Inside the Box: The Culture, Science, and Sweat of the CrossFit Revolution

The entire time I was reading this book, I was thinking, “Who is the audience for this? Who would read this book?”

When it was done, I realized that I am the audience. I read that book. That book was written for me.

I do CrossFit. I love CrossFit. I consume all sorts of media about CrossFit. And this is who the book was written for. People in the cult who want to talk about CrossFit all the time.

The book is a short introduction to CrossFit. It has chapters on where CrossFit came from, why it works, how it handles nutrition, how it can change people’s lives. It’s not a CrossFit manual. There’s a glossary in the back and some descriptions of movements, but it’s not a tutorial or anything.

It’s well-written. The author is a former (current?) runner who turned to CrossFit because of persistent injuries. It starts off with his introduction to the sport, then dissects it a bit and discusses the component parts of it. In the last chapter, it comes full circle with the author setting a PR on Fran, which is one of the standard (and universally despised) CrossFit workouts.

I enjoyed the book. It’s short – I read it in an afternoon. The author is a good writer and I didn’t disagree with anything he said (except about chalk – chalk doesn’t protect your hands, it just absorbs sweat and makes it easier to grip; in many cases, lots of chalk actually makes your hands rip more).

I still struggle on the audience of it. I read it because I love CrossFit. So, it’s sort of an exploitative book in a way – it’s exploiting people like me who will throw money at anything to do with CrossFit. I don’t know that this is a sustainable audience, but it worked in my case I guess.