. And this is only one of many lawsuits out there.

To all those who bought the wobbly shoes: I hope you learned your lesson without getting hurt in the process. Now go get your money back.

Taking badassness to the next level with CrossFit

(Yeah, I know that "badassness" is not really a word, but if Sarah Palin can make words up, so can I.)

After completing at-home fitness programs P90X, P90X +, Insanity, and George St. Pierre's Rushfit, I gained strength, stamina and an unwavering passion for fitness. These excellent programs helped me get in the best shape of my life.

But after about two years of completing these programs and then mixing them up for variety, I became pretty bored of working out at home (or at the park) all by myself. I tried to get my friends to join me, but they weren't up for the challenge. I needed something to make working out fun and exciting again.

Enter CrossFit. I have been reading about CrossFit since I began doing P90X in 2010. I always thought it looked pretty cool. But I decided to continue working out at home.

Good thing I did. CrossFit's free introductory class would have left me crying for my mommy had I not worked on gaining strength and stamina first.

Even with all the strength I had gained, that intro class left me sore for three days. It shocked me that only about 10 minutes of Tabata squats and push ups and a little monkeying around on the parallettes would beat me up so much. (With the Tabata method, you do maximum repetitions for 20 seconds and rest for 10. You repeat that sequence eight times per exercise.)

As John (then also "Cougar") Mellencamp would say, "it hurt so good!!" I was officially hooked on CrossFit.

Today I went to my first Elements (foundations) class at CrossFit. Our coach, Jason, taught us how to perform push ups, sit ups and squats. We also tried our hand at pull ups, but thankfully those weren't part of the Tabata sequence. A few hours later, I'm still not feeling sore, but I know it's coming.

The only downside of CrossFit is that it's really expensive. Here in New York City every "box" (as CrossFitters call their gyms), charges about $300 for two weeks of Elements and two weeks of as many WODs (workouts of the day) as you want to put yourself through. Then, it's either $20 per class or $200 a month.

Someday, when I open my own box, I won't charge so much. Until then, I'll be poor, but badass.