In the late 2010s, Greg Glassman\u2019s private plane was less than an hour from Denver when he decided he couldn\u2019t wait that long for Chick-fil-A. The CrossFit founder instructed his pilot to land in Grand Junction and arranged for two chauffeured Chevy Suburbans to meet him and his entourage at the airport.<\/p>\n
According to Jeffrey Cain, then the company\u2019s CEO, they drove to the fast-food restaurant, picked up their order and returned to the plane to finish the flight. Cain put the cost of the detour at more than $5,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat anecdote is entirely typical<\/a> of Glassman and his spending habits,\u201d said Calum Marsh, whose new book, \u201cThe Glass Box: The Shocking True Story of How CrossFit Broke the Rules, Made Millions, and Changed Fitness Forever<\/a>\u201d (HarperOne, out Oct. 27), recounts the excursion. \u201cIf he got a sudden hankering for fast food mid-trip, they\u2019d land the plane and get some.\u201d<\/p>\n A new book charts the rapid rise of CrossFit and its cult-like founder. Getty Images<\/p>\n Marsh tracks Glassman\u2019s journey from a broke California trainer to the owner of a fitness company that generated an estimated $100 million in annual revenue by 2015. But the edgy charisma that helped Glassman, now 70, build a well-muscled empire was ultimately his downfall<\/a>. <\/p>\n When Glassman arrived in Santa Cruz in 1995, he was a college gymnast-turned-college dropout who didn\u2019t own a car or a house. He shared a room with his young son in a friend\u2019s house and started training local police officers. <\/p>\n His workouts could seem alarming<\/a> to anyone accustomed to doing just a few curls and heading for the showers. Glassman mixed demanding weightlifting with gymnastics, sending clients outside to do lunges across the parking lot and sometimes leaving them vomiting into a trash can. He also timed them, turning exercise into a competition. Clients could watch their scores improve, or discover that someone they thought they could easily beat was considerably fitter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our observation that men will die for points,\u201d Glassman later wrote. Keeping score, he explained, could \u201cmotivate unprecedented output.\u201d<\/p>\n Lauren Jenai, a young hairdresser who wanted to lose weight, became a client that summer. She was so impressed by the results that she quit her job and community college to help him train people, although she wasn\u2019t entirely sure what to make of her new boss.<\/p>\n \u201cThis guy is either the biggest f\u2013king con man in history,\u201d she told a friend, \u201cor he\u2019s onto something pretty f\u2013king spectacular.\u201d <\/p>\n The two began dating and married in 1998, wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis at a backyard ceremony.<\/p>\n Their growing following and loud, aggressive workouts<\/a> didn\u2019t make them popular with gym owners, so in, 2001, they opened their own gym dedicated to what they called CrossFit. <\/p>\n \u201cI was fortunate enough to receive a lot of financial records, internal documents, emails, and other documentation from that period that outlined some of the extreme spending and the lack of oversight for the finances at CrossFit,\u201d author Calum Marsh told The Post.<\/p>\n Jenai handled much of the financial administration while Glassman developed the workouts and talked about the possibilities. Money remained tight enough that clients helped finance equipment purchases. Glassman recalled sleeping on a futon with Jenai while his son had the bedroom and a friend slept in the kitchen.<\/p>\n \u201cI was fundamentally broke at forty-five,\u201d he told Marsh. \u201cI was always worrying about money.\u201d<\/p>\n Posting daily workouts online changed the size of their audience. People who had never met Glassman began following his program, comparing scores in the comments and asking how they could teach it themselves.<\/p>\n Soon, weekends certifying trainers in the CrossFit method were packed. Newly trained muscleheads wanted gyms of their own, and Glassman let them license the CrossFit name for a modest annual fee while retaining control of their businesses.<\/p>\n Greg Glassman was a college dropout when he started CrossFit. His uniquely intense workouts went viral. CrossFit\/YouTube<\/p>\n By 2005, according to Marsh, there were more than 50 CrossFit gyms across 21 states and several countries. Two years later, the first CrossFit Games was held on a California ranch<\/a>. <\/p>\n But, as CrossFit expanded, the couple\u2019s marriage began to unravel. Jenai was spending years pregnant or caring for their children while Glassman traveled to seminars and affiliates.<\/p>\n At one point, she told Marsh, he announced, \u201cThis next year I\u2019m going to have a lot more sex, either with you or without you.\u201d She said they had never discussed an open relationship.<\/p>\n In 2009, while Jenai was pregnant with twins, Glassman began a relationship with the wife of a CrossFit gym owner, Marsh reports. He hired the woman as his personal assistant and reportedly persuaded the couple to move a few houses away from his Arizona home.<\/p>\n The first CrossFit cames were held in California in 2007. In 2010, Reebok signed a ten-year licensing and sponsorship agreement that would put its name on the Games and produce CrossFit-branded footwear and clothing. Affairs were so common within the organization that Jenai had T-shirts made with a warning. \u201cIf you sleep with one of my trainers,\u201d they read, \u201cI\u2019m going to tell your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n Several former employees told Marsh they were uncomfortable with Glassman\u2019s affairs and how openly he conducted them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was baked into the culture<\/a> from the beginning,\u201d the author told The Post. \u201cIt made some women uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, corporate sponsors were discovering CrossFit\u2019s appeal. In 2010, Reebok signed a ten-year licensing and sponsorship agreement that would put its name on the Games and produce CrossFit-branded footwear and clothing.<\/p>\n During negotiations, Reebok executives tried to demonstrate their commitment to Glassman\u2019s dietary advice by avoiding bread and alcohol at dinner. They arrived to find him eating dinner rolls and drinking tequila, Marsh writes.<\/p>\n The edgy charisma that helped Glassman, now 70, build a well-muscled empire was ultimately his downfall. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n The entertaining could leave even his companions struggling to keep up. Former executive Brian Mulvaney recalled a Fourth of July stop at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale in the early 2010s, when an all-night party left him furious before a business meeting the following day.<\/p>\n Glassman proposed a remedy. They would buy cocaine, then get Bloody Marys at the airport lounge before continuing their trip, Mulvaney recounts. <\/p>\n \u201cIt ended up being a great day,\u201d he told Marsh.<\/p>\n By 2012, the breakdown of Glassman and Jenai\u2019s marriage<\/a> had become a battle over CrossFit\u2019s ownership. Jenai wanted to sell her half to investment firm Anthos Capital, while Glassman was determined to keep an outside investor from becoming his equal partner.<\/p>\n He ultimately secured financing to buy her out that year, leaving him the company\u2019s sole owner. Their divorce was finalized in 2013, Jenai later said.<\/p>\n Lauren Jenai helped Glassman launch CrossFit. The two married in 1998 and divorced in 2012. ljg771\/Instagram<\/p>\n With control secured, \u201chis whims really took over,\u201d Marsh told The Post. The man who once worried about paying rent was traveling with an entourage \u2014 including \u201coverpaid yes men,\u201d some without precise job titles or clearly defined responsibilities, according to the author. They expected first-class flights and rooms at the Four Seasons.<\/p>\n When Cain became CEO in 2016, he began examining what that generosity cost. One item that caught his attention was a Verizon bill approaching $200,000 a month.<\/p>\n CrossFit was paying for several hundred phones and service plans, including those belonging to employees\u2019 relatives and people who didn\u2019t work for the company, Cain told Marsh. He recalled Glassman buying iPhones for attractive women he met and adding them to the company plan.<\/p>\n \u201cI was fortunate enough to receive a lot of financial records, internal documents, emails, and other documentation from that period that outlined some of the extreme spending and the lack of oversight for the finances at CrossFit,\u201d Marsh told The Post. \u201cThe Verizon bill was just one line item amid a wide array of unreasonable expenditures.\u201d<\/p>\n Cain canceled the phone contracts, Marsh said. He also repeatedly warned Glassman that the company couldn\u2019t keep spending this way.<\/p>\n At its peak in 2018, there were more than 15,000 CrossFit affiliates worldwide. SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n Some expenses would be reined in temporarily, according to Marsh. But \u201cit would always balloon again soon.\u201d<\/p>\n CrossFit was also paying for nearly a thousand gym memberships, according to Cain\u2019s account. He said Glassman would meet women and arrange a full year of membership at their local affiliate.<\/p>\n Glassman defended the practice as helping the recipients and supporting local gyms. \u201cWhen you look at the money we were making, it didn\u2019t seem like a waste,\u201d he told Marsh.<\/p>\n The business was still enormous, with more than 15,000 affiliates worldwide at its 2018 peak. Glassman rejected the suggestion that his spending should be treated as a corporate scandal. Reporters questioning his parties, he told Marsh, acted as though he had taken money from a publicly traded company.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the till was mine,\u201d he said. \u201cI owned 100 percent of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n The company now advertises more than 9,000 affiliated gyms across over 150 countries. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n
ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n