A safe space in a strange place: A case study of the safety mechanisms of CrossFit culture

Abstract

Based on a 1-year ethnographic case study of a Copenhagen-based CrossFit gym we demonstrate how an organized training place is made physically, psychologically, and socially safe. This we show empirically by analyzing how the local multi-sited CrossFit gym ‘CHALK’ maintains its safe space through three organizing mechanisms: (1) coach-led learning progression and practice of the physical craft of CrossFit exercise, intended to prevent injury; (2) a dynamic relation between ‘Rx’ and ’scaling’, that is, setting universal standards for an exercise (Rx) and adjusting to individual levels of competence (scaling), actively preventing the high intensity workout from becoming high risk and from setting idealized norms that only few can live up to, but feel compelled to pursue nonetheless; (3) an egalitarian culture whose practice enables members to participate regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, and prior exercise experience. Our ethnomethodological approach further allows us to discuss how certain signifiers of difference are recognized but either do not become salient or do not matter in respect to the functional training. Rather, we find and argue for the possibility to engage in ‘tomboy-ish behavior’ that challenges gender and other identity performances in CHALK. In identifying necessary and sufficient conditions for establishing safe space, the article contributes to extant literature, showing how safe space can emerge as an effect of everyday practice, in contrast to being intentional and declared.