ESSENTIALS

At CrossFit Training Yard, you don't just find a workout — you find your people

In Part 2 of our response to a viral CrossFit critique, we tackle the toughest claims yet: Olympic lifts are too dangerous to train under fatigue, CrossFit culture looks down on other athletes, and intensity is just about how destroyed you feel afterward. Here's what the critique got wrong, and what CrossFit actually teaches.

At 13 years old, Josh DeSousa underwent emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor. He woke up unable to move the right side of his body — a devastating change for a once-active kid. His road to recovery was long, and progress came one step at a time. Working with Coach Jordan Jiunta at Sundown CrossFit in Santa Clara, California, DeSousa started by learning how to walk safely and rebuild the strength and confidence he had lost.

At a recent CrossFit Level 1 Seminar at The Ranch in Aromas, California, a trainer walks a group through a progression for the kipping pull-up.

A well-known strength coach recently posted a list of things he doesn't love about CrossFit and got more than a few of them wrong. In Part 1 of this two-part response, we set the record straight on his claims about endurance athletes, work capacity, isolation exercises, and mixed-modality training, and explain why "our specialty is not specializing" isn't just a slogan; it's the whole point.

The CrossFit New Year is here, and it’s time to take stock, reflect on the prior year, and plan for what comes next.

At CrossFit Roots in Boulder, Colorado, the Kids and Teens classes turn everyday energy into lifelong strength. Through fun, coach-led workouts, young athletes build proper movement patterns, sharpen body awareness, and develop real, lasting confidence — not just in the gym, but everywhere else, too.

The CrossFit Games put the best athletes in the world on display, and there is genuinely no better place to watch fitness performed at its highest level. But elite competition also produces behaviors and shortcuts that everyday athletes should think twice before adopting. Here is how to watch the Games like a coach, not just a fan.

Many programs skip the Olympic lifts because they seem too technical, too risky, or too advanced for everyday athletes. That is exactly the wrong call. Here is what you are leaving on the table when you omit them.

Waking up sore after a hard workout is not a signal to skip the gym. It is a sign your body is adapting, and how you respond determines how fast you recover. Learn when to train through soreness, when to scale, and how to tell the difference between soreness and pain.