Outside Magazine

It’s a hot August morning in Madison, Wisconsin, and Greg Glassman is sipping iced tea in an air-conditioned, glass-walled room perched above a preternaturally green field. Below, two dozen ripped athletes are hanging by their feet from bars, performing upside-down sit-ups in sync while Kendrick Lamar’s “Loyalty” blasts from the speakers. The sun-warmed bleachers are a blur of taut and bulging skin, fans already drinking beer and getting rowdy above signs that declare this event the “Ultimate Proving Grounds for the Fittest on Earth.” It’s the 2019 CrossFit Games, the annual competition that brings together athletes from around the world to prove themselves worthy of this title. Here, the high-intensity workout regimen happening in nondescript gyms across the globe becomes a sport. And for the millions of CrossFit enthusiasts, it’s a big deal.

Glassman, the 63-year-old founder of this fitness phenomenon, doesn’t seem to think it’s such a big deal. From the glass room, the CrossFitters—now pushing massive, weighted carts across the field in teams of four—are hard to see clearly, and the TV meant to broadcast the games isn’t working. Glassman is unperturbed. He has turned his back on the action and is chatting with his ever present entourage about his new favorite topic: CrossFit Health, the company initiative positing that CrossFit is the cure to chronic illness and the savior of the failing health care system.

This is all Glassman wants to talk about these days, and he’s ready to raise his voice—from this VIP glass house or anywhere else—to ensure his point is heard. The problem is, he’s having a hard time convincing the world that the same sport pitting scary-buff jocks against each other could also be the very thing that saves ordinary people’s lives.