House Rules

Check your ego at the door.
Ego is the #1 cause of physical, psychological, and social injury in CrossFit. Your general vibe should reflect a deep understanding that somewhere a high school kid is warming up with your PR.

Be on time.
We know life happens, but do your best. Give yourself enough time to sign in, change, and chat to your friends before class starts. The first minutes of class are important to let you know what’s going on, and make sure you’re well warmed up.

Clean up.
Put away your toys. Clean up your sweat, blood and puke. We wish we didn’t have to say this, but don’t spit on our floor. Ever. Don’t chew gum, and really don’t spit gum on our floor. Pick up your used tape, pens, notebooks, scrap papers, chalk, band-aids, water bottles and sweaty clothes. Pack it in, pack it out, as they say. Put away all the equipment you used back where it belongs. Stack the boxes neatly, put the bars in the racks, stack the plates in order, hang up your jump ropes.

Chalk stays in the chalk bucket.
Don’t take it on a field trip around the gym, don’t use it to write on the floor. While we’re on the subject, don’t write on anything except pen-on-paper. This includes not writing on the walls with dry-erase or the bathroom mirrors with lipstick. We wish these things were self-evident, but apparently they are not.

Respect the equipment.
Drop as a last resort. Put things down gently. Dropping weight should be a necessity, not a convenience. Bumpers, especially 10 and 15lb bumpers, are designed for emergency dropping, not dropping every rep of Fran. ALWAYS keep your weight under control. NEVER drop an empty barbell, a kettlebell or dumbbell unless your physical safety is imminently endangered. Our equipment was expensive, and the more we have to replace it, the more we’re going to have to charge you.

Bring things to our attention.
If you notice that equipment is broken, lights are out, there’s no toilet paper, bring it to our attention so we can do something about it.

Try hard.
Effort earns respect. Work hard. Don’t drag people down with a bad attitude. Be optimistic, have fun and push yourself and those around you to do better.

Push your limits.
The only way to get stronger is to increase the load. Strive to go a little heavier and a little faster every class, but always maintain good, safe form.

Don’t cheat.
No one cares what your score was. Everyone cares if you cheated. Be honest with everyone else, and be honest with yourself. You know what full range of motion is, so there’s no excuse for shoddy reps. If someone calls you out for doing something wrong, listen to them. The person standing around watching you work out has a much better perspective on what you’re doing than you do. They’re breathing gently and probably experiencing a restful glow and a sub-60 heart rate. You’re halfway through Fran. You’re biased, trust us.

Learn how to count.
If you lose count, the next number is always 1. If you know you have trouble keeping count, ask someone to count for you. If you want to get on a leaderboard, you MUST have someone count for you. If no one saw it, it didn’t happen.

Come to class.
For newbies, make sure you’re staying consistent. For old hands, don’t start thinking that it’s okay to just do your own thing whenever you want to. There’s a myriad of reasons we have class — for starters, you’re less likely to bias yourself towards the things you’re good at; you’ll get some competition; and no matter how experienced you are, you still need coaching and you can still stand to work on the basics.

Take ownership.
Be responsible and respectful and take pride in your gym. Don’t let others get away with things that are bad for them or bad for the gym. Remind people to take their clothes with them and pick up their water bottles. If you see someone doing something that you’re pretty sure will hurt them, tell them to cut it out. We don’t care who it is — if Sam is deadlifting with a rounded back, you can call her out! Safety first!