#83: Crossfit & the Primal Future of Fitness With J. C. Herz

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2014

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode I talk to writer J. C. Herz about her book, Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about CrossFit. I'll admit that before I read Learning to Breathe Fire, I had just a vague idea of how CrossFit worked, and was honestly pretty skeptical of it. My only interaction with the program has been giving the CrossFitters (or "fire breathers" as they sometimes call themselves) at my gym the stink eye for taking all the barbells from the squat racks so they could do their hang cleans. So it was interesting to read a book that goes into the history, philosophy, and even anthropology of CrossFit, and why it has become so popular so quickly. While the book didn't turn me into a full-on convert, it did really broaden my perspective of the program, and I even tried my first CrossFit workout after reading it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Brett McCay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:19.5	So if you haven't been living under a rock in these past five or six years, you've probably
0:26.4	heard of CrossFit.
0:28.4	This new workout routine program where you're using barbells and medicine balls and just
0:35.3	high intents, whatever.
0:36.3	You've probably seen people like your gym through CrossFit workouts and you probably
0:39.2	had friends who told you about their CrossFit box.
0:42.4	Anyways, I've known about CrossFit but I really didn't know much about it, like the history
0:46.3	of it and the development of it and all, like the culture that goes around CrossFit because
0:50.5	I don't belong to a CrossFit box.
0:52.8	So I was really excited when this book came out called Learning to Breathe Fire, the
0:56.3	Rise of CrossFit and the primal future of fitness by JC Herds and it's basically a
1:01.6	history and cultural analysis of CrossFit, which was really fascinating.
1:07.5	I got to go into this world that I knew nothing about.
1:10.4	So today on the podcast we have JC Herds on discussing her book Learning to Breathe Fire.
1:15.6	We're going to talk about what exactly is CrossFit, some of the workouts that you might
1:19.4	see in CrossFit.
1:20.4	We're going to talk about the guy who started CrossFit, the political philosophy that
1:24.0	it sort of underlies CrossFit that most people aren't aware of.
1:27.5	We're going to talk about the business model of CrossFit, which I think is very fascinating.
1:30.6	We're going to talk about why CrossFit and other workouts, light CrossFit, are resonating
1:37.3	with Americans right now.
	...

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