CrossFit is a lifestyle characterized by safe, effective exercise and sound nutrition. We recommend basing your diet on lean proteins, garden vegetables (especially greens), nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines, you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.
THE WORLD'S BEST FITNESS PROGRAM
CrossFit was founded in 2001 and can be used to accomplish any goal, from improved health to better performance. CrossFit trademarked Forging Elite Fitness™ — but the program works for everyone. People who have never worked out and those who have trained for years share equally in the benefits of CrossFit.
The CrossFit Experience
LIVING AS AN ATHLETE
CrossFit training is for people who come in all shapes and sizes, and you can start at any age. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you can do. Whether you work with a coach at a gym or use the free programming and resources we’ve shared every day since 2001, if you keep showing up and trying your best, you’re a CrossFit athlete.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
CrossFit has thousands of independently owned gyms in 155 countries around the world. Each gym is unique but united by a shared commitment to world-class coaching and the development of a strong, supportive community. When you find your new gym, chances are you’ll find a group of people ready to lift you up and celebrate your successes, great and small.
A BETTER YOU
CrossFit workouts are challenging but worth the effort. And when you pair the unparalleled fitness stimulus of these workouts with sound nutrition, you get a program that is more transformative than anything you’ll find in any other gym anywhere. CrossFit is simply the best way to find the best version of yourself, inside the gym and out. Show up at the gym and show up for life.
Do functional movement at an intensity that’s at a match for your psychological and physical tolerance, restrict your carbs, get adequate protein, enjoy fats, and see what happens. You’ll come out better.
CROSSFIT IN SIX WORDS?
"Constantly varied functional movement at high intensity" — It says it all, but it's so much more.
OUR PRESCRIPTION
CONSTANTLY VARIED
CrossFit has some famous benchmark workouts, like Fran and Murph, that we repeat on occasion to see how our fitness has improved. But most of the time, you’ll see new workouts programmed every day: workouts with different movements, rep schemes, loads, and time domains. That doesn’t mean the workouts are random — CrossFit programming strategically varies the workout stimulus so you’re prepared for any and all physical tasks — but it does mean you’ll never get bored.
FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT
Have you ever picked something up off the floor? Sat down in a chair and stood up again? Placed items up on a shelf? If so, you’ve performed deadlifts, squats, and shoulder presses. In CrossFit, we train these types of movements because they are the movements life demands — whether we practice them or not. They are essential to independent living. And when we use these movements to move large loads over long distances, quickly, we develop power, which in turn develops tremendous strength and body control.
HIGH INTENSITY
No matter what you’re looking for from your workouts — feeling better, looking better, sleeping better, being stronger — intensity is the most effective way to get you there. In CrossFit, we focus first on moving well with consistency, and then we work on increasing intensity. But a workout that’s intense for one person may not be for another. Intensity is relative, which means the goal is to work hard within the limits of your own physical and psychological capacity, because that’s where the results are. If you’re working hard, chances are you’re getting fitter.
Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
NUTRITION IS FUNDAMENTAL
INFINITELY SCALABLE
We have always said the needs of an Olympic athlete and our grandparents differ by degree not kind. By that we mean CrossFit works for anyone, because the functional movements we train are essential to improving fitness and maintaining functional independence. For example, on a deadlift day, one athlete may move a barbell weighing 400 lb while the other moves a broomstick. With appropriate scaling, an athlete will make significant fitness gains by working at their relative level of physical and psychological tolerance.
THE FITTEST ON EARTH
The CrossFit Games season starts with the CrossFit Open, an accessible test of physical fitness for athletes of all fitness and experience levels. Top athletes then advance through later stages of the season, which culminates with the CrossFit Games, where competitors engage in a series of challenges unknown to them until right before the events begin. While the workouts we do in the gym are for anybody, the tests competitors face at the Games are for the top 1% in the sport.
LEARN MORE
Fundamental Reading
WHAT IS FITNESS?
What is fitness and who is fit? CrossFit's founder makes the first meaningful definition of fitness in this seminal article.
FOUNDATIONS
The first ever CrossFit Journal article from 2002 explains the underpinnings of the CrossFit program.
A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CROSSFIT
"Universal scaleability” is the language we use to describe CrossFit, and we stick by that claim.
FITNESS, LUCK AND HEALTH
CrossFit holds a uniquely elegant solution to the greatest problem facing the world today—chronic disease.
Lecture Clips
CONSTANTLY VARIED PROGRAMMING
CrossFit is about constantly varied training, but that doesn’t mean the training is random.
THE SQUAT: POINTS OF PERFORMANCE
A short breakdown of one of life's most functional movements — the squat.
DISSECTING THE DEADLIFT
The basics of the deadlift are taught to participants during a Level 1 Course.