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The "Asshole" Barrier

December 15, 2009

One of the best CrossFit Journal articles ever!

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J O U R N A L AR T I C L E S
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The Asshole Barrier
Craig Silverman

Jerks are rare in the CrossFit world—but why, and how do you deal with the occasional creep?
Affiliate owners and academics offer answers and strategies.
After finishing the WOD, the guy looked over at one of his fellow members at CrossFit Virginia Beach and
said, “Is that all you’re going to lift?”
For owner Thomi Gill, that was the last straw.

Less than a month earlier, this particular member had
shown up at CrossFit VB. Soon, Gill noticed that other
athletes seemed to tense up when he walked in the door.
And when she tried to coach him, he wouldn’t listen.
“He would always rebut my cueing with excuses or
reasons why he thought the lift went wrong, instead of
just listening,” she says.
After he made that snide remark about another athlete’s
performance, Gill decided it was time for him to go.
“I told him I didn’t believe he saw any value in being
trained,” she says. “You’re here to be trained, and it was
very interruptive to other clients because they’d wonder
what was going on. I just told him I didn’t think it was
the place for him. He didn’t really say much and never
came back.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d spoken to him about his
behavior. And if he didn’t get the message, Gill was
ready to play her trump card: the “asshole clause.”
The waiver at CrossFit VB states, “CrossFit Virginia
Beach strives to provide a positive and encouraging
environment for our clients. Anyone that is disruptive
or negatively influences this environment is subject to
having their membership revoked. This is at the sole
discretion of CrossFit Virginia Beach Management.”
The word “asshole” isn’t used, but Gill says she frequently
tells clients that “it’s basically an asshole clause.” Former
CrossFit VB co-owner Pat Sherwood, now a trainer with
CrossFit HQ, says they drafted the clause before opening
their box.
“The saying is that one bad apple
ruins a bunch, and we didn’t
want one asshole in a class of
25 people to make the other 24
dread going there every day.”

“I’ve always been of the opinion that people can do
400-meter runs and deadlifts anywhere,” he says. “For
them to want to come into a gym and do it in that sort
of environment, it would have to be one that they enjoy
going to every day. They’d have to enjoy the people there
and feel like they’re truly cared for and respected. The
saying is that one bad apple ruins a bunch, and we didn’t
want one asshole in a class of 25 people to make the
other 24 dread going there every day.”
Gill says most new members smile when she explains
the clause. Nobody wants to be around assholes—
especially not CrossFitters.
CrossFit Inc. doesn’t have an official no-assholes policy.
What’s taken shape is more powerful than any written
directive: a culture that, as Coach Greg Glassman put
it in the CrossFit Journal video Primal Fitness (Aug. 25,
2009), naturally “co-select(s) for a bunch of admirable
character traits.”
In the video, Coach Glassman also told CrossFit media
director Tony Budding that “assholes don’t like to suffer
and sacrifice today for some gain tomorrow.” As a result,
they don’t last long in CrossFit, whether they’re doing
the workouts on their own and posting to the main site
or training at a local box. Budding himself likes to say
that CrossFit has an “asshole barrier.”
Bad Behavior Is Contagious
If an asshole barrier indeed exists, it bodes well for the
present and future of CrossFit. Research shows that
people with asshole-like traits do more than simply
annoy co-workers, ruin a workout or hijack an online
discussion thread. Assholes get in the way of excellence.
Bob Sutton, a professor of management science and
engineering at Stanford University, is the author of The
No Asshole Rule, a best-selling management book. His
definition of an asshole is “somebody who leaves people
feeling demeaned and de-energized.”
That perfectly describes the impact of the particular
asshole at CrossFit VB. Lisbeth Darsh, CrossFit’s
affiliate community manager and the owner of CrossFit
Watertown, says the CrossFit definition of an asshole
should also include cheats who lie about their reps.
According to Darsh, an asshole is “a cheater and
someone who doesn’t want to be part of the group, who
wants to do their own thing when the entire class is all
moving in one direction. Like when everyone is doing the
group warm-up and they think they’re special enough to
be off bench-pressing by themselves.”
Adrian Bozman, an HQ trainer and coach at San
Francisco CrossFit, says that in his experience assholes
are unwilling to be coached or learn anything new.
karpov the wrecked train/Creative Commons
An“asshole clause” in
your waiver can be used
to keep confrontational,
arrogant people out of
your box. You may never
use it, but it’s nice to have
just in case.

“Being willfully ignorant is probably the biggest
(asshole) criteria on my list,” he says. “Sometimes you
come across people—and for me this happens more at
an affiliate—where they walk in and aren’t sure what
they’re doing there, and they are defensive about what
they’ve done in past. If you try to discuss topics with
them or try to inform them, they aren’t having any of it.
They’re unwilling to listen to a different point of view.”
Clearly, an asshole can take many forms. But one truth is
that this particular breed of human has long been found
inside gyms. Not surprisingly, Sutton’s book, which is
filled with examples of companies that won’t tolerate
asshole behavior, includes a quote from Gold’s Gym
owner Joe Gold.
“To keep it simple you run your gym like you run your
house,” Gold said. “Keep it clean and in good running
order. No jerks allowed. Members pay on time, and if
they give you any crap, throw them out. There’s peace
where there’s order.”
One of the biggest problems with assholes is they’re
contagious, according to Sutton. They infect those
around them, bringing down the level of performance
and exacting a physical and intellectual toll on others.
“Essentially, research shows that when people are
around rude people or negative emotion, it leads them
to get physically sick, to have trouble solving problems,”
Sutton says. “Even witnessing rudeness can make people
all tense and constrict their intellectual abilities.”

One of the biggest problems with
assholes is they’re contagious.
They infect those around them,
bringing down the level of
performance and exacting
a physical and intellectual
toll on others.
CrossFit seems to have an “asshole barrier,” but the occasional
jackass can still wander into the gym. If you’ve created the right
culture, the problem should take care of itself very quickly.

A study published this summer came to a similar
conclusion. According to a report in the South Florida
Business Journal, “Simply observing discourteous
behavior erodes fellow employees’ ability to think
creatively, solve problems, be good team players and
even goes so far as to make them harbor deep, dark and
destructive thoughts.”
“The negative consequences of rudeness on the job
are not limited to the person who happens to be the
victim,” said researcher Amir Erez, a University of
Florida management professor. “If five other people are
watching, the effects are going to spill over into the rest
of the organization.”
Inside a box, an asshole can cause fellow athletes to
tense up and lose focus or otherwise negatively impact
their performance and attitude. Affiliates that tolerate
assholes can lose members and develop an atmosphere
that prevents people from reaching their potential.
Sutton emphasizes that the nature of the activity and
the close quarters within a box make it essential that
affiliates maintain an asshole-free environment.
“An asshole can poison the environment, and the fact
that people will not have any place to escape is why it’s
especially bad,” Sutton says. “It is a place where psychological
safety is especially important.”
He says one key to maintaining an asshole-free culture
is to make sure top performers and managers don’t treat
less-experienced athletes like second-class citizens.
“A good test of a human being is how they treat people
with less status or social standing than they (have),”
Sutton says. “It sounds like (Gill of CrossFit VB) was
applying that notion in telling that guy to go.”
An Future Free of A-holes?
As CrossFit continues to grow around the world, it’s
increasingly important that CrossFitters—and especially
the leaders of the community—are willing to call
someone out on being an asshole and explain why such
behavior isn’t acceptable.
Sherwood says one of the things that impressed him
about CrossFit is the attitude, or lack thereof, of top
athletes and people from HQ.
“The more firebreathers I was around, the humbler they
were,” he says. “That lack of ego and sense of family is
one of my favorite things about CrossFit.”
His comment highlights another unique and perhaps
contradictory aspect of CrossFit culture. It’s competitive
and often aggressive, yet it’s also meant to be open and
welcoming. Many affiliates look like torture dungeons
(except they substitute the rack position for an actual
medieval rack). As a result, some people walk in, look
around and get their asshole on.
“It’s not a normal-looking gym compared to what most
people are used to,” Sherwood says. “There are no
cushy-looking machines. There may be some blood on
the floor and death metal playing on the stereo. It’s more
like walking into prison than a gym, so some people
might have a tendency to puff out their chest a bit more.”
The competitive nature of CrossFit also extends to
how CrossFitters see and present themselves to other
athletes, and to the public at large. Some people might
wonder if it isn’t just a little bit asshole-ish to wear a
T-shirt declaring, “Your workout is our warm-up” or
“Your workout sucks.” CrossFitters take pride in these
slogans because they believe them to be true—not to
mention funny—but an outsider could be turned off
or get the wrong impression. To an outsider, “asshole”
might seem to be a good word to describe the person
wearing the T-shirt.
In other words, maybe CrossFit has an “asshole barrier”
in the sense that it attracts the right kind of asshole—the
kind of person who’s willing to work hard and be a part
of the community, but who can sometimes act a little bit
smug and superior when away from the tribe. Either way,
the growth being experienced by CrossFit means it’s a
challenge to maintain and reinforce the existing CrossFit
culture and attract and retain the right kind of people.
Either way, the growth being
experienced by CrossFit means
it’s a challenge to maintain and
reinforce the existing culture and
attract and retain the right
kind of people.

“I will say that as CrossFit gets larger and more
widespread, it would be foolish to say to the community
that we don’t have assholes among our ranks,” says
Bozman. “Is it a significant number? No, of course not.”
The question then becomes one of asshole management.
In her experience, Darsh says it’s best to let the athletes
police themselves. Trainers and affiliates should step in
if that process falls short.
“I spent six years in the Air Force as an officer, and often
best way for an issue to be taken care of was to let the
troops take care of it,” she says. “They hold each other
accountable. If members can’t handle it, then a trainer
or owner will step in. A large part of being a trainer is
knowing when to hug someone and when to kick them
in the ass.”
She also says that the community and affiliates have
to be rigorous about weeding out assholes before they
take root.
“You always have to be in command of where your
affiliate or community is going and what the atmosphere
is inside a box,” she says. “If you have the type of place
that tolerates and encourages an asshole mentality,
then you will get more of those folks. You have to decide
what’s the vision of your box and if it includes those
people or not.”
CrossFit VB’s approach is to express its values clearly
in the waiver. Sherwood says doing so helps diffuse
potential situations by sending a strong message to new
members about how they’re expected to act.
“When I explained it to them, I could see some people
physically relax,” he says.
Gill says members take pride in the no-asshole clause.
In three years, she’s only had to ask two people to leave.
“CrossFit is a competitive environment … . It’s sometimes
difficult for outside people to come in without having a
chip on their shoulder,” she says. “But the waiver says,
‘Look, we’re not assholes and we don’t want assholes
here, so leave your ego somewhere else, train hard and
have fun.’”

About the Author
Craig Silverman is an author and journalist in Montreal,
Canada. His first book, Regret the Error: How Media
Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, won
the Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism from the
National Press Club in Washington. He is an associate
editor for PBS MediaShift, a columnist for Columbia
Journalism Review, and a regular contributor to the Globe
and Mail. He trains at CrossFit Plateau.
Liam Maloney