The fitness industry wants you to believe that if you aren’t writhing on the ground in a pool of sweat at the end of your workout then it wasn’t worth it, you didn’t work hard enough.
They’re wrong.
In fact if you are 30-35 and over, that’s the fastest way to your next physio appointment, not lasting health and fitness.
Now I firmly believe that there are two types of people in this world.
Those that love to eat oysters and those that hate them.
Seldom do you find someone that is a bit ‘ah, yeah I will have one, but not a massive fan.’. It is generally a flat out ‘nope, not for me!’, or ‘ohhhh bring me all the oysters you have in supply!’
Having been around the fitness industry for almost 20 years now I do notice that people fit into a similar category when it comes to a specific style of exercise.
Back around the time I started doing CrossFit and helping others along with it there were people in the fitness industry themselves trying to tear CrossFit down.
Whole videos dedicated to why it was ridiculous, how you will get injured, that we look stupid, we wear dumb clothes (look I am not to be held accountable for my early 2010’s fashion sense!), we are cheating the movements, CrossFit men are tiny and weak, CrossFit women are bulky and gross, it’s a cult, you’ll have to drink the kool aide haha etc, etc, etc.
It had never crossed my mind to comment about any other form of exercise. After all, why does it matter if what we are doing is helping get people up off the lounge and active? But apparently plenty of others felt they needed to vocalise their disdain that someone might exercise differently to them! I know, right? The horror!!
Fast forward to 2026 and almost every facility has a ‘functional fitness’ area or class, I have lost count of how many franchised almost replicas of CrossFit are now out there. But I am still here doing my thing, CrossFit, and at almost 50 the things that were being told to me all those years ago, just have not come to fruition.
At the time, people just feared what they didn’t know and there was a lot of hype around CrossFit at the time.
But out of any exercise program I have ever done, this is by far and away the one I have found with the most longevity of its participants.
I think because we were pretty well bullied online for exercising differently and yes, there was some truly shithouse form on some CrossFit clips out there, we really honed in on technique and standards. We didn’t accept sloppiness and we made sure that people were exercising to their capabilities and capacity. We got rid of the free intro classes and flog fests.
We made sure that you got a decent workout that you could maintain! I have been talking for years about the secret to the success of any fitness regime is consistency. So where would I be if I kept flogging people into the ground, making them into sweaty, vomity messes every time they came in the doors? I wouldn’t be writing this today, I’d likely be back in marketing, maybe sales, maybe doing everyone a disservice and doing this as only a sideline to my main employment.
To this day I see CrossFit like I see oysters, people will love it and people will hate it. I accept that you hate it if you have had an opportunity to experience it in a great affiliate. But if you hate it because it is different to what you do and have never done it then your opinion amounts to a skidmark on toilet paper, and I pay no attention to it.
But if you love it, and you really want to get fitter and healthier for the long term, then I will do everything I possibly can to make sure you do it as long as you are able to. And I am talking years here.
I will make sure that your intensity levels vary day to day. Hitting super high intensity workouts more than about three times a week have been shown to blunt improvements and advancement.
I will talk with you about your goals and progress and what you want to achieve.
I will keep learning and growing to make sure we always have the best information and training here so that we can help keep progressing all of you.
I will share what I have done and learnt so that it might help you.
One of the things I have seen time and again in CrossFit boxes all over is that people wanted to help me and truly see me succeed, and I have felt I owe it to you all to help out as well.
I may not be the best CrossFitter or coach on the planet, but I have been doing it long enough now that I can say with confidence that I can help people be better than yesterday by using this methodology I love so dearly.
So if you want me to help you, hit me up, we can have a chat and see if you like the red kool aide and oysters as much as I do.