Social Workout

Survival of the Fittest

2009 CrossFit Games - SW Backs CrossFit South Brooklyn

Gilian Mounsey, CrossFit.

While we're on grueling tests of physical endurance: Much like the Tour de France, but different, are the 2009 CrossFit Games, which will go down next week in dusty Aromas, California....

Just tuning in? CrossFit is a national workout phenomenon. Short history: Bad ass trainer/ex-gymnast Greg Glassman earns some small fame training cops in the 1980s. Opens his first gym in Santa Cruz in 1995. Forget about endless running or vain bodybuilding, Glassman preaches, it's all about "functional fitness." That is, everything you might need, say, if you were trying to apprehend a perp: Climbing ropes, sprinting up hills, lifting heavy things over your head. Think Rocky training for Drago fight.

Glassman's gym has no mirrors, no TVs, no pampering, and it's an instant hit. Things really take off, however, in 2001 when Glassman launches CrossFit.com, and begins posting daily workout instructions online. Soon, cops, marines, and even hardcore hipsters across the nation are clearing out their garages, installing chinup bars, and logging in to get their "Workout Of the Day."

Fast forward to now: There are CrossFit affiliate gyms in every major city, and tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of online followers. Then there are the annual CrossFit Games. Next week, in tiny, inland Aromas, several thousand very fit people will gather to face off, and, when it's all over, Glassman will annoint the winners "world's fittest man and woman."

To be clear, Social Workout's notion of "extreme wellness" is a bit kinder and gentler than our man's "functional fitness," but we're nonetheless impressed by the CrossFit passion, and intrigued by the CrossFit diaspora. (So much so that we're in hot pursuit of an embedded correspondent to cover the games. If that's you, send word.) Meanwhile, while surfing the "competitor profiles," we found the local hero we want to back: Gilian Mounsey, of CrossFit South Brooklyn. Our girl took 3rd in the 2008 Games -- her first year of CrossFitting -- and we like her look. Give it up for Gilian, and stand by for continuing coverage of the The Games.