Programmed for Monday of this coming week we have the famous CrossFit workout “Nasty Girls”. It is well known in the CF universe for the memorable impact it had on so many athletes and especially on female athletes.

It was the video of the workout that caused the massive impact. There was no subtle message, just the overt display of what the CrossFit stimulus could produce and it had an organic effect on whatever audience viewed it. Women saw a potential for strength and beauty that fit no societal mold they had ever been presented with before, opening up a whole new perspective. And men also saw a total contradiction to the status quo, conventionally attractive and feminine women crushing exercises they themselves weren’t strong enough to perform.

Interview after interview, podcast after podcast featuring a prominent female CrossFit athlete, they all reference the Nasty Girls video as being an inspiration to pursue fitness and get into the sport. Though no one could claim that the concept of strength being a beautiful characteristic of women is yet pervasive enough in modern culture, its existence at all is almost entirely attributable to CrossFit’s work… Not in peddling some body image desperation fueling ideal the way the bodybuilding industry does to fuel supplement sales, but instead on simply showing the world what a functioning, actually capable female human body looks and moves like.