The Other Serpico

How did one old unfit man be a billionaire selling an idea called Cross Fit? We know that there are gyms all over America but we are more overweight than ever before. Greg Glassman is the creator of the idea Cross Fit that is becoming the new addiction. Can you be addicted to being fit or to a sport? The people who are involved with Cross Fit look that way and they look damn good physically. It is a unpredictable workout program that is raw and very serious and business is booming. In just 15 years, Greg has created the largest gym chain in history and turned fitness into a spectator sport. Yes instead of just looking at your muscles in the mirror at the gym, there are places for the public to stare at them too and why not? You worked hard for that tight body.

Last summer the finals of the Cross Fit Games were broadcast on ESPN. 45,000 people showed up to watch contestants heave, jump and lift until a champion was named. They will call him the fittest man in history. Before Cross Fit became a competition, Greg formed it as a way to workout. He says it can transform anyone at any age. He says he can make you become your genetic potential. The limping unfit old man created a work- out program that includes lifting weights, calisthenics [cs1] [cs2] and gymnastics. The classes take place in what Cross Fitters call a box. It is a stripped down place with just the equipment needed. It all made Greg a college dropout a multi-millionaire.

This guy did not invent weight lifting, calisthenics or gymnastics but he says he invented that doing lateral raises and doing weight curls while eating pretzels is dumb. He says that for decades gym owners have ignored the importance of diet and are all too happy to watch the members of their gym fall into a trance on the treadmill. He believes the fitness industry is wrong. There has to be more than just going home a bit tired and sweaty. His classes usually don’t take more than an hour and athletes compete against each other and the clock. To keep their energy up they suggest keeping up a paleo diet that consists of meat and vegetables. Greg says that Cross Fit is creating a new super breed of human.

The focus is not on big muscles but very fit bodies from squatting and movement weather you are 25 or 75 years old. Greg had Polio as a child and did gymnastics in order to gain strength. In high school a gymnastic fall left him with a permanent limp. He became a personal trainer and began developing his loud and disruptive workouts that gym owners didn’t like. He opened his own gym in 2001 and now there are 12,000 Cross Fit Boxes around the world. His company is private but is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Greg Glassman owns 100% of it. He has no board men or room or directors and says he never had a business plan. He recently found himself at Harvard Business School where he spoke and boasted that he is the fastest large growing chain on earth.

He insists that he is not trying to just grow a business. He is trying to do the right thing for people. One reason that Cross Fit has grown so fast is that just about anyone who wants to open a Box can. After paying a $3,000 yearly fee, and passing a 2 day seminar, it is how the company makes most of its money. He has no iron fist as to where or how you want to run your Box. At his media outlet they publish more information about Cross Fit than you would probably want to read. They publish a different workout of the day every day. All the information is provided free. Cross Fitters have created a huge virtual community of postings of workouts and competitions from people from all over the worause he is providing a new kind of business that is attainable by all.