Learning to Breathe Fire

April 21, 2014
New York Times columnist Herz presents a breathless, fervor-of-the-converted ode to the CrossFit empire. The “punk-rock hype” of the movement began in a Santa Cruz, Calif. gym frequently mainly by ex-Marines. The CrossFit routine focuses on short, intense workouts, based on a brutal Workout of the Day, usually named after women or soldiers killed in action, and clock in between three and 25 minutes. The idea is to attain true “functional” fitness, rather than machine-based fitness, which deprives practitioners of “the knowledge of what their bodies, as glorious machines, can do, and the competence and satisfaction of actually doing it.” Herz covers the biology of the routines, the ideals of founder Greg Glassman, the austere meat-based diet, and the tight-knit, competitive community surrounding this practice. Herz’s liveliest writing comes in passages depicting an achievement-oriented world in which women compete on the same level as men, often beating them. Herz’s overwrought adoration of the phenomenon is the book’s main shortcoming. Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM Partners.

May 15, 2014
Former New York Times columnist and Rolling Stone rock critic Herz (Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds, 1997, etc.) shares her enthusiasm for the CrossFit strength and conditioning movement.The CrossFit fitness craze is based on the model of a maximum-output physical regimen of "diabolically intense" timed movements. Herz explores this exhilarating, addictive activity with equal potency, focusing on the health phenomenon's diverse aspects, including its genesis in a Santa Cruz, California, gym and the ideals adopted by exercise guru and founder Greg Glassman. After delving into the hormonal, anaerobic and metabolic effects CrossFit can have on the human body, the author energetically presents a vast array of profiles and interviews with exercise, sports, law enforcement and military specialists-all enamored by CrossFit's exhaustive, unisex physical demands and rational core methodology. Herz adds a dramatic flair to her prose, igniting excitement and an uptick in interest even when discussing the female names for CrossFit's ritualistic workouts of the day or its buzzword-trendy, disciplined philosophy ("half chivalric code and half Bushido"). The author champions the yearly installations of the global, hypercompetitive CrossFit Games with brio, spotlighting the highs and lows of the competitions' most elite challengers. Oddly, however, Herz embeds critical information on the inherent risks associated with such high-intensity physical training deep into a chapter devoted to a firefighter who successfully adopted the CrossFit approach. At times, the author's exuberance for this trendsetting industry reads like boilerplate infomercial copy ("CrossFit HQ protects a culture that embraces competitive fitness. It's a cult of excellence....It's a strategy for resilience"), but as the underdog of the exercise world, CrossFit training (at least to the author) remains a "triumph of the generalist."A vigorously written must-read for exercise enthusiasts primed for the ultimate fitness challenge.

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May 1, 2014
More of a life philosophy than an exercise regime, CrossFit has skyrocketed in popularity over the last decade. Herz takes readers on a journey through CrossFit history, beginning with founder and gymnast gone feral Greg Glassman's idea of a highly intense, functional fitness regime that is measurable, observable, and repeatable. Today, CrossFit has thousands of affiliates and an international competition that is televised on ESPN. Herz intertwines the narrative with passionate descriptions of workouts that push participants to the brink of exhaustion, highlighting men and women who have reached the pinnacle of CrossFit competition. Ironically, some of the greatest personal achievements don't involve winning but simply completing the workout and using every bit of emotional and physical effort. CrossFit's workouts of the day are described throughout as well as the fiercely loyal subculture that has evolved from shared moments of agony and triumph. Although this book will appeal to the CrossFit faithful, general readers will find interest in Glassman's libertarian views on franchising and his scathing opinions of globo-gyms and machine-based fitness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)