40 This is CrossFit – Laura Urbin

Laura Urbin is a senior majoring in Communication Studies. She lives in Burlington, Massachusetts. This paper is part of a research project about a discourse community that she completed for her ENG W131 class.  Laura’s professor Jacqueline Kauza said, “As a native Spanish speaker, Laura was a little concerned at the start of our class about how she would do writing in English. And she did incredibly well! I remember thoroughly enjoying how she crafted her narrative around a quote about writing that she used both to begin and end her paper. And I was most impressed by her final paper, where she presented an engaging and detailed discussion of the many different ways that members of a CrossFit community communicate with one another.”​ (See also “You as a Writer,” by Laura Urbin.)

This is CrossFit

Introduction

As human beings, people often seek social connections based on shared goals, values and identities. In others words, some people may want to be part of a social group. I, for example, have always liked to exercise and practice any sport, which is how I became part of the fitness community. During my childhood and teen years, I was often switching from one sport to another like swimming, volleyball, gymnastics, cheerleading and tennis, but it wasn’t until I was 24 years old that I found one sport that I really liked- CrossFit.

CrossFit, as other sport trends, is often seen as a sport exclusively for elite athletes, those whose professional career is their sport. In this paper, I will discuss what CrossFit is and correct misunderstandings around this sport, because before I became part of this community, and even in my first week, I did not fully understand what it was about. To understand a certain community, we need first to know what a discourse community is and then discuss some its components. One of those components are the community language. This goes beyond idioms- in a discourse community, a language is any form of communication within the community.

It took me several weeks before I figured out the communication patterns and lexis in CrossFit. I got into the sport with the help of a friend of mine who had been practicing it for three years at the time. She just invited me to train with her for one month to try it out, and I planned on going back to my regular gym. During my first week, I was often lost, I did not understand the names of the exercises, the dynamic, the social interactions, the lexis or anything related with it, and I did not remember what the instructor (CrossFit coach) explained to me. I often found myself working out right next to my friend and imitating whatever move she was doing. At the end of the month, I felt myself hooked to this sport. I wasn’t any good at it but the support and dynamic the community offered caught me. I felt comfortable in there because I shared with others the same passion for what we were doing, but also because I felt supported. Later on, I became physical and mentally strong, enough to even participate in CrossFit competitions.

Discourse community

I will provide an official definition for this term, but first I wanted to explain to you in my words what this is about. A discourse community is a group of people that get together to share the same vision, passion, goals and values of a certain activity. This community shares everything from communication and interaction patterns to expressions. It also constructs its own characteristics which make it unique and recognizable. Swales (1990) defines a discourse community as “a group of people who link up in order to pursue objectives that are prior to those of socialization and solidarity” (p. 24). In a broad sense, a discourse community is an interest group where people are attracted to it by intangible benefits like sharing a hobby with others, the sense of privilege the community gives or the sense of purpose a person may feel. These benefits are shared and denoted by one single language.

As I mentioned in the introduction section, language is anything that communicates something to the community’s members, it is recognizable and always implemented. Language in a discourse community could be behavior patterns, communication channels or styles, common terms and the dynamics on which the community operates. This is the basis of a discourse community, language, because a community behaves and functions while writing the language they set, and a change in their language implies a change in the community. In her study, Wardle (2004) affirms that the adoption of a new language style affects a person’s identity and implies that if a person does not communicate in a way that the community accepts, it will result in the failure of communication between members and failed social integration.

In terms of identifying a group of people that conform to a discourse community, Swales (1990) presents six characteristics. A discourse community 1) has a common public goal, 2) has its own intercommunication mechanism like app chats, texts, social media post or emails, 3) uses the interaction between members to provide information, like working out together to help each other to improve, 4) has a genre- type of text that is recognizable for all members of the community, 5) must have a specific terminology used by all members (lexis), and 6) has levels or a hierarchy that rates members from expert to beginner (p. 471).

CrossFit

CrossFit is a form of high intensity interval training that requires strength and conditioning to perform functional movements at a high intensity. It could also be defined as a lifestyle because people who practice it develop an association between their personal lives and the CrossFit community habits, people also can purchase apparel with the CrossFit community logo they are in. Its main goal is to improve general physical strength and performance by combining aerobic and resistance exercises. These exercises included Olympic weight lifting, functional movements, rope climbing, kinesthetic exercises, gymnastic movements, cardio exercises, skipping, rowing and skiing movements. Another common goal is that this one has to be goal-directed– all members have to follow norms and rules to accomplish it (Patterson et al.,2020, p. 14). And the last goal is that every member finishes the workout. During an interview, Daniela Gallego (2021) mentions that there are general goals and individual goals, for her to enter the CrossFit community was to get mentally and physically healthier, but for others the main goal is to compete as professionals. Daniela agrees that what makes CrossFit great is the sense of social support.

The CrossFit community has workout spaces that are different from regular gyms, these are designed to give more spaces to people than to exercise equipment, because socialization is one of the principal values of this community. Patterson et al. (2020) states that a common value within the CrossFit community is the interest of sharing between members, driving them to connect and relate, thus, members work as a family rather than a member of a regular gym- they have to work together in couples or teams. Even in an individual workout the coach (instructor in a regular gym) and other expert members will cheerleader you and motivate you to do a good performance while doing it. Patterson et al. (2020) defines CrossFit as “a supportive social environment for its members, providing them social capital and support that facilitates physical and mental health benefits” (p. 20). While training CrossFit you will never be alone, every member becomes part of the CrossFit family.

The community has a common routine, all members complete on the same day the same workout, there is one workout scheduled per day for everyone, even the active rest-day that consists of a routine with low impact like a stretching session. There are also competitive workouts that give us the sense of the professional competition called “the CrossFit games”, these are schedule dependent on the holidays, historical events, or other kind of important dates, per month. For example, there are special competitive workouts performed during Veteran’s Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day and 9/11.

CrossFit has built a great community with a unique social support network that defines interactions and the way members communicate, which motivates people to be members of this community. But for some people the monthly cost of the membership is considered high, in excess of $250 in one Boston CrossFit Gym, but the intangible benefit I felt made it worth it. Some members of the CrossFit community “started training CrossFit because they get bored in regular gyms, and they prefer to train one hour and see physical results than train 2 hours in regular gym and don’t see results, plus training in groups makes it feel more comfortable” (Gallego, 2021). CrossFit’s classes are scheduled during the day, hour per hour, which mean that the group of people that arrive a certain hour will work-out together, it’s not like regular gyms where people enter at any minute and start their routine.

The CrossFit community uses its own writing style, like abbreviations, terms, rules, dynamics in which the community operates. I had training CrossFit in multiple boxes (CrossFit gyms) in Colombia and one in the USA, and I did not notice a relevant difference between these. The reason I trained in multiple boxes in Colombia was because the CrossFit community in the same city likes to get together once in a while to meet other members that are training in a different box.

Lexis

It was December of 2015 when my friend, her boyfriend and I started training together. They introduced me to other members, the coach and a little about the dynamic in which a work-out is performed there. To give an idea of how lost I was, one day after a couple of weeks I told my friend’s boyfriend, “I’m planning to keep working out in this gym, but I don’t like Olympic weight lifting, I will do other stuff”. You can imagine his face as CrossFit consists mostly of Olympic weightlifting. That sounds like if I said I like tennis, I’m going to practice it, but I’m not going to use the racket and tennis ball. With time I learned the dynamic and lexis the community uses, and after that I started building social connections, once I was able to communicate with the same terms’ other uses. I will provide you with some of these terms, but before that I would like to mention that these terms are used in every CrossFit community regardless of the language they speak. For example, I’m from Colombia and we speak Spanish, I practiced CrossFit there and even if people did not speak English, we always used these terms in English. Often people from different countries like Luxembourg arrived at the box where I was practicing and they understood the dynamic because they recognized the routine and the names, even if they did not speak Spanish or English.

One of the principal terms CrossFit uses to refer to any person that practices it is crossfitters, and at a professional level athlete. The second most important is WOD- these are the initials for workout of the day. The WOD is the most common genre CrossFit uses, and most of all interactions and discussion a crossfitter holds relate to the WOD. In CrossFit everybody in the community does the same workout every day, so the members call it “WOD”. Below I will present other interesting terms, just a couple as CrossFit has endless terminology.

• AMRAP: Is a type of workout, that consists of doing as many repetitions as possible of one exercise in a certain amount of time. For example, doing squats for one minute, the person can’t stop during that minute and should count the repetitions.
• Box: Is the place to practice CrossFit, in others words it’s the gym to do the workouts and have the appearance of a box, its large and the few equipment needed is arranged in a way that makes the space to look almost empty.
• Girls: Is the name for a group of WOD, these WODs individually are named after a famous female CrossFit athlete. Usually, these WODs could be very difficult.
• Heroes: Is the name of a group of WODs. Crossfitters usually do these WODs as challenges because they are designed to be extremely difficult. The name is a way to honoring fallen service members in the line of duty, so the difficulty of the WODS makes us remember the sacrifices they had made for us. These WODs usually include military exercises.
• Snatch: Is a type of Olympic lift movement. The movement consists of lifting a bar with discs from the ground to over the head in only one movement. Once it is lifted over the head you adopt the squat position.
• Tabata: Is a type of WOD. These WODs consist in a set of exercises, each one executed in 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. These intervals are repeated eight times.

Communication

When a crossfitter enters the box, the first thing he/she does is say “hi” with the person’s name, because everybody knows everybody, and secondly the crossfitter asks, what is the WOD? A crossfitter is any person that practices CrossFit, the box is the gym or place where people go to practice it and the WOD is the acronym for Workout of the Day. In the CrossFit community, it is very common that everybody knows everybody, different from a regular gym, because the community is built on group interaction. All members, at some point, have worked out in couples or groups, which facilitates the socialization of the members. All crossfitters have major common goal- finish the WOD. Normally every WOD is designed to be hard, so each crossfitter supports one another by cheering others to finish the WOD or teaching the correct body position to perform the exercise.

All CrossFit gyms design one WOD per day, which means that every person will do the same workout the same day, and the everyday there is a different workout or routine. This explains why the first question people ask when they enter the gym is “What is the WOD?” The crossfitter usually asks the manager of the box that is usually sitting at the front desk greeting everybody or asking how a person did during the WOD when leaving. Normally the manager will keep building the anxiety by answering “look at the board;” the WOD is always written first before the box opens in a chalk board or whiteboard, so when everybody enters the room to do it, it will read what the workout is for the day.

Once the person enters the box, they will normally find other crossfitters waiting to start the WOD or/and crossfitters resting after having finished the WOD. After greeting everybody, the person will read the WOD on the board and start preparing for it and discussing it with their peers. If the person needs to prepare something for the WOD it will be things that have to be pulled out from their personal locker like gloves, lifting belts, long socks or knee support bands. This is important to mention because for the WOD you will need exercise equipment that is arranged against the far wall of the board, but this equipment can only be organized in your workout spot once the coach tells you. This is because before the WOD starts, the coach will be greeting everybody forming a circle, and for this it will need an empty space. Then the coach will check if anyone is new, followed by an explanation and demonstration of every exercise of the WOD. After this the coach will conduct a warm-up that consists of a series of movements to make your body ready for an intense physical activity. Once the warm-up finishes the coach will briefly explain the WOD again and tell everybody what equipment they need.

The explanation and demonstration of the WOD is necessary because it takes time until a person knows and recognizes the lexis CrossFit uses. Often a CrossFit community greets new members that need to be socialized with CrossFit terms, even a person that has just been practicing for a few weeks, will still need someone to teach them what every single thing means in that WOD, show them the exercises and the equipment required for it.

References

Gallego, D., CrossFit community, April 13, 2021.

Patterson, M., Heinrich, K,. Prochnow, T,. Graves-Boswell T,. & Spadine, M. (2020). Network

analysis of the social environment relative to preference for and tolerance of exercise intensity in CrossFit gyms. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(22), 1-21. 10.3390/ijerph17228370

Swales, J. (1990). The concept of discourse community. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and

Research Setting, 21-32.

Wardle, E. (2004). Identity, authority, and learning to write in new workplaces. Enculturation,

5(2), 508-523. www.enculturation.net/5_2/wardle.html.