We opened in 2008 as a CrossFit affiliate. Fifteen years later we left the brand. This isn't a hit piece on CrossFit. The methodology has merit and helped a lot of people, including us.
It's a piece on what most boxes are doing wrong, and what we did differently.
The Original Promise Was Good
CrossFit's original promise was simple. Functional movements. Constantly varied. High intensity. Coached. Community.
Done well, that's a great recipe. Done well, you get strong, fit, mobile people who genuinely move better and live more capably.
The problem is that most boxes don't do it well.
What Goes Wrong
Three things, mostly.
Class sizes get too big.
A coach can teach four people. Maybe eight if everyone's experienced. Beyond that you're not coaching, you're managing.
Most CrossFit boxes run 15 to 40 athletes per class. With one coach. The math doesn't work. You can't watch every athlete, correct every movement, scale every workout properly. You're calling time and watching the room.
That's not coaching. That's supervision with a soundtrack.
Programming becomes random.
Most boxes program day-to-day. Often pulling workouts from CrossFit's main site or a programming service. There's no overall structure. Just intensity, variety, and metcons.
Variety without progression is just chaos. You can get fit on chaos for a while. But the body adapts, and without progressive overload, you stall. Most CrossFitters know this from experience. The first year is magic, year two and three feel like running in place.
Movements get taught poorly.
CrossFit has technical movements. Olympic lifts. Gymnastic skills. Kipping pull-ups. Muscle ups. These take years to develop properly.
Most boxes throw beginners into these movements within their first month because the workout calls for them. Scaling exists but is often inconsistent or absent. You see people kipping pull-ups before they can do a strict one. People power cleaning before they can deadlift properly.
This is how injuries happen. And how the brand gets its reputation.
What We Kept
We didn't throw the methodology out. CrossFit got plenty right.
- Functional movement. Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry. The patterns that matter for life and sport.
- Strength as a foundation. Real lifting. Real numbers. Progressive over time.
- Conditioning work. Honest conditioning that changes your engine. Not random hard for the sake of hard.
- Community. Training with people pushing in the same direction is a force multiplier. We kept that.
What We Changed
The mechanics of how we deliver it.
Class size capped at 16.
Sometimes there are two coaches on the floor. Always at least one. The coach-to-athlete ratio means real attention, real correction, real scaling.
Programming runs in blocks.
Strength cycles. Accessory phases. Conditioning blocks. Each block has a measurable goal. Each session in the block contributes to that goal. We don't pull from CrossFit's main site. We program in-house, week to week, year to year.
Movements are taught properly.
If you can't deadlift, you don't power clean. If you can't strict pull up, you don't kip. We have progressions for everything. We use them.
Some people find this slower than they expected. Most find it faster, because they're not getting injured and having to restart every six months.
We left the brand.
We're not a CrossFit affiliate anymore. We don't pay the licensing fee. We don't follow CrossFit's programming. We don't compete in the Open as an affiliate.
We're an independent strength and conditioning facility. The training looks similar enough that a CrossFit person would recognise it. The execution is different.
Should You Train At A CrossFit Box?
Some boxes are excellent. Small classes, qualified coaches, structured programming, proper scaling. If you find one, train there.
Most aren't. The model itself doesn't reward quality. Affiliate fees are flat regardless of how good the box is. There's no centralised quality control. The variation between boxes is enormous.
If you've trained at three boxes and felt frustrated, it's probably not you. It's probably the boxes.
What To Look For Instead
If you want CrossFit-style training without the typical box problems, look for:
- Capped class sizes (under 20 athletes per coach)
- Qualified coaches (Cert IV minimum, ideally S&C qualified)
- Programming that runs in cycles or blocks (not random daily)
- Clear movement progressions (not just scaling charts)
- A coach on the floor during the whole session, not just calling time
That's what we built at 365. It's not radical. It's just the basics, done properly. Read more about how our training compares to typical CrossFit.