"Do you CrossFit?"
It's a question being heard more often in Anchorage, and across Alaska, as the growing trend in fitness flexes its muscles in the Last Frontier. While CrossFit is just a small part of a $22 billion U.S. fitness industry, it has an oversized impact. And in a society obsessed with extremeifying almost everything, it is hard to argue that CrossFit isn't among the most intense workouts you can find. Eschewing high-tech and expensive gym equipment in favor of quick-paced interval workouts using barbells, tires, ropes and pull-up bars, CrossFit boasts a huge and growing following around the world and around the state.
"We have probably doubled the amount of CrossFit gyms in Alaska in last calendar year," said CrossFit Northern Exposure owner Tony Reishus.
CrossFit is a way of life for many practitioners. But it is also a valuable brand. The company was started in a garage in Santa Cruz, California, in 2000 by former gymnast Greg Glassman. It is now worth more than $40 million and has a Reebok sponsorship and a deal with ESPN to carry its annual CrossFit Games. Today, the company supports almost 10,000 franchises across the globe. CrossFit gyms, called "boxes," can be found in Iceland and Sweden, Tasmania, Chile, and Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar. In Alaska, CrossFit is being practiced in communities across the state, from Anchorage and Wasilla to Fairbanks, Bethel, Dutch Harbor, Kenai, Seward, Kodiak, Juneau and Ketchikan. In total, there are now 21 Alaska CrossFit affiliates.
Reishus' CrossFit box opened up a few weeks ago. Located in an industrial area west of C Street, near 64th Avenue, CrossFit Northern Exposure embodies the look, if not necessarily the attitude, of most CrossFit locations. Inside, a large open area is covered with floor padding and wooden sheets used to support heavy barbells during exercizes. A few pull-up bars and gymnastic ring sets dot one side of the space. Rowing machines are neatly stacked along the opposite wall. Rock music is blaring. Video screens show the day's workout regimen, and a clock ticks down the training intervals. The sounds of exertion are barely noticeable above the din of whirling jump ropes. Words of encouragement fly among the group of people powering through the intense workout, echoing off the box's high ceilings and relatively Spartan walls.
The startup costs for a CrossFit box can be relatively low. Completion of a $1,000 CrossFit Level 1 trainer class and a $3,000 annual franchise fee are all that's needed to get a piece of the CrossFit empire. The workouts require little expensive equipment, other than a few rowing machines, weightlifting equipment and ropes. Because of cheaper leasing rates, in Anchorage, CrossFit boxes are popping up in strip malls and industrial warehouses.
Inside a strip mall on the Old Seward Highway, just a few miles away from CrossFit Northern Exposure, another group of CrossFitters alternates between power lifting and rowing at CrossFit Alaska. The intensity is higher here. Pop music is the tempo-keeper. A coach yells instructions, making corrections in form and technique. The roof is low, and ropes are strung through holes in the interior ceiling, attached to the building's metal supports. Next door to a smoke shop and a veterans organization, hockey moms, students and other athletes strain and sweat through a workout that looks like it belongs in a Navy SEAL training camp.
"You are achieving goals together and working hard," CrossFit Alaska co-owner Rachel Rigdon said. "Having somebody cheer for you pushes you probably farther than you would push yourself."
Rigdon herself is a CrossFit athlete. She does the sport competitively and participates in Spartan races, a common sport for CrossFit athletes that is part running race, obstacle course, and strength test. Some of her clientele are athletes, using CrossFit to get stronger or increase their core power and endurance in other sports. But not everyone who does CrossFit is in it to compete.
"I wanted to lose weight, but I also wanted to keep my strength," said 23-year-old Gabriel Holland.
Holland, a former college athlete who competed in shot put, hammer throw and discus, is about to start medical school. Holland weighed 290 pounds when he returned to Alaska after graduating college in Bakersfield, California; working out at CrossFit Alaska, he said, he has lost 30 pounds since September and has increased his lifting strength. He likes the group atmosphere of the gym.
"I am a people person, and I just really wanted to be with people that wanted to do the same thing that I wanted to do," Holland said just before he lifted a barbell, sagging with more than 250 pounds of weight, over his head.
For participants, CrossFit may provide something much more than just being able to say they are extremely fit.
"When I am 80, I want to be able to hike up these mountains and go boating and walk up and down my stairs," said Kelly Key, a 53-year-old federal law enforcement officer. "And doing CrossFit keeps your whole body in shape and limber."
For the uninitiated, it's a startling sight: a seemingly average, middle-aged person hefting their body weight (and more) above their head with repeated grunts before dropping the barbell and quickly transitioning to several minutes of quick and intense rowing. CrossFit critics say the training is often too extreme for many of the people who flock to its gyms for the promise of quick and amazing results. They point to to a growing number of CrossFit-related injuries. But Rigdon said like most sports and workouts, CrossFit is safe if done correctly.
"We don't introduce intensity until your mechanics are perfect and you can consistently show your mechanics are perfect," Rigdon said. "Our gym takes that very seriously."
CrossFit Alaska offers classes for all ability levels, although it has a more intense atmosphere than the friendly-feeling CrossFit Northern Exposure. And that has been part of the recent transformation of the sport. While ESPN's annual presentation of the CrossFit Games sees thousands of competitors groan and strain to become crowned "The World's Fittest Person," the movement increasingly appeals to the average Joe or Josephina who just wants to get in shape.
"We cater mostly to that traditional element of using CrossFit as a strength and conditioning tool to prepare people for a lot of things they want to do in Alaska," said CrossFit Northern Exposure owner Reishus. "When somebody is goat hunting, for instance, they are hiking up a mountain, and there are times when they have to be technically very explosive and make a hard push up a very steep ridge. And then they still have to survive an entire day of carrying that backpack as well."
Regardless of a client's motivation for getting into CrossFit, and despite the relatively low cost of opening a CrossFit box, memberships can be expensive, especially when compared to offerings at more traditional gyms and health clubs. Unlimited memberships in CrossFit gyms in Anchorage average about $165 per month.
"You pay more than any other gym, here, but you also get more," Holland said. "The difference is that you do everything, head to toe. I even get foot cramps."
Clarification: This story has been updated to better describe the certification required to open a box and to clarify that Spartan races are not affiliated with CrossFit.
Alaska Dispatch Publishing