In the hub of tech nestled in the Bay Area, San Jose, California, is home to nearly 20 CrossFit affiliates. One would be surprised (I sure was) that only one of them offered a class between 10 a.m. and noon on a Thursday. CrossFit Palo Alto offers a Legends 65+ class from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., and as I walked into the nearly 20-year affiliate, I understood why. Most people are working at this hour, except for those no longer running the rat race. When I came to film the Legends class at CrossFit Palo Alto — which, in all honesty, was nearly an 85+ class — I witnessed a lesson in functional dominance masked as functional independence.
The class consisted entirely of women until Bob strolled in wearing his Stanford polo and khakis, so it was Bob and the gals, they said. Kristen Dymmel, co-owner of CrossFit Palo Alto, runs the class twice a week and starts with some light stretching while the members go around the room declaring their favorite movement in the gym.
Bonnie, 79, proudly said her favorite exercise was walking around the gym. Little did I know how interactive the class would be. Personally, I show up to the gym for 50% fitness, 50% to socialize and chum it. These 65+ and many 80+ loved being there, being with each other, and filling the entire hour with laughter and CrossFit. The experience was one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve been to in my 20 years of gym-going.
“The longer you want to be independent, the more you want to be in this class,” said Bob, 84. Bob was a professor at Stanford for 50 years until he retired to take a job at AT&T. I had to ask, “Why?” He smiled and said, “Why wouldn’t you want to be on the forefront of technical innovation?” Bob was no ordinary guy — an exceptional man who strives for excellence.
Carol, 82, said, “When I first moved out here three-and-a-half years ago, I couldn’t get out of a chair without using my hands. So, I’ve gotten a lot stronger.” During the warm-up, Carol spoke with her coach about scaling options for the pull-ups in the workout. She would tell me she had a rotator cuff injury. She went to physical therapy a couple times a week, but she refused to stop going to CrossFit Palo Alto because she didn’t want to lose strength. When I told her most people over 80 would see an injury of that nature as a sign to back off and rest, she laughed as if that wasn’t even an option.
“The needs of the elderly and professional athletes vary by degree, not kind. Where one needs functional competency to maintain independence, the other needs functional mastery to maintain dominance. Improved hip capacity will help a pro ball player’s throw to first; it will also reduce the chances of grandpa falling in the tub. The squat is the perfect tool for both.“ —Greg Glassman, CrossFit Founder
What happened in this hour-long class was a wonderful snapshot of the scalability of the CrossFit method known by most as shorthand “degree not kind.” These legends completed a couplet of Zercher squats and pull-ups. Each athlete described in detail how this twice-a-week protocol of constantly varied functional movement performed at relative intensity had gained them functional independence — that is, they did not require assistance performing daily tasks that would normally put someone of their age straight in a nursing home.
The infinite scalability of the elegance of the CrossFit program is expressed through these athletes. These 10 athletes, far past what most would consider the prime of their physical capacity, find utility in the same motor recruitment patterns that CrossFit Games athletes use, but one uses them for mastery and dominance, the other for functional competence — independence.
The beauty in that is the scalability of the program. Anyone, within reason, can do anything in the gym. We are not limited by the movement, only the degree of difficulty, load, or rep scheme those at the pinnacle of fitness demand. Both groups utilize functional movements performed at relative intensity, some more varied than others. For instance, Kristen explains the purpose of each movement the legends do in the gym. Many of them travel in retirement, and being able to not only carry, but also load their luggage in an overhead bin without assistance, is functional independence. Therefore, cleaning and pressing hit the routine often.
“I want you to be able to live independently as long as possible before you need assistance to go to the bathroom or get out of your bed,”Here’s why we’re doing this movement, so you have the strength to do that. You don’t have to ask the flight attendant to put your luggage overhead.”
As adherents to the CrossFit methodology, the sickness-wellness-fitness continuum displays every measurable value of health. The continuum represents your health.
Done right, fitness provides a great margin of protection against the ravages of time and disease. The 10:30 class at CrossFit Palo Alto expresses this concept perfectly, though each of its members is hedging their health, staying as far away from sick that they can.
Carol, 85, couldn’t go from standing to the ground and back up again without assistance when she first started going to the Legends class. Now she attends twice a week, can do jumping pull-ups, and participates in the CrossFit Open. Carol recruited two of her friends to do the 2026 Open, and after missing the second workout, she figured her Open was over. But the two women said to her, “Oh no, you’re doing it,” she laughed. And she’s so happy she did. She sharedthey’re “already making plans for next year.”
“Every time I say to her, ‘Don’t you remember when you couldn’t even do this … a few months ago?’ And she has moments of absolute joy,” Kristen shared. Carol beamed with joy during the entire class. A quiet smile that showed you she was content to be there, but ask her a question and she beams with excitement.
Kristen sums up what she loves most, describing her relationship with Carol: “That is the thing that really makes it worthwhile to me: to see people’s lives completely change in just a few months.”
The athletes in the 10:30 class at CrossFit Palo Alto don’t show up twice a week to PR their deadlift; they show up to have fun and dominate an era of their lives that typically gets cast off as the end of the road. Instead of accepting decrepitude, they embrace functional dominance. They do so by applying the CrossFit method and specifically the degree, not kind, approach of CrossFit. Their needs are the same as those of professional athletes and police officers; they simply need a smaller degree of the dose — not the kind of exercise — to gain functional dominance.