Crossfit here. Crossfit there. Crossfit everywhere. Crossfit is the chicken pox of a new generation.

Here in Brooklyn, a new Crossfit location is opening on Fulton Street. And on Grand Avenue. And on Dean Street. No longer will finding a Crossfit location in Brooklyn require a long, taxing walk. Roll out of bed in your prosperous neighborhood, and there you are! Fifty burpees, go!

I will say this and I don't care if you believe it because it's the truth: you don't need Crossfit. I don't need Crossfit. No one needs Crossfit. That is not to say that Crossfit is not a HARDCORE workout. It sure is. It is to say that you do not need to pay $230 a month to do deadlifts five times a week in a cement block shed full of idiots. You can do deadlifts five times a week in an empty cement block shed for nothing more than the price of some bolt cutters to break into your neighbor's empty cement block shed. This sort of viral growth of CROSSFIT™ gyms across America has nothing to do with the fact that Crossfit provides a hardcore workout. The people hardcore enough to appreciate the nuances of Crossfit's hardcoreness do not need to pay a Crossfit gym to work out; they know how to do it themselves. The people paying staggering (by gym standards) prices are not paying for quality. They are paying for a brand name.

Guess what my friends: a brand name gets you nothing in exercise. The only thing that gets you anything is hard fucking work. Hard fucking work, my friends. If you pay $230 a month to do workouts, and I do the workouts on my own in an abandoned building using nothing but rocks and dangling extension cords, we got the same fucking workouts. You do not need a CROSSFIT™ brand workout. You just need a workout. You don't need to pay that Crossfit gym. That Crossfit gym needs you to pay them, so they can pay Crossfit Inc.

The validation that comes from physical exertion cannot be purchased like ridiculously colored spandex clothing. Such validation can only be paid for in pain. Pain, my friends. And pain is free.

[Photo: FB]