The Future of CrossFit With Bruce Edwards

Big news: CrossFit is not for sale. Bruce Edwards, the new CEO made that a condition of taking the job.

At the 2026 Two-Brain Summit in Chicago, Chris Cooper sat down live on stage with Bruce for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of CrossFit.

Bruce isn’t a newcomer to CrossFit. He was an original client of Greg Glassman in the late 1990s, one of the early guinea pigs who helped shape the methodology. He later owned CrossFit Aptos, served as COO of CrossFit and has now returned as CEO with a clear mandate: Fix the perception problem, rebuild affiliate value and bring the movement back to its roots.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris asks the big questions affiliate owners are asking, and Bruce shares his honest vision for what comes next for CrossFit.

Tune in to hear a candid conversation about CrossFit’s future under Bruce’s leadership.

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0:00 - Intro

0:20 - Why Bruce almost said no to the CEO role

6:43 - CrossFit’s North Star

8:46 - The Games vs. the affiliate story

13:22 - The future of CrossFit media

15:00 - Do GLP-1s have a place in fitness?

20:25 - Bruce's stance on partnerships

28:15 - A message to de-affiliated owners

30:07 - What affiliates should do right now

Transcript

0:03

So, Bruce, thanks for doing this, man. Yeah, my pleasure. Really appreciate it we're gonna have a really good conversation and the questions that we're asking bruce today came from um people in two break we did a little poll and um you know we got some great questions for bruce so the first thing i want to ask and maybe acknowledge bruce is like the ceo of crossfit is possibly the the hardest job in fitness right now great okay next question yeah what was your first reaction when that when the offer came or the call came heck no really yeah there's a lot of thought that went through there were a lot of decisions i needed to make i needed to make sure that uh the company wasn't going to be sold which was a real question and obviously if you didn't know the sales uh off um yeah i wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I'm not into that. And, you know, I went back and forth. It is a hard lift. And I think, candidly, I went back and forth a bunch. And my partner finally got in conversation with me. And she said, you know, if you learn one thing from CrossFit, you learn how to do hard things. And I kind of went, you know what, you're right. And so I think that the mission and the methodology and the communities we have are way too important to not make sure they're going in the right direction. And so I decided to take the challenge on. And it's also a passion project for me. I mean, it means a lot. Like probably a lot of people in this room, it changed my life. And it let me help other people change their lives. And that's really important. So after thinking about it, it's like, how could you not do it? How could you not take that challenge on? But yeah, for sure. It wasn't an easy snap decision, right? No. We're going to talk a little bit about your history as an affiliate owner. But I think some folks here maybe just heard for the first time that you were like an original client of Greg Glassman. Yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah, I was taking spin classes. And this guy that was teaching spin class, which he hates me telling that, was Greg. And he was a really good spin teacher. And long story short, he's like, hey, if you want to get fitter, come train with me. And so I did. And a bunch of us did. And I think that that was origins of CrossFit. And over the next few years, we worked out in two jujitsu studios, a classic, and then eventually the first box. And learning that and being a little bit of a guinea pig was super formative for me. And it was really challenging. But to start there and then to see the evolution of the methodology, and then more importantly, the communities that surround it, was really formative. And it changed my life multiple ways. So I had different jobs in there, and then came back as COO, and then left. And then now I'm back. So it's been quite a journey, right? Yeah, it sure has. It's been fun. I think a lot of people maybe saw CrossFit when it was almost fully formed. Did you ever get the sense that you were part of a science experiment, or was it just like, let's try this and see what works? Yeah, I think that, yeah, it's a really good question. I think there were a lot of lessons there. And when we originally, there was four of us, they were originally talking about, in the late 90s, about standing up a website, CrossFit.com, which seems unbelievable at this point, but it wasn't then. And I think looking at what we wanted to do, that was influenced by a lot of people that Google was early, right, and the whole concept of, sharing information free to make the world a better place and to create a movement was really where the origins were. And you think about those origin stories, and they are really important because as I come back, it really influences my lens at what are the opportunities and how do you make this community grow again and flourish. And, you know, that was a long time ago. Some of the fundamental elements shouldn't change, but a lot of things should change. The world changes all the time. And as the world changes, we need to evolve as maybe not as much of the methodology. The methodology can get tweaked, but everything around it could and should and could and will change. And I think that's really, really important. But yeah, some really interesting concepts when you do good things and you give it to people free initially, And then eventually it becomes a value, and then you should make money off that. A lot of what you guys teach at Tupac. And so, but how you do that, you have to create value first, right? And I think that was a unique way at the time of value creation, which I think is formative and really important as we go forward. I think CrossFit was probably one of the first models of doing that, really. Yeah, other than Unix programming, if you even know what that is. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that CrossFit is no longer for sale, which is massive news to a lot of us. What prompted that decision? Was that part of your criteria for coming on board? Yeah, for sure. 100% part of my criteria. I wasn't interested in coming and doing a short-term gig. Yeah, my job is to create value. And the way I look at that is, first and foremost, for affiliates and for coaches and for CrossFitters. And when we do a really good job doing that, everything else works. That, that is the way I see value creation, and value creation sounds very corporate, but it is value, and I think that I'm not going to do it any other way, and when we do that right, and we change the community for the better, everything else works out, but it is, you know, sounds like mom and apple pie but it's really not because if you're not focused on that everything else isn't going to work out and so that's really that was a foundational decision for me to come back and also really really important for the greater CrossFit community as we go forward. I think that's probably the biggest change that we can attribute to you already and that's a massive one it's a mindset change it's a positioning change it's a it's a huge decision so yeah yeah for sure yeah so let's we're going to start getting into the future and I wanted to establish. Bruce's past because not everybody has has gotten to know Bruce over the years but I want to start with this like what do you see now as CrossFit's North Star obviously there's a lot of knots to be retied a lot of knots to be untied where do you start yeah I think you start with what's the problem like what's the problem I'm seeing and being here the last two days has been great because. I've got to meet a lot of people and and the question I generally ask is what's your advice for me and the reason I ask that is because it defines the problem I don't think CrossFit has a demand problem I think CrossFit has a perception problem and I think when you're really clear that that's the challenge and the opportunity and we'll talk more about that as we get in or I will at least I think that is really important so the methodology works the communities around the affiliates work incredibly well and we just have to focus on the other parts you said something that was really poignant this morning that i that i think is really important is the the strongest place i'm going to misquote it but the community is one of the strongest or the most important things the crossfit community or gym is one of the most important things in your community and man if that's not a truth i don't know what it is and so when i think about the challenge for CrossFit, it's not that that's an incredibly successful model in its variations. It's just a perception issue. So our North Star is we teach people how to do hard things. And if that's what you're into doing, and that's what the company's focus, i think we'll do really great things um i think that message has been confused and lost to some extent and there's a whole bunch of things that go around that and you have to focus everybody on that but that's what we have to do maybe one of the ways that that message has been confused is going from forging elite fitness to doing things that elite athletes do it might be too early to even ask this question, but does that mean a lesser focus on the games? Yeah, the games are an amazing proof of the concept of the methodology. And I think it's really important to understand where that lives. I'm a games fan. I love it, right? It's cool to watch. It's not the most important thing of CrossFit. And I think when you're not clear on the North Star and you're not clear about the messaging and the media we send out, that becomes the most prevalent thing. And I don't think the games are bad. I think they're disproportionately drowning out the rest of the message, which is what happens in boxes every day. So that's a challenge, right? Because it's existed. And I think when you think, and I've heard this a lot from a lot of affiliates, for those who hadn't been around a long time when the game started, it was a local throwdown, right? It literally was. I went to the first games. So I'm a games athlete. Not really. But that's what it was. And for a long time, communities had people that would go to eventually quarterfinals and sectionals, all that. And it was a community event. As it morphed and grew, the performance is amazing, but it becomes more and more of a professionalized event. And I think, again, it's an amazing celebration, but it's not what every affiliate's about. And that's where we need to shift the messaging in the media, is about telling the stories why CrossFit's important for your life, teaches you how to do hard things. And so that's a differentiator. That's a big challenge, right? How do you bifurcate that with respect to both? But it's clear to me what the priority has to be. That's great. And that is affiliates, methodology? Yes. The priority is affiliates and the methodology, and really, most importantly, media and content that tells the story that CrossFit is for you and you can do hard things and it's not dangerous and all the things that we hear are the reasons that people don't come and I think as we do that again because we did that originally a long time ago really well the game will change yeah yeah okay before we get into that media and the storytelling. I want to I want to ask about your perspective because not only were you an original. CrossFit client and athlete but you also owned an affiliate for many years CrossFit Aptos yeah how does being an affiliate owner bring a different perspective into HQ or add to the perspective that you have yeah I think uh well I said to someone a few minutes ago the most terrifying moments were when I opened my affiliate a lot of them um because you're putting it all on the line and and it's scary I think uh a traditional CEO's view is how do I drive revenue you know how do I increase EBITDA and that's a very corporate. CEO's view and of course as a CEO you have to do that the affiliate lens is different you are the CEO of your affiliate so you have a business to run but your lens is different in that what's important to you is how do I get this person who's in this wad to come back tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and that is really important how do I get someone someone who is afraid of crossfit to come in the door and realizing that that's probably my most important current client because when they come and they realize it is for them they're going to tell their friends and that blows up your gym understanding those fundamental elements and then i've heard from a lot of people it's been great thanks to everybody who's given me advice i really. I mean, that man, get back to the messaging that tells people that CrossFit is for them and help us spread the message. We all know the methodology works. It's the foundational element of functional fitness and the global brand that does that. What we need to hear and what we need help from it is tell the message, tell them that they could do hard things, tell them that CrossFit is for them. And so that's the different lens that I think I bring. I have to run a company, but I have to run a company understanding that those are the fundamental elements that we have to deliver. And I think that makes a big difference, right? And that is my biggest challenge, for sure. And that's the second time you've brought up media storytelling messaging. So I think it's a good time to get into that. It is often hard when you have a founder who's as brilliant as Greg Glassman was to kind of translate that high level knowledge into a story that people embrace and understand. And maybe part of that forging elite fitness is hard to translate. How do you foresee in the next few years using media, building media to do that yeah i think media is um really really critical and it's the voices and um today it's everything and there's multiple channels and depending on your demographic and your age you know you have to you have to actually morph and deliver on every level and that's a big challenge for us you know we gen z is a huge opportunity and a lot of crossfit affiliates and candidate functional training facilities are getting older. And yet we have a generation that's incredibly into health and fitness. So there's some amazing opportunities there. But I think being very focused on what we need to deliver is number one. And I think that starts to change the lens. The other thing is that, and this is to everybody in the room, whether you're across the hill or not, because we're all making the world a better place. Every time you do that, and you tell those stories, and you bring more people in, you create an opportunity for people. And one of the things I've studied a lot is the amount of the world that's desperately sick of being sick. And, you know, an interesting thing. I've spent a lot of time looking at is GLP-1s. And a lot of people are controversially or divided in fitness about GLP-1s. Oh, they're evil. They're a shortcut. I have a very different view. I think they're a portal for people to change their lives. And I think when you have a community, you are poised incredibly well to bring those folks that, by the way, spend a lot of money and are overcoming pretty massive hardship into your community and show them a path, how to eat better, how to do hard things, live a different life. And I think those opportunities, media helps you amplify. And the other thing, don't forget, is we all have a media voice. You know, what happens in your facility is incredibly important. And I think it's easy to forget because there's a lot of noise about all the stuff you got to do. That's really, really important. And I was talking to Dan at. PushPress. He kind of said, oh, by the way, don't forget, when you feature someone, you probably double their retention because they know you care about them. You got to get their permission. But I think, you know, when you think about media, there's multiple aspects of that. And it's the truth telling about what we do in the communities we hold and the lives we change. There's a lot of aspects to that. But number one is, What is the message we're trying to deliver? And as soon as that gets clarified, which is an easy thing to say, really hard to do, that's where we make a big difference. So that's one of the top priorities for sure. That's great. You know, when I was hired by media, we all went out to San Diego. And the first thing the media director, I think it was Tony Budding at the time, said is, CrossFit is not a fitness company, it's a media company. And that was a huge epiphany for me. Let's just quickly pivot to what you've been doing since you were COO of CrossFit. And I know that you've been, you know, working in, uh, other businesses too. What have you taken from those that you're going to bring back to the CEO chair of CrossFit now? Yeah, I think, I mean, I've been in, I've been in a lot of different businesses, franchise or franchisee, public company, private company. And I think they all teach you a lot of lessons, right? I think that, I think the primary message is you have to be unapologetically clear about who you are. And I think, you know, if you use franchising, for example, franchising is not bad. You know, it creates a very specific structure around a business and how you deliver it to customers. Kind of who cares, but it's not bad. And for a lot of people, that's an easier path. You pay a really high price to do that, But it's not a way, it's not a bad thing. And I think when you bring that back to what we're doing, understanding, and I call it tools in your toolbox. When you have a lot of tools in your toolbox, it helps you be very clear on what you're good at. Our North Star, going back to it again, is we help people do really hard things. And I think that when you think about it from a business experience standpoint, being very focused on delivering those metrics and how you do that is really important. And you can get lost really easy. I think one of the things I know you and I have talked about historically and one of the foundational elements of 2Rain is being clear about how you're going to deliver things, not being apologetic for creating value around those when you do them. And I think those are the same applications here for sure. That's good. Do you do you foresee like maybe helping affiliates understand that and more in the future about like what we're actually delivering and the value that we're bringing? Yeah, for sure. And I think that, you know, there's a couple ways to do that. We're a licensed business, the business structure, CrossFit, and that allows you to do some things well and not some other things. And so when I think about value and why someone's an affiliate or why they're not an affiliate, there's lots of ways to define value. I think the biggest way is, are you helping me grow my business? And so without getting down to the weeds of what that looks like, I think there's some clear things we need to do pretty quickly. Media, we've talked about it a lot, is certainly one of the most obvious, right? But I think as we go forward, you know, we'll do other things. The death of a CEO is to promise a whole bunch of stuff and to not deliver. I'm going to do it the other way. But I think I can talk around threads. You know, I think media is very important. I think gatherings of our local communities, I mean, it's expressed in the open today, but there's so much more we could do around that to make the open itself much more accessible, much more fun, and then things down the road. So that's a big priority as well. Real add-on value. I want to do some things that really invite affiliates back that have left as we create value and celebrate and do some cool things for our affiliates that stuck around. So I think that's creating value it's also recognition and I think those are really important things to do as we go forward okay now obviously there's a lot of opportunities for HQ to do more things for affiliates that also add revenue to HQ and I know historically you know Greg was against that and there was a challenge but as I look around the room here I see a lot of opportunities that maybe HQ could have taken what's your stance on partnerships you know, what is, what should HQ build itself? What should it partner with others to do? Yeah, I probably have a different view, and it's not that Greg was wrong. I think, by the way, in the original days, back in the early teens, we, especially around education and training, and I haven't said it, but we are an education and training company, right? That's our mission. We did a lot of partnerships. We had subject matter experts through tons of different domains. That's largely gone by the wayside and i think that's a shame we should do that everywhere a lot of people have built really great business to support crossfit affiliates like two brain yeah and i think that what's happening here is amazing and i think we have to be really clear on what we need to deliver and i think that's education and training and talk about it via media everything else i think is open game for partnerships and why not if you believe the mission in the bigger ways is make help people do hard things and improve the human race why wouldn't you partner because people come up with really good ideas and I think we should all share those and all grow when I step back and obviously CrossFit is a part of this when I step back and think about it the opportunity is massive you know if you look at the stats around GLP-1s. I'm not hung up on it but it's such a powerful statement 70 million Americans will go on GLP-1s or have gone or will go on GLP-1s this year 70 million people and probably 20 million of those will go into fitness and man if there isn't a landslide time to be have an opportunity to change the world and help a lot of people it's right now CrossFit's a huge part of that and needs to be a bigger part of that but everybody in the room is a part of that and i think that the competition is not us the competition is chronic disease and sedentary lifestyle and that's what's really important and the more we all work together um the bigger the pie is whether you're looking at it from a business perspective or changing people's lives that's really really important and i think that when it comes back to partnerships of course we. We should partner with a lot of people, not everybody, because I think there are people's motives. There are a few people out there. Motives aren't necessarily altruistic, but they're few and far between. And I think our community does a really good job of figuring that out. But I think in general, I think it's really important. And I think it's a really important thing for us to do as a community going forward. I've already met with a bunch of partners, and I think we're going to do some really cool things. That's awesome. You know, what you said about GLP-1s, I had this woman in my gym who was probably the most fanatical CrossFitter in my gym for two years. And she had five of her kids in the gym with her. Wow. And I had written a post saying that, like, the bariatric surgery at the time was kind of the, you know. Yeah. The big thing. And I wrote a post saying, this is garbage. You should lose weight the natural way. And she actually took me aside after class and said, if I hadn't done the bariatric surgery first, I would never have had the courage to come into this gym. For sure. I had no idea. And that changed everything for me. Yeah. So telling, I think, those stories will help. For sure. 100%. It's all a part of it. And when you think about how do we get more people in any functional fitness CrossFit affiliate, those are the things we just have to be aware of. And every affiliate can be slightly different. That's okay um but being ignorant of the opportunities probably isn't okay right that's a great way to look at it yeah you know looking looking further into the future and you've already done some initiatives which is really great um what what are the kind of moves that affiliates are going to see from you in the first six months yeah it must be overwhelming i mean yeah i mean you know what's what's great i'm going to answer the question but i'll start off with a different thing it's cool i think what's been great about being here and talking to a ton of people is what it does is it provides clarity in terms of prioritization so the number one uniform thing we've talked about it twice is media and telling the stories in a smaller way in a bigger way about how crossfit is great for you and there's so many ways to do that and so many opportunities like i've talked to some of our partners in gym management about how do we use all the data they have around human performance, anonymized obviously, and tell those stories because if you're wondering and all of a sudden you see all this data about how people move through different points in their life, pre and post pregnancy, all these changes, it's pretty amazing data. So that as part of that storytelling, but it's quantitative. There's some amazing papers that have been done. Amy West. Harvard Doc was published in November. Really hasn't gotten much press. A whole bunch of doctors proving the efficacy of CrossFit. It's not dangerous. It's incredibly effective to change your life. Those things are really important. The stories and affiliates are incredibly important, but also supported by empirical data and science and doctors. So, those are really, really important. I think going back to your question, what we see is we'll see certainly that messaging change first and foremost. And I think that that's the number one thing. I think you'll see changes in the way we view things like the open. And I think how that informs that. Really, all the things we've talked about, partnerships. I think we have a big commitment to changing partnerships, bringing back in the spirit of the subject matter experts, because that's all about education and training and increasing all our coaches and our affiliate owners' knowledge, right? Becoming the hub of human performance information anchored by the L1, the L2, the L3, and the L4. Because if you look back, that is what, in my opinion, really drove a lot of CrossFit's ascension. So, we know the methodology works. It's proven tens of thousands of times every day. We know the communities work. We know that there's a bigger prize for all of us out there. Let's come back together. And so that's what you'll see a lot of this fall. That's great. We've talked about what's going to happen that's new, what's coming back. Is there anything that is ending that, you know, CrossFit's just not going to do anymore? Or is it too early to even ask that question? Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's some things that don't provide value. When I look at the company itself, I think there's a lot of well-meaning people doing a lot of things. And I could give you some silly examples, but I won't. I think it's really just being laser focused. And once we're laser focused, I think that the productivity and our efficacy to doing what we need to do around media and everything changes dramatically. So I think it's less about things going away. I think it's more about focus. And by the way, that does make certain things go away. I don't think anything major that would be important to an affiliate or a coach goes away. I think we'll strengthen all that. Balancing media and promotion around the games is really important. And how we do that is, I think there's, I have some interesting ideas, but that'll take a little bit of time to figure out. Okay. So there's a lot of affiliates like me who were long time affiliates and then de-affiliated, you know, in my case, it was Dave Castro saying, hey, give us a year. And I waited it out for two. And finally just said, I don't understand the value anymore. But there's a lot of us who would re-affiliate at the first signal that times are changing, right? Yeah. What would you say to those? Those affiliates in the room? Come on back. No, I'm kidding. I think, well, so I have a friend who's an affiliate owner who's a pain in my ass. Excuse my French. But he told me a great story. He's still an affiliate owner, but he threatens me every day. And he told me a funny story that. I'd love to start with this. I think that he said, he said, hey, man, in the middle teens, he's a dude, California dude. So this dude in the teens, CrossFit was throwing a big old party and it was super fun. And someone needed to go out on a beer run. So we gave CrossFit a whole bunch of money to go on a beer run. They never came back and they kept the money. And I said, so I'm here. I'm going to bring the beer back. But I think the bigger message is that I think there's a real strong message there. I don't think de-affiliation is, I don't think there's any shame about that. And probably people with de-affiliate don't feel that way. I think there's a clear message. And I think the important thing is listen to the message or the messages because there's more than one. And when we do that and we create a bigger community again, then people will come back. And I'll make an invitation if anybody's ready. I'd love it. Email me, bruce at crossfit.com and I'll do some cool stuff for you. So if you do that, I'd love to tell your story. And if you're ready now, great. If you aren't, you're waiting to see him, that's okay too. The proof in the pudding for me and the team is to put the value back in to the true blue affiliates who are still affiliated in the room. Um, you know what, what's something that they should be doing in the next, you know, six to 12 months that will help kind of regain the momentum of the brand again. Yeah. First and foremost, be loud. I mean, I think you have my email now, so you can email me and a lot of people have, which is great. And I really am serious about that. All that input is formative, and it helps me prioritize and figure out what we do. All the conversations I've had last night and today, I think that's number one. I touched on this before, but don't underestimate the power you have around your own media, and I think your own messaging. A lot of times we feel like somebody else has to help me, and that is our job at HQ, to do that, so I'm not saying it isn't, but, you know, we have 10,000 affiliates worldwide. If every one of them posted about that person once a week that was scared to come in and do CrossFit and came in and changed their life, it's 10,000 posts a week. It's 40,000 posts a month, and that's the collective power of the brand and all those individual stories. My opinion, that's way more powerful than us driving media, although you put it together, I think it's super powerful, And we're doing some creative things around. So the message to answer your question is don't underestimate your own power and your team's power. It is one more thing to do, but I think it's also really important for your community. It shows you care about your community. And those messages get shared with friends and family and people that don't know it's for them. So I think it's really, really important. And we have a big responsibility to amplify that as well. And we have some creative things. If they happen, I think it will be amazing. But we'll deliver those when they're ready. I think some really good advice I got from Tyson Oldroyd back in the day was every affiliate owner should copy every piece of media that they see from HQ. Just do what we do. Yeah. And that will make them 50-mile famous, and that's how we read. Sure yeah assuming we're delivering the content you need right which we will so I think by the way Tyson called me a week ago and talked my ear off for two hours so there's a lot of people that have done media that are still incredibly passionate about what we do that'll be part of the part of the solution that's great Bruce well hey I really want to thank you for coming on stage. I mean this is uh you know an invitation that we make to every CrossFit CEO and they don't always take us up on it, but I really appreciate you coming and sticking around and meeting people all weekend, and. I truly do believe that. Bruce is going to be the one to right the ship in CrossFit and turn it around. He's the man for the job. Thanks, Bruce. And he also just told me I'm the second most successful person he's ever fired. Yeah, you've done pretty well. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, thanks, guys.