Natural Selection In the Gym

This New York Times story describes the people who've gone in for Cross-fit, a new and potentially lethal exercise form:

WHILE many gymgoers complain that they might not survive a tough workout, Brian Anderson can speak from experience. For his first CrossFit session, he swung a 44-pound steel ball with a handle over his head and between his legs. The aim was to do 50 quick repetitions, rest and repeat. After 30 minutes, Mr. Anderson, a 38-year-old member of the special weapons and tactics team in the sheriff's office in Tacoma, Wash., left the gym with his muscles sapped and back pain so excruciating that he had to lie in the driveway to collect himself.

That night he went to the emergency room, where doctors told him he had rhabdomyolysis, which is caused when muscle fiber breaks down and is released into the bloodstream, poisoning the kidneys. He spent six days in intensive care.

Yet six months later Mr. Anderson, a former Army Ranger, was back in the gym, performing the very exercises that nearly killed him. "I see pushing my body to the point where the muscles destroy themselves as a huge benefit of CrossFit," he said.

I'm more of a pilates/walking/bus-chasing guy, but I do understand the appeal. There's is a certain sexual thrill to be derived in abusing one's body nearly to the point of death. Masochism isn't confined to the vanilla leather play of overpaid, unimaginative, doughy suburbanites. Those people need to retain a measure of control. The possibility of actual death would frighten them right out of their hard-ons. Guys like Mr. Anderson however (what a wonderfully bland name), are probably a lot like the protagonists in J.G. Ballard's Crash who find sexual satisfaction in being in car accidents. Unlike the characters in Ballard's book, Mr. Anderson is engaged in an ostensibly healthy and normal thing: an exercise program. This makes his fetish something he can brag about to his friends. To his buddies he can say, "See how close to death I came?" To himself he can say "I came so close to death I came."

This is probably why Greg Glassman, who dreamed up Cross-fit, is so comfortable about describing his regimen's risks. To his potential clients, they're the selling point. When the sports doctor says in the article that "There's no way inexperienced people doing this are not going to hurt themselves," a small group of readers, nipples hardening, will shout "Finally, a reason to go to the gym!"

How do I judge this? I don't, except to say that any scheme for universal health coverage should make these people pay triple. Aside from that, this really is just natural selection at work. If there were more people like Mr. Anderson, there'd be fewer people like Mr. Anderson.