Sitting here in Toronto and following the Crossfit situation in Denmark with a torn heart. When I had the dream of making Aarhus Crossfit back in 2008. I had the dream of making a gym that was different then the globogyms that seemed to rule the world. I was among the first to get the Level 1 in Denmark in 2009. Back then there were only two boxes that offered Crossfit classes to the public. We were the 3 or 4′th Crossfit box in Denmark in 2009. Denmark quickly became the Crossfit capital of Europe with only 5 million people living in Denmark and boxes in all major cities.
My love for Crossfit never changed and still to this day I believe that it is an amazing sport that can change peoples lives. Crossfit in Denmark has changed since I left. There are still the old boxes that have the passion for the raw sport. But now two of the biggest globo gyms in Denmark are staring to offer Crossfit to their members in their nice and fancy gyms. One being Fitnessworld that bought Crossfit Training Center in Koge for a very big amount. The other one is Fitnessdk. These two gyms are by far the biggest gyms in all of Denmark. They have certified trainers to do the Crossfit training to their new clients.
To me all this is bs. Why?? because now Crossfit is becoming the very thing it was fighting in the first place. It has now become a mass industry, opening its doors to the very industry it despised. To me opening doors to Crossfit in a globo gym provides additional problems. One being safety, how are they going to teach the olympic lifts, gymnastics etc with the proper safety for their clients that always rotate? I fear, that we will see a lot more injuries now, from bad spotting and help from the trainers. You simply cannot teach a rotating clientel the proper technique for many of the Crossfit moves.
The other one being price and service. There is no doubt that now that these two fitness giants are opening to Crossfit in Denmark, that the old and original boxes are going to suffer dramatically. Some will say no to this, because they say that the globo gyms cannot provide the right equipment for training, nor the right atmosphere to train in. They maybe right, but this is one thing new members would not know, if their first Crossfit intro was at a globo gym with loud techno music and a trainer shouting “come on…..”. One thing they will always win on is price, because of the masses. You will properly be able to train all the Crossfit you want for around $50-65 a month, which in Denmark is very cheap compared to the original boxes.
Another thing that will change is the culture of Crossfit. In your traditional boxes you have a wide variety of people, but one thing they all share is the love for the Crossfit culture and community. Now it will become a mainstream “Oh I’m so cool, because I’m training in a globo gym, doing Crossfit while looking at my self in the mirror”. The raw masculine back to paleo period, will be replaced with the sensitive mainstream fitness low fat, high carb diet period.
One thing I don’t get is that Crossfit Inc time and time again has stated that they will fight for the Crossfit community and always help the small instead of the giant. But now it seams that the reality that some of us have feared, will become a the new future. The giant might become the future………..
It saddens me that my passion and the dream that I share with so many people, is in danger. Some might say that I’m afraid of change . But to me that was the very birth of Crossfit in the first place. To change the fitness industry and to get people back to training functional instead of in machines.
Why all of a sudden this change from the globo gyms? They hated us for so long and now they are joining the Crossfit idea. To me this is all about money and not about passion.
I will be following the situation from the sideline and hoping that the boxes in Denmark will survive these fitness giants.
