Does CrossFit have a diversity problem?

A poll was posted in the CrossFit Affiliate Owners group that I got to join this year after officially becoming a co-owner of an affiliate.

Does CrossFit have a diversity problem?

In the very small response of 24 affiliate owners:

• 75% of affiliate owners said that “CrossFit does not have a diversity problem.”

• 21% of affiliate owners said “CrossFit has a diversity problem and it’s getting better.”

• 4% of affiliate owners said “CrossFit has a diversity problem and it’s getting worse.”

It seemed like a simple enough question, and something that I’ve thought about in passing since beginning CrossFit 10+ years ago. When I first started looking at gyms, I did what has been a subconscious process for most of my life (I’m sure most racial minorities can relate). I clicked few a few pictures to see just how diverse the group I was going to visit would be. Or more simply - the “spot the black person” game. Usually it’s a short game in the places that I’ve grown up and the schools I’ve attended. I grew up in a majority Italian town, went to undergrad at a majority white school (although internationally diverse and improving since I attended).

But still, the poll answers bothered me, and my own answer (it has a diversity problem, and it’s getting better), I had no idea how to support that belief. So, let’s get into it.

To me, diversity is a topic that I don’t feel compelled to speak on. Partly my passive nature, partly because I don’t ever have an easy solution, and conflict for conflict’s sake doesn’t appeal to me.

But let’s first define a few things:

• Diversity - In North America, the word “diversity” is strongly associated with racial diversity. However, that is just one dimension of the human reality. Diversity also includes income, gender, language, culture, social roles, sexual orientation, education and physical limitations. There are other diversity domains, but we’ll stop at those for this discussion.

• Problem - A situation that needs attention and needs to be dealt with or solved.

• CrossFit - there are two distinct sides of CrossFit at this point - the competitive side embodied by the CrossFit Games, and the affiliate side, represented by the 15,000 (est.) worldwide affiliate gyms.

With those three terms more clear, I would then ask some more quantifiable questions.

1. How many languages are CrossFit materials presented in?

2. In how many countries is CrossFit present?

3. How many racial minorities are at the highest level of competition?

4. How many countries are at the highest level of competition?

5. How many racial minorities are shown in CrossFit demo videos?

6. Is the number of minority affiliate owners known? How many are there in each country?

7. What is the distribution of income of people who go to an affiliate?

8. What is the distribution of income of people who follow CrossFit.com?

9. What is the distribution of racial diversity among CF-L4s? Among CrossFit.com employees? Among CrossFit.com senior executives?

In coming up with these questions, I immediately begin to think of Greg Glassman’s self-processed love of physics and numbers. In the all-important “Understanding CrossFit” article that lays the basis for the Level-1 CrossFit certificate, Greg states:

Using whiteboards as scoreboards, keeping accurate scores and records, running a clock, and precisely defining the rules and standards for performance, we not only motivate unprecedented output but derive both relative and absolute metrics at every workout; this data has important value well beyond motivation.

Has there been an article with data shared about any type of diversity - language, gender, sexuality published by CrossFit? Yes, there are anecdotes and transformation stories, but I am not aware of much diversity data being made available.

The quote above leads me to my belief that CrossFit doesn’t have a diversity problem, it has a data problem.

Let’s go back to some of the questions above that we can answer:

• How many languages are CrossFit materials presented in?

CrossFit.com offers the L-1 in 13 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (Castilian), and Spanish (Latin American).

• In how many countries is CrossFit present?

Using the CrossFit Games as a data source, there are 125 countries represented.

• How many racial minorities are at the highest level of competition?

• How many countries are at the highest level of competition?

In the top 20 men and women worldwide, there is one black athlete from the US (Chandler Smith) with 19 others on the men’s side with 9 countries represented, and on the women’s side, 0 racial minorities with 10 countries represented. The countries represented are North American or European.

• How many racial minorities are shown in CrossFit demo videos?

While there are thousands of videos covering a range of topics on the CrossFit YouTube channel, the CrossFit essentials playlist contains 63 videos with 0 racial minorities and 1 country represented.

Note: The counts above are my own interpretation of athlete backgrounds. I do not know of a data source with more objective information.

Before getting back to the questions that do not have as easy answers, there are several areas that CrossFit has done a lot of work in from a country and language diversity perspective. As stated in a response to a post on CrossFit.com, the CrossFit Journal writes:

[CrossFit] wants to help every single person in the world become fitter. We want to cure chronic disease, which affects everyone… We’re continually working to expand our appeal to everyone in the world.

Expanding a training method from a California gym to 125 countries and making adaptive athletes central to their approach is an effort that should be celebrated. It checks a lot of diversity boxes - gender, culture, language, maybe even education.

In addition, I’ll speak to what I know of U.S. efforts to highlight racial diverse stories by the CrossFit Media team. A few that come to mind are:

• Spirit of the Games award to Debra Cordner Carson (2012)- A black woman struggling with Lymphedema

• RossFit (2013) - the early stages of Rick Ross learning about nutrition and getting in shape

• No Mas (2016)- Educating Spanish-speaking and Latinx members about the dangers of sugary drinks

• The Ron Gets Fit series (2018) - highlights an everyday black man getting back in shape for his family

There are many other examples, but finding them takes either knowledge that they exist, or (like me), monitoring the CrossFit Jounral sporadically for the past ten years, and reading old articles as part of the CF-L3 certification prep. Note that in the L-3 training, there is no specific mention of any of these articles (true in 2017 and still true in 2020).

So, that leaves us with a few unanswerable questions, with the most accessible entry into CrossFit being what can be found on its YouTube channel.

• Is the number of minority affiliate owners known? How many are there in each country?

• What is the distribution of income of people who go to an affiliate?

• What is the distribution of income of people who follow CrossFit.com?

• What is the distribution of racial diversity among CF-L4s? Among CrossFit.com employees? Among CrossFit.com senior executives?

My argument that CrossFit has a data problem, more specifically is that when relaying its message of curing the world’s health problems to communities that need it most (economically challenged racially diverse communities) whose mortality rates are much higher than those of their majority counterparts, CrossFit has not made this data externally available. (I doubt that it’s known at all - never once has my racial background been a part of demographic info gathering during CF certifications or competitions). Maybe the rate of minority-owned affiliates is higher than other small business ownership ratios, and maybe these business are increasing their communities’ longevity faster than the pharmaceutical industries around them. Has this story been told? And if not, are there numbers to show that it is at least improving? Here, I will also acknowledge that each affiliate is independently owned and operated. I think many are telling this story, but at a national level, the CrossFit brand’s approach is more difficult to pinpoint.

The data CrossFit has shared mostly points to geographic, language and physical limitation diversity more than racial or economic diversity. Moreover, this data is heavily biased toward the competitive side of CrossFit, which CrossFit itself has said is not the focus of its main brand. Its main brand, CrossFit, focuses on growing and training affiliates to address the world’s health problems.

I think in the end, CrossFit is doing as much as it can with the resources it has. However, the diversity data problem at least needs attention. In addition, I would also submit a change to the L-1 curriculum to make economic stability a part of the conversation from the beginning.

For many people to even begin to consider changing their health habits, they need to have some level of economic stability. Anyone leisurely reading through CrossFit Journal articles at their desk on a lunch break most likely doesn’t have to worry about taking three buses to get to work with limited to access to a grocery store with adequate fruit and vegetable selection. If you’re worried about your heating bill or where you will sleep tonight, the last thing on your mind is if you can get to the gym today.

So, for those of us who can start with addressing nutrition, go for it. For populations that are still working through other fundamental needs, yes nutrition will solve many problems down the road (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.), but let’s at least acknowledge that there are other barriers to better health than paying for the gym. First you need to be able to get there, or at least have a safe space to train in. (Yes, CrossFit.com is free, but the space to do a burpee sometimes isn’t.)

I’m grateful to CrossFit for giving a structure to a very nebulous fitness industry, and for the U.S. racial minorities who have gotten to this point, let’s all take the next step and bring our family and friends that look like us along for the benefits we’ve already experienced.

On Heritage: "Elevate" - Part 5 of ...

Re-cap - where did these posts come from?

The song “Elevate” from the Enter the Spider-Verse Soundtrack is one of those songs that sticks with you. You can use it on a run for some direct motivation, or just feel pumped when you watch the movie and think, “well that was catchy” and move on with your life.

Or, like me, you can over-analyze it to death and take it entirely out of context.

So here we are!

Today’s lyrics -

…I just plan to be
Somethin' powerful for my family
Tried to balance life and my sanity

The end of the year, the end of a decade is a natural point to figure out what you did wrong and what you did right. And on top of all that, we get together with family who have their expectations of what they want for us merged with possible regrets of their own life.

There’s no better time to put a stake in the ground, and project what you want to be for the continuation of your family’s legacy.

In Spider-Man, one of the understated conflicts of the movie is the decision to follow the family member - uncle Aaron - who is living his own life, turning his back on the “right” path, or Jefferson Davis-Morales, Miles’ father who lives his life as a by-the-book cop - on the job and off the job.

As the son of a father who group in a big family that included three brothers (the youngest) is my Dad and two sisters, there was a lot of time for comparison among siblings.

And yet, no matter how many times I learn about how my Dad and his brothers and sisters grew up, I learn something new every holiday season. Usually it comes in the form of - “Did you know Granddad owned a ____ “?

Granddad Avant - who I remember, but only faintly - seemed to have done it all.

• College graduate in the ‘30s? Check.

• Owned his own home? Check (still standing in Newark)

• Owned additional properties. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. At last count, I’d understood this to be five properties, with up to six tenant families at the same time, which he sold to pay for the educations of the siblings pictured above.

• Ran his own business? Check.

• Oh and by business I mean - taxi company, restaurant, and property management. Check. Check. Check.

• Master’s degree? Check (MBA).

• Teacher? Check.

• Principal? Check.

This was all one man, in a time where doing one of the above bullets was a feat in itself. Even today, doing any of these things takes a lot of passion and possibly a large wallet.

And yet, for all of these accomplishments, the grandparent I am I impressed by as I piece together the fabric of her life is my grandmother. Grandma Doris passed away when I was even younger, so my memories are more impressions than anything concrete. The last impression I have was being carried by her as she walked down the “good” stairs of that house in Newark (or perhaps more probably I remember the photo where this occurred). Note: messy kids were supposed to use the back stairs.

Doris was by Avant’s side for all of the above and has her own list of checks to go through.

• College graduate in the ‘30s? Check.

• Raised 5 kids when fathers were expected to do very little? Check.

• Traveled with her girlfriends across the US as an adult? Check.

• Dealt with my Grandpa’s stubborn personality while he jumped from business to business? Check.

• Took family road trips in the Jim Crow south, preparing food for 7 to enjoy without having to stop at restaurants that may or not serve her family? Check.

The legend of my Grandfather is no doubt deserved - he accomplished concrete things in an era that was built to stand in his way.

But when I think about heritage, that thought is not complete without wanting to honor my Grandma Doris as well. It’s fitting that our family reunions are based around Doris and her four sisters, born roughly 2 years apart. Our family tree centers around these ladies because they were the starting point for the decades to follow.

Heritage encompasses:

• Carrying on the traditions that were meaningful for your family

• Enjoying the cultural icons that your family experienced together, and for me, it’s meant

• Trying to make a generational improvement based on what has already come before.

My Dad’s generation had their own struggles with growing up in Newark, an area that was recovering from riots, implementing housing discrimination, and experiencing a period of violence. I know my parents made it a point to shield me and my brother from all of that - we spent the majority of our lives in a small Rhode Island town where safety was never a concern and opportunities were plentiful, as long as you were willing to work.

So where does that leave me in terms of honoring and building on family heritage?

More practically, to me it means being a behind-the-scenes Doris:

• Continuing to make music a big part of my life - and any good music will involve black icons - Louie, Stevie, Ella, Etta, Nina. It means

• Striving to learn continuously, whether by earning another degree (unfortunately I don’t think a PhD is in the cards), it means

• Exploring the world, it means

• Preserving and building on what little we know about our own family’s roots,

• Helping others execute what they are passionate about,

• Cooking good food,

• Being patient but stern,

• Challenging yourself to go as far as whatever societal limitations there are will let you.

I think this is what Grandma Doris would approve of in honoring my heritage.

Some of those questions are still unanswered for me, now it’s just time to be something powerful (and stay sane).

On Style: "Elevate" - Part 4 of ...

No chaos or killings, my style is so brilliant

-Spider-Man Enter the Spider Verse, “Elevate”

This week I had the opportunity to visit and be an exhibitor in the Dubai air show. The first time I ever heard of Dubai I was taking my first international trip in 2004, and I had a layover in the Heathrow airport. There was a sign there advertising for “The World,” a group of man-made islands made in the shape of… the world, off of one of Dubai's beaches. I thought to myself - what a weird advertisement for a sci-fi movie, and then later doing some googling and finding - holy sh*t - that's going to be a real place. Clicking through, I also found it somewhat amusing that at the time, the bought islands mirrored the order of colonial occupation. Man-made Europe was full-up, America was getting crowded, South America was growing, and Africa… well, still developing. Regardless, I had found out about a place that was inventing itself from the riches if oil and hoping to position itself as the transportation center of the world.

15 years later, I'm getting to see it for myself, even more fortunate to have work pay for the trip. This post is about style and design because as a modern city with unique history, Dubai was the blank canvas a city could hope for. Unlike rapid expansion in the US, which builds horizontal, sprawling communities, Dubai knew from the beginning that to get on the map, it had to go vertical (although it has its share of sprawl).

High skyscrapers surrounded by barren dessert creates a striking contrast of opulence for opulence's sake.

To me, style is what remains when you take everything else that is unneeded away. If the unneeded vastly outweighed the substance, what you are left with is flourish and embellishment, not style. That’s why, I’ll argue that designing a spacesuit could be a great analogy to what makes something stylish. A few thoughts on writing style which also applies to things outside of writing, from a literary classic:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

-Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

I’m sure there are fashion essays that describes this perspective more clearly, but I’ll approach it as an analyst. To me - discussion of design incorporates three things: Style, Fashion, and Trends. I see Style being anything that directly relates to the function being performed. Its why the pieces of clothing that sem to be the most timeless are those that are used for a specific purpose - think uniforms - military, police, maybe clergy. I’d argue that there aren’t many typical women’s garments in that category because they have historically been more toward the fashion side. Where fashion is more closely aligned with ornamentation - decisions made that are on top of the purpose of the clothing. If women had had the opportunity to be the designers of their own clothing earlier, I think there would be more timeless styles to point to. And lastly, there are trends -things that are tied to a time period, such as materials available, predominant climate, the way of displaying the clothes.

Design can be only stylish - completely made for function, but that is almost impossible to do without being pulled by trends or fashion influences. Similarly, something can purposefully be solely fashionable to evoke a certain feeling or idea without needing to worry about what the clothing is supposed to “do” as much (think New York fashion show).

My impressions of Dubai are very surface level. I was there for five days, but saw very little of the city. I did, however see how people interacted, and the attractions to which the city aspires - the tallest building, and planning for a global Expo 2020, which is basically a re-invention of World’s Fairs of the past. Perhaps the reason Dubai seems cool to visit but less tempting to want to live is that the designs move purely toward the trendy side. If someone has done it, Dubai will follow, but move it to the over-the-top category. I liken it to a distant family member who has recently come into some money. It’s impressive to visit with them, but in the back of your mind, you’re left wondering - what’s the point of all of this?

The three components of design choices: Style, fashion and trends

So all that preamble to say that a spacesuit is a really interesting design problem that gets back to the purest expression of style. Invent something that has to keep high-paying toursts extremely comfortable while being conscious that it needs to contribute to these people’s ability to stay alive in a harsh atmosphere, not weigh a lot, provide options for carrying many different things - notebooks, personal mission statement, and still photograph well to preserve the memory and visuals from the experience.

To the point above on there not being many timeless women’s style expressions, women’s and men’s suits look the same, because there isn’t room for much ornamentation. However, a spacesuit can’t be purely stylish (read completely built for function), because there are limits on cost, sponsors to please, and some trends that are just implicit in our approach to clothes at this point in history.

Relating this back to Spider-man, we all love the flashy superhero costume - the primary colors of Superman, the contrasting red and blue of Spider-Man, the flashy green of The Riddler… OK, nevermind. The point is that these colors make the superheros easy to identify, especially when they were introduced subject to being printed in grainy newspapers and black and white TV. But fast forward to now, and the Black Panther’s spacesuit-esque costume in Avengers makes a whole lot more sense and will age a lot better than whatever it is Wolverine wears.

So in your next design project - website, essay, artwork, get back to the very core expression of what you are doing. And then make conscious decisions to add ornamentation or trendy things. They will stand out that much more.