Keep Fitness Legal

Yesterday, CrossFit’s twitter account linked to an op-ed entitled EDITORIAL: New Jersey trying to make dietary advice illegal. Dietitians were quick to respond, criticizing both CrossFit and free speech in nutrition. One of those angry dietitians stood out: Robyn Flipse. The New Jersey-based dietitian issued an implicit threat: “Gyms dispensing misinformation about diet have a lot to lose if the licensure bill passes.” It is true that gyms that give dietary information “have a lot to lose” if states make […]

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How do you get your grandmother, coworker, dad, etc. to try CrossFit? Bring them to the box. Or have them try a highly scaled WOD at home. Admittedly, this can be challenging. There are a lot of misconceptions about CrossFit. So here’s a guide to debunking those common myths. “The news said CrossFit will kill me” You probably saw headlines like Outside Magazine’s “Is CrossFit Destroying the World” and “Is CrossFit Killing Us?” Outside based these outrageous headlines on a fake […]

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Earlier this year I noticed the National Strength and Conditioning Association was misrepresenting PepsiCo employee Jon-Kyle Davis as a university professor. So, on April 18, 2018, I sent the following letter to the National Strength and Conditioning Association. The NSCA did not respond. To this day, the NSCA still falsely reports that Davis is employed by the University of Montevallo. In fact, Davis left academic life five years ago to work full time for PepsiCo. Moreover, his PepsiCo/Gatorade employment constitutes […]

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Yes, the Russells’ blog is now Keep Fitness Legal. Unlike most corporate rebrands (see: Altria), we’re not burying a shameful past. We could not be prouder, in fact. Over the past five years, CrossFit HQ has defended its affiliates against our adversaries’ fraudulent injury claims, as well as the prospect of jail time for squatting instruction or dietary advice. We caught the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) committing fraud and sued. Four years later the NSCA’s own lawyers are […]

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Last month we reported on an investigation into the American Council on Exercise’s Medical Exercise Specialist certification. A complaint with the National Commission on Certifying Agencies (NCCA) alleged that ACE improperly transferred its NCCA accreditation to a new credential. Since accreditation is supposed to verify the legitimacy of a single certification, certifiers are not supposed to transfer accreditation from one certification to another. NCCA responded to this complaint by announcing that it was conducting an investigation into the matter. Four […]

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Should federal officials be allowed to interfere with commercial enterprises using their government titles? Ought they be able to promote some non-governmental organizations and attack others, all while identifying themselves as government authorities? It’s unimaginable in almost any context. A Health and Human Services official also working on behalf of Pfizer couldn’t write a journal article about avoiding Merck drugs. A U.S. Treasury official would be called corrupt for promoting a “Goldman Sachs Guide to Getting Really Rich.” High-ranking USDA […]

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“We do not want to be involved in advocacy-led studies that so often, and mostly for the right reasons, have been criticized.” —Mars, Inc. after announcing its planned departure from the International Life Sciences Institute The food industry’s trade group, the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA), has lost at least eight of its corporate members since the summer of 2017. And now Mars, Inc. has left the industry’s science propaganda arm, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). Will ILSI suffer the […]

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Editor’s Note: Russ Greene wrote the first draft, and Russell Berger contributed to this piece. Having stopped fitness licensure in its tracks, the CrossFit community is turning its sights to nutritional licensure. Once again, a junk food proxy stands in the way. In the United States, 21 states restrict food speech through nutritional licensure laws. These laws are: 1. Unconstitutional: They violate the First Amendment by restricting freedom of speech. Nutritional licensure laws even have been used to restrict the […]

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Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to present this guest post by Cassie Bjork, RD, former LD, and founder of Cassie.net (formerly DietitianCassie.com). Cassie is a globally recognized industry leader in weight loss, a highly sought-after speaker, and the #1 international best-selling author of Why Am I Still Fat?: The Hidden Keys to Unlocking That Stubborn Weight Loss. After spending nearly a decade as a licensed dietitian, Cassie relinquished her dietitian license after a five-year battle with her state licensing board over […]

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The Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine recently published a study entitled “Injury Incidence and Patterns Among Dutch CrossFit Athletes.” The study is the result of a questionnaire, distributed to CrossFit affiliates in the Netherlands and posted on Facebook. From the 449 qualifying responses received, the authors calculated that injury incidence for athletes participating in CrossFit was 56.1 percent. So why would we need to write a post guiding people through reading and interpreting this study? Because as with similar studies we […]

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Editor’s Note: Derek Fields and Russ Greene collaborated on this piece. Soda Advocacy Groups Exploit the Nonprofit Loophole Wenhua Zhao and Junshi Chen both serve as preeminent public health officials in China. At the same time, Zhao and Chen have led Coca-Cola’s propaganda and lobbying efforts in China. They have fooled not only the Chinese government but also the Western academic journals they’ve published in. They have declared no conflicts of interest while publishing in outlets such as the Journal […]

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