Deth

Fitness and everything else

I Saw An Interesting Post About Crossfit Punishments

First things first I have to acknowledge that we work out in a home gym now so we can do things our way and on our schedule. There’s a possibility I may even go do a WOD in the middle of writing this post.

The post I saw on Reddit last night was about whether a coach should call out a member for being late to class in Crossfit. The comments mentioned various punishments that their gym used and it got me thinking.

Early on when we attended classes at a Crossfit gym a few years back their was a thing where the class did “punishment” burpees for every piece of equipment that wasn’t put away correctly. That flew idea flew like the Hindenburg as it should have. The thing of that was it was the same people that didn’t but shit away correctly. The weight spaces for the bumper plates were poorly labeled at best and I have no doubt I put some away at times slightly out of place.

There were certain members though that just put shit where it was convenient for them and I can understand why that couldn’t be allowed but why should an entire class be “punished” for that? It really was a frustrating time for me, 50 burpees at that time killed me and I’d say they even hurt me at time for my performance in the strength portion of the class. The worst was there was one guy who more than once just walked out the door finishing the WOD not even bothering to attempt to put his shit away. It was always nice when others had to be the ones to unload his bar and put it away because he was too entitled and lazy to do it himself.

Now lets get back to the whole being late thing though. There never would have been a punishment for that at our gym considering the owner was habitually late. He wasn’t a morning person so 10am or even noon was hard. If there was it would have made me strongly consider dropping my membership.

We were maybe a minute or two late a few times. Stuff happens. Once in a while a tractor decides to SLOWLY drive down main street or an accident happens. With the over development around here the traffic at rush hour can be pretty ridiculous. There were times when Molly got home from work with barely enough time to get changed and make it into the gym in time. That was the best we could do at that time and still get the service we were paying for. There was one class that we could make it to during those days.

We were the clients of the gym. Not children. A business needs to serve their customers, not the other way around. Granted people shouldn’t show up late on a regular basis and they certainly shouldn’t be disruptive to the class if they’re late.

The owner of the gym should absolutely have a conversation about it with the person if they’re being disruptive. It should be handled privately though. Not be calling them out. The people that were late were late because of work and unpredictable traffic.