CrossFit Freedom (aka The CrossFit Affiliate Declaration of Independence)

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

We are CrossFit affiliates. United in purpose and devoted in action to the spread of functional fitness throughout our world.

We believe in high-intensity exercise designed to increase work capacity across broad time and modal domains. If we don’t really understand what that means, we look it up. And we study it until we know it like we know our middle names. More work faster. Every day.

We believe in the importance of the Workout of the Day. It doesn’t have to be the CrossFit.com WOD. It can be your WOD or my WOD or somebody else’s. We don’t have to agree which is best; we just have to CrossFit, physically and mentally.

We believe in the importance of Rest Days — and of learning on those days and every day. He who fails to learn on any given day is dead. Bring us to life.

We believe in the importance of competition and of community. We can have one and the other. Times will be written on the board. There will be a first finisher, and a second, and a third. And no one will get their feelings hurt — they will just try harder next time. We can battle and commune. Both can exist in a civil and productive society. This is that society.

We believe that the last-place finisher is trying as hard as the first-place finisher. And if they’re not, then it is our responsibility to help them learn how to work harder. They deserve our encouragement even more than the leaders.

We believe in the right of each affiliate to approach CrossFit in their own way: To teach it and adapt it in the best manner for their own affiliate members. We will support each other in our differences. Bickering is for fools. We will not be foolish. We will help each other.

We believe in what works. If something doesn’t work, we discard it and pursue that which does. There is no shame in experimenting and failing. There is only shame in never trying.

We are CrossFit affiliates. We work: we don’t just workout. We are building better bodies, better gyms, better minds, and better communities. We are building a better world.


via Crossfit Watertown 2/24/10 (http://www.crossfitwatertown.com/)