In thinking through the LIVXFIT concept, I’ve discovered one primary question that kept popping up again and again. Why do SO many military men and women love Crossfit?

Is it because of how intense the workouts are? No- the military has some of the hardest training available on the planet so it’s not the workouts by themselves.

Does Crossfit help to better train soldiers in environments where they’d find themselves in peril for their lives? In part yes, but not completely – the military does a very good job of training its soldiers to defend themselves and others.

Does Crossfit offer something that has never been done before in any workout ever? No – many of the workouts in specialty schools are designed to “smoke” soldiers to the point where they can’t move and are tailored towards cardio and strength conditioning.

Crossfit is unique in how it approaches the workout in such a short amount of time whereas the military tends to take an entire day to have you laying in a puddle of man flesh on the ground. So again, why is CF so popular and why do we as soldiers love it so much? It’s because we recognize something in CF that so few see because they’ve never been through the type of adversity we’ve been through. The type that once you’ve been through it, you see it and know it in a second. It’s the kind that is only brought about through shared pain!  I’ll explain:

When Jake was talking about the LIVXFIT model, the entire time I was thinking that it was the exact same model the military uses when training its soldiers and why the US military is the strongest force in the world. Does the United States make better human beings than the Chinese or the Russians? No, we don’t. Then why does the US military have the strongest fighting force in the world? It’s because we’ve learned that in order to make a human being strong – truly strong in all aspects of the word, we have to take them through adversity that completely breaks them down and then builds them back up into what we know that works. The stronger the adversity, the stronger the soldier and like the saying goes, the strongest steel is forged in the hottest fires.

The first step in LIVXFIT is “Community” and in the military world it means the same thing, our family, friends, associates etc. But in a training environment, it’s even more important because your community of like-minded soldiers are the ones who will be your support base for the duration of the hell the military will put you through.

It’s funny when you walk onto a basic training post and see the new Privates with the wild, scared look in their and quickly becoming friends with the soldiers to their left and right because they want a support base and are scared to death. Do we not see that with new members in the gym? They come in horrified of all the equipment, the open space with nowhere to hide, but more afraid of their own failure. In the military we intentionally give soldiers a little bit of time to build those relationships around them because we know that a person by themselves is never strong enough to withstand extreme adversity. We want them to form groups and build those strong ties – we call them “battle buddies”. You’ll always have someone to your left and your right that supports you and is willing to pull you through the tough times. Like the Spartan Army, their shields were never held to protect themselves, they were held to protect the person to their left. Our foundational element in the military is always Community as well.