An interesting article was posted on Breakingmuscle.com on what it means to be a CrossFit coach is being circulated around the interwebs. I wrote something similar, from my past experience, and this post resonated with me tremendously. This comes about a week or so after this picture* posted by CrossFit Brick New York circulated through Instagram, Facebook and CrossFit blogs causing somewhat of an outrage.
*this image has since been removed from Brick New York’s Instagram feed.
When I first saw this picture, my first reaction was oh.my.gawd. why. Jaw dropped, shaking my head...why why why.
For the majority of people who’ve probably never experienced a pull-up before (with or without a resistance band) this may not seem like a big deal. In the CrossFit community, heck the fitness community, the majority of the people were furious.
Since the original post is no longer available, I can’t quote exactly what Brick New York commented, but it was along the lines of: the members pictured completed the WOD and wanted to try this out afterwards. List this under sign #1 that as a coach, you could’ve done better.
The fact that this post is no longer on their feed justifies that they know it wasn’t a good idea. In this case, bad publicity isn’t necessarily good for the box. They recently opened their facility and have incredible amenities, but having this picture up couldn’t have been great for their reputation.
I’m not undermining their ability as coaches or athletes, I’m just hoping that they know when to say no to their members. Hopefully no one got injured from this, and that they use the negativity constructive criticism as a wake up call to understand the potential downfall of not being assertive with their members.
In this particular case, maybe it was a good thing that it went completely viral and caused a ruckus throughout the fitness community. No one teaches you the morality of coaching. It’s something that you have to understand and go through by experimenting. Lesson learned.