i feel like itâs also important to note that the cultural capital of âathleticâ bodiesâwhich reflect wealth, leisure, and tasteâis rooted in the flow of capital in Western countries. the effect of this is directly visible on working class bodies. shifts away from manufacturing and increased automation mean increasingly larger segments of the population lead sedentary lifestyles.Â
the essay, âauto bodyâ, does a fantastic job of tracing the development of fitness culture and linking it to flows of capital: from its âshadyâ origins in Muscle Beach, demolished because working-class bodies congregating in public was dangerous; to the privatisation of fitness within iron gyms, like Goldâs; to the rise of Nautilus machines and commercial gyms embraced by employers both as preventative health measure and means of increasing the productivity of the aforementioned sedentary workers; and finally, to the CrossFit âboxesâ that profit from the nostalgia for an âorganicâ community and âprimalâ bodies that counteract the alienation of commercial gyms. CrossFits workouts shape a lean body that appear prepared for physical labour that no longer exists, especially for its relatively wealthy clientele. On this last point:
Culturally, Crossfit harnesses a nostalgia for a simpler past, and combines it with the romanticization of the natural in order to craft a comprehensible view of the present that embraces precarity by being prepared for everything. This is not simply a pre-lapsarian fantasy, though. The idyllic and savage âprimalâ is coupled with modern science in an attempt to recreate a born-again human that specializes in the unspecialized. As lean management forces all employees to be flexible in their working hours and expertise, Crossfit demands the same from their consumers. Crossfit is the figurative and literal lean production of the body. To avoid precarity, one must embrace precarity. Do a little of everything, and then do more of it. The fragmented sense of progress in lifting a heavier weight or beating an old WOD time creates a fleeting autonomy in a managed subject. Through Crossfit, despair and uncertainty are replaced by trust in the primal, one simulated shoveling exercise at a time.
CrossFitâs workouts shape a lean body which appears to be prepared for physical labour. said physical labour, however, is becoming less necessary in production with the rise of automation, especially so for its relatively wealthy clientele (at least when the essay was written in 2016). itâs no coincidence that CrossFit âboxesâ inhabit old production sites in urban centres:
As capital flows back into the city once again, old auto clearing houses and factories are prime locations for Crossfit boxes, and the loft condos that house many of their customers. Crossfit promises a physique that matches the aesthetic of new city wealth. The body as repository for the ghost signs of production reflects the social relations of labor and leisure presented by the economy. You can get strong, but not too big. The workouts are quantifiable and scalable, but never boring. Companion to the rise of beards, tattoos, âworkâ boots, and lumbersexuality, Crossfit sculpts a body that appears to have labored. Reminding us that physical labor was done at one point, the shell of industry now has a core of chiseled abdominal muscles. Crossfit reverses the traditional relation of labor to the body in that the bodies appearing to have labored the most now reflect the highest material conditions of leisure. Similar to the way that new technology introduced into the production process is embedded with the value of past labor, the Crossfit body is also imbued with the surplus value of past generations. In Scientific Management, Taylor remarked, âIn the past man has been first; in the future the system must be first.â Today is the future, and the Crossfit box offers a concise summary of our post-industrial predicament. âPeople walk through the door and say, âHey, where are all the machines?ââ To which Crossfit boldly replies: âWeâre the machines!â
fitness culture, in other words, is inextricable from late capitalism.Â