CrossFit Athletic Group

Since our Harry Potter Theme Workout concluded the Summer programming from Sap/Dillon and Bubs/Mr. Carey, we've continued where we left off from the spring: up-to-date with 2004.

Why 2004? Well back in February I came to find that 2004 was the only year that fell on exactly the same cycle as we were on. But as luck would have it, I had been going back in the archives for a few months to bring up old Message Board posts and Journal articles 1) because I enjoy nerding out on CrossFit history/methodology and 2) I had a feeling I was missing some foundational elements with the workouts - especially as CrossFit has now transitioned to linking up with a separate programming company.

You can find the workouts by sorting on the main site, but if you have any interest in digging a little further I'd really encourage you to go back and use the WayBack Machine to pull up the original workouts posts from 2004:

https://web.archive.org/web/20041010084713/http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/2004_09.html

A few notes on context:

• I believe these workouts were programmed by Coach Glassman and his wife, Lauren
• a pull-up challenge lasting a few months had just concluded (40 pull-ups by September)
• butterfly pull-ups did not exist, nor did kipping handstand push-ups or kipping muscle-ups
• there were 11 CrossFit affiliates at the time (I think there's around 13,000 now)
• the CrossFit Games did not exist; at the time there had been one competition between CrossFit North and CrossFit HQ or something like that. Tyler Hass wrote about it in a Journal article if anyone wants to look for it
• CrossFit was trickling through major sports communities, pulling a few individual participants or teams from the elite ranks
• CrossFit was just beginning to gain public notoriety as dangerous; also debates began to arise about the effectiveness of CrossFit compared to sport-specific training (ie. basketball athletes do different workouts than football athletes, track athletes do different workouts than baseball players, etc.)
• the kettlebell community was pissed at CrossFit for stealing their movement and swinging the things all the way overhead
• CrossFit was a mass experiment done in public; a workout was given, results were posted, adjustments were made; in fact, 5 new Girls workouts were to be released in November
• the 3-on-1-off format had been solidified for roughly a year
• the top performers of this era were Kelly Moore and Greg Amundson, both can often be found in the comments section. Robb Wolf was the original CrossFit Nutrition guy; Tony Budding was the original CrossFit media guy
• Greg Glassman appears frequently in the comments under the name, "coach"
• the first official CrossFit certification was in the planning process