CrossFit – Greg Glassman
Greg Glassman is the founder of CrossFit, which is a fitness program that consists of a variety of movements such as weightlifting, gymnastics, and high-intensity interval training and is often done in a group setting.
CrossFit was founded in 2000 by both Glassman and his ex-wife, Lauren Jenai. In 1995, Glassman opened a gym in Santa Cruz, California. He started off by training individuals one-on-one but realized once his schedule filled up that he could start a group training facility. This provided him with the opportunity to train more clients while providing personalized sessions. Soon after he discovered that combining strength, weightlifting, tolerance, flexibility, and balance would improve people’s physical health and fitness.
By 2005 there were fifteen CrossFit affiliates and then in 2019 there were 13,000 gyms in 120 countries practicing CrossFit. Currently CrossFit has over 14,000 gyms licensed to its name. In 2020, Glassman stepped down as the CEO of CrossFit and now Dave Castro is the CEO.
Glassman was inspired to create CrossFit by gymnastics, weightlifting, and the physical demands on police and military training. His idea of CrossFit was interesting because it had different training methods, made sure it was a community over competition atmosphere, and there was hands-on leadership. Glassman emphasized that, “People come for the fitness, but stay for the community” and he defined CrossFit as “constantly varied functional movements performed at a high intensity”. During his process of creating CrossFit, he displayed creativity, resilience, risk-taking, curiosity, ambition, leadership, vision, and strategic thinking.
Glassman found that bodybuilders lacked endurance, while endurance athletes lacked strength, which is how he thought to develop CrossFit. Glassman’s idea of CrossFit gives me confidence that I can plant my own mark in the world of fitness as long as I find a gap that needs to be fixed. I learned that if you have an idea, all you need is a team and the drive to work through any problems that you may run into.