Life Without a Barbell: Quarantine-Friendly Fitness Equipment to Use at Home

It’s day 8 of doing your civic duty to stay away from other people, and you can feel your strength slipping away. You could do some more air squats, but that’s basically the same thing as sitting on your couch. You could do some sit-ups, but I mean, again, you’re already sitting anyway.

What you really need is a barbell. Life isn’t life without a barbell in your hands. Because functional fitness.

But wait… what if there were other objects around you that are heavy and can be picked back up and put back down. Moving boxes to organize your closet, picking up furniture to clean underneath, … Nevermind. Those are chores, not fitness.

For fitness, what we really need is something else to buy.

So, for whatever reason, a barbell and squat rack are out of the question. Maybe you live in an apartment where every square foot is precious, maybe you know you’ll have a gym to go back to any way when these disease prevention necessities comes to an end. So what are some other fitness things to consider buying? Note: Due to demand, not all of these are available currently, but this is also a great wish list for the future.

What’s important to consider when getting some at-home equipment?

When we start to think about what would make the most sense for something to buy that takes up closet space at home, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Versatility - Equipment that can be used for as many things as possible. Going back to the ten general skills of fitness, we want equipment that hits as many of these as possible (endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy)

• Compactness - Taking up as little space as possible

• Value - Equipment that is worth the investment

• Simplicity - Equipment that you don’t have to worry about fixing or breaking

With those areas to focus on, there are a few pieces that seem to make sense, but may not be worth it: For example - adjustable dumbbells and kettlebells. They have a lot of versatility, but all of the attachments take up space, they are expensive, and some part of them may break or get lost. So what’s left? Wasting away watching Netflix and giving up all hope?

What are some possible fitness equipment pieces to consider?

See the embedded spreadsheet for what we’ll talk about in the rest of the article. Keep scrolling to get to our summary recommendations more quickly.

Kettle Gryp: I’m not sure what movement is shown here, but this is what the Kettle Gryp looks like.

The Empack: A great backpack and very versatile

What at-home fitness things are the most versatile?

In terms of versatility, equipment that let’s us check the most boxes at once makes it the most versatile. Here, we see that things like dumbbells and kettlebells are king.

Versatility Comparison - Ranking is out of a Max Score of 10

What at-home fitness things make the most sense to buy?

The list below is a starting point for gym things to accumulate. The higher the utility score, the more beneficial it may be.

The utility score is:

Utility = (Cost per pound + Versatility score) / Cost

That score gives a great way to decide what the next piece of equipment is to check off the list. Or if you have some money to burn, what expensive items to get first.

• Top value purchases:

  • Kettle Gryp (if you already have access to some dumbbells)

  • Jump Rope

  • Yoga Blocks and Straps

  • 3 Lacrosse Balls

• Quality purchases:

  • Gymnastics Rings

  • 2 Light Dumbbells

  • Medium-Heavy Kettlebell

  • Empack

  • Resistance Bands (Pull-Up Assist)

Overall Utility Comparison - The Higher the Score, the Better

You can of course fill your closets with all sorts of other fitness junk… er fitness tools, but they will probably just end up in a yard sale or donation bin down the road. Happy fitnessing!

That’s great, but one day I will build a home gym (space isn’t the issue).

If you are in the market for beginning to put an affordable home gym together (squat rack and barbell included). there are a lot of great tips out there. Check out Garage Gym Reviews for tips on a $500 at-home gym or good value approaches for different home gym decisions.

On Perseverance: "Elevate" - Part 6 of ...

Elevate - Perseverance

I've fallen, on my last lifeline
There's no way in my right mind

Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy - we celebrate through service, through reflection, through re-imagined presentations of his works.

For me, one of the experiences that will always stick with me is visiting the archives of MLK’s works in Atlanta. On display were his original writings, clips of speeches and some mementos from his life. What I will always remember is just how much he wrote. He wrote books, speeches, dissertations. And he gave a sermon every week. Every week he stood up and preached to those who wanted to listen and to a future that no one could yet envision.

And he kept going, and going and going.

These past few weeks, I read through Questlove’s book Creative Quest, given to me my brother as a Christmas present. In our family, books are a common gift, and either come at a time where you’re reflecting on a certain area of your life or it’s a book that the other person really thinks need to be read because you’ll get a lot out of it. As an example, my Mom gave me American Gods as it was becoming a cult following but early enough so that I could decide if it was something that I would delve into myself before TV adaptations and quote excerpts colored my opinion. But that’s a book for another post.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In Questlove’s series of chapters on creativity and collaboration, he walks through topics of inspiration, mentorship, getting started, networking, curating, marketing and dealing with success (or failure) in your creative pursuits. All of these topics would have a much shorter list of examples to draw from had civil rights leaders like Dr. King and others not kept pressing forward to work toward equal rights and opportunities. That in itself is a good reminder. Questlove talks of his relationship with a Spotify playlist-worthy collection of black musicians beyond his own band The Roots - D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, LL Cool J, Erykah Badu, Musiq Soulchild, Jazmine Sullivan, Jay-Z, Donald Glover. Wondering if that list would look the same had MLK and others not persisted is humbling.

There are dozens of quotes I jotted down from the book, and all return to the theme of relentless effort to keep going. Said a different way,

Don’t start stopping.

-Questlove

When we start to hesitate to try something new, when we start to hesitate to explain why something you heard is racist, when we start to hesitate to create another work after receiving criticism, when we start to stop going to that open mic, when we start to stop donating to a candidate or cause we believe in because money is tight this month, when we start to stop encouraging our family to get healthy. when we start to stop taking care of ourselves, when we start to stop looking for the job that utilizes our talents effectively. When we start stopping the little things, because it’s inconvenient or tricky or just hard, then that’s when we fail to honor those who have striven for more before us.

So hopefully today, you took an extra second to get back in touch with a friend, reminded someone that representing or just tried something new.

Make things. Make your way to the things that others have made. Make theories of your own. All the advice in the world won't help if you don't start the perfectly imperfect process of creating.

Don't let the world return to the way it was before.

-Questlove

(The lyrics that opened this post are from the Spider-Man Enter the Spider-Verse song Elevate, the basis for my recent posts.)

Does CrossFit have a diversity problem?

A poll was posted in the CrossFit Affiliate Owners group that I got to join this year after officially becoming a co-owner of an affiliate.

Does CrossFit have a diversity problem?

In the very small response of 24 affiliate owners:

• 75% of affiliate owners said that “CrossFit does not have a diversity problem.”

• 21% of affiliate owners said “CrossFit has a diversity problem and it’s getting better.”

• 4% of affiliate owners said “CrossFit has a diversity problem and it’s getting worse.”

It seemed like a simple enough question, and something that I’ve thought about in passing since beginning CrossFit 10+ years ago. When I first started looking at gyms, I did what has been a subconscious process for most of my life (I’m sure most racial minorities can relate). I clicked few a few pictures to see just how diverse the group I was going to visit would be. Or more simply - the “spot the black person” game. Usually it’s a short game in the places that I’ve grown up and the schools I’ve attended. I grew up in a majority Italian town, went to undergrad at a majority white school (although internationally diverse and improving since I attended).

But still, the poll answers bothered me, and my own answer (it has a diversity problem, and it’s getting better), I had no idea how to support that belief. So, let’s get into it.

To me, diversity is a topic that I don’t feel compelled to speak on. Partly my passive nature, partly because I don’t ever have an easy solution, and conflict for conflict’s sake doesn’t appeal to me.

But let’s first define a few things:

• Diversity - In North America, the word “diversity” is strongly associated with racial diversity. However, that is just one dimension of the human reality. Diversity also includes income, gender, language, culture, social roles, sexual orientation, education and physical limitations. There are other diversity domains, but we’ll stop at those for this discussion.

• Problem - A situation that needs attention and needs to be dealt with or solved.

• CrossFit - there are two distinct sides of CrossFit at this point - the competitive side embodied by the CrossFit Games, and the affiliate side, represented by the 15,000 (est.) worldwide affiliate gyms.

With those three terms more clear, I would then ask some more quantifiable questions.

1. How many languages are CrossFit materials presented in?

2. In how many countries is CrossFit present?

3. How many racial minorities are at the highest level of competition?

4. How many countries are at the highest level of competition?

5. How many racial minorities are shown in CrossFit demo videos?

6. Is the number of minority affiliate owners known? How many are there in each country?

7. What is the distribution of income of people who go to an affiliate?

8. What is the distribution of income of people who follow CrossFit.com?

9. What is the distribution of racial diversity among CF-L4s? Among CrossFit.com employees? Among CrossFit.com senior executives?

In coming up with these questions, I immediately begin to think of Greg Glassman’s self-processed love of physics and numbers. In the all-important “Understanding CrossFit” article that lays the basis for the Level-1 CrossFit certificate, Greg states:

Using whiteboards as scoreboards, keeping accurate scores and records, running a clock, and precisely defining the rules and standards for performance, we not only motivate unprecedented output but derive both relative and absolute metrics at every workout; this data has important value well beyond motivation.

Has there been an article with data shared about any type of diversity - language, gender, sexuality published by CrossFit? Yes, there are anecdotes and transformation stories, but I am not aware of much diversity data being made available.

The quote above leads me to my belief that CrossFit doesn’t have a diversity problem, it has a data problem.

Let’s go back to some of the questions above that we can answer:

• How many languages are CrossFit materials presented in?

CrossFit.com offers the L-1 in 13 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (Castilian), and Spanish (Latin American).

• In how many countries is CrossFit present?

Using the CrossFit Games as a data source, there are 125 countries represented.

• How many racial minorities are at the highest level of competition?

• How many countries are at the highest level of competition?

In the top 20 men and women worldwide, there is one black athlete from the US (Chandler Smith) with 19 others on the men’s side with 9 countries represented, and on the women’s side, 0 racial minorities with 10 countries represented. The countries represented are North American or European.

• How many racial minorities are shown in CrossFit demo videos?

While there are thousands of videos covering a range of topics on the CrossFit YouTube channel, the CrossFit essentials playlist contains 63 videos with 0 racial minorities and 1 country represented.

Note: The counts above are my own interpretation of athlete backgrounds. I do not know of a data source with more objective information.

Before getting back to the questions that do not have as easy answers, there are several areas that CrossFit has done a lot of work in from a country and language diversity perspective. As stated in a response to a post on CrossFit.com, the CrossFit Journal writes:

[CrossFit] wants to help every single person in the world become fitter. We want to cure chronic disease, which affects everyone… We’re continually working to expand our appeal to everyone in the world.

Expanding a training method from a California gym to 125 countries and making adaptive athletes central to their approach is an effort that should be celebrated. It checks a lot of diversity boxes - gender, culture, language, maybe even education.

In addition, I’ll speak to what I know of U.S. efforts to highlight racial diverse stories by the CrossFit Media team. A few that come to mind are:

• Spirit of the Games award to Debra Cordner Carson (2012)- A black woman struggling with Lymphedema

• RossFit (2013) - the early stages of Rick Ross learning about nutrition and getting in shape

• No Mas (2016)- Educating Spanish-speaking and Latinx members about the dangers of sugary drinks

• The Ron Gets Fit series (2018) - highlights an everyday black man getting back in shape for his family

There are many other examples, but finding them takes either knowledge that they exist, or (like me), monitoring the CrossFit Jounral sporadically for the past ten years, and reading old articles as part of the CF-L3 certification prep. Note that in the L-3 training, there is no specific mention of any of these articles (true in 2017 and still true in 2020).

So, that leaves us with a few unanswerable questions, with the most accessible entry into CrossFit being what can be found on its YouTube channel.

• Is the number of minority affiliate owners known? How many are there in each country?

• What is the distribution of income of people who go to an affiliate?

• What is the distribution of income of people who follow CrossFit.com?

• What is the distribution of racial diversity among CF-L4s? Among CrossFit.com employees? Among CrossFit.com senior executives?

My argument that CrossFit has a data problem, more specifically is that when relaying its message of curing the world’s health problems to communities that need it most (economically challenged racially diverse communities) whose mortality rates are much higher than those of their majority counterparts, CrossFit has not made this data externally available. (I doubt that it’s known at all - never once has my racial background been a part of demographic info gathering during CF certifications or competitions). Maybe the rate of minority-owned affiliates is higher than other small business ownership ratios, and maybe these business are increasing their communities’ longevity faster than the pharmaceutical industries around them. Has this story been told? And if not, are there numbers to show that it is at least improving? Here, I will also acknowledge that each affiliate is independently owned and operated. I think many are telling this story, but at a national level, the CrossFit brand’s approach is more difficult to pinpoint.

The data CrossFit has shared mostly points to geographic, language and physical limitation diversity more than racial or economic diversity. Moreover, this data is heavily biased toward the competitive side of CrossFit, which CrossFit itself has said is not the focus of its main brand. Its main brand, CrossFit, focuses on growing and training affiliates to address the world’s health problems.

I think in the end, CrossFit is doing as much as it can with the resources it has. However, the diversity data problem at least needs attention. In addition, I would also submit a change to the L-1 curriculum to make economic stability a part of the conversation from the beginning.

For many people to even begin to consider changing their health habits, they need to have some level of economic stability. Anyone leisurely reading through CrossFit Journal articles at their desk on a lunch break most likely doesn’t have to worry about taking three buses to get to work with limited to access to a grocery store with adequate fruit and vegetable selection. If you’re worried about your heating bill or where you will sleep tonight, the last thing on your mind is if you can get to the gym today.

So, for those of us who can start with addressing nutrition, go for it. For populations that are still working through other fundamental needs, yes nutrition will solve many problems down the road (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.), but let’s at least acknowledge that there are other barriers to better health than paying for the gym. First you need to be able to get there, or at least have a safe space to train in. (Yes, CrossFit.com is free, but the space to do a burpee sometimes isn’t.)

I’m grateful to CrossFit for giving a structure to a very nebulous fitness industry, and for the U.S. racial minorities who have gotten to this point, let’s all take the next step and bring our family and friends that look like us along for the benefits we’ve already experienced.