I’m willing to have my mind changed, but I’ll just say it like it is:
CrossFit athlete bios are pretty…ordinary.
To be fair, should we really expect men and women who accomplish mind-blowing feats of strength, speed, stamina, and skill to be expert (autobiographical) playwrights?
(If you said “yes, we should!”, you’re lying).
With that being said, what happens when you take a legit (and I mean, legit) Harvard-educated author (J.C. Herz) who has done her homework, put in the time to pick the brains of every relevant (and many not-so-relevant) names in the CrossFit rolodex, and who knows how to spin multiple narratives at once?
You get Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness…easily the best CrossFit book ever written.
I don’t care that I haven’t read Brooke Wells’ Resilient: The Untold Story of CrossFit’s Greatest Comeback yet or that I still need to revisit Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes (which I read a long time ago). Sight unseen (or seen long ago), these books don’t hold a candle to Learning to Breathe Fire.
If you’re interested in CrossFit in general, like a good “origin story”, appreciate inspiring stories about the “normies”, or simply want to read about the sport’s earliest heroes, this book has you covered.
Table of Contents
Why I Decided to Read Learning to Breathe Fire
A few years ago, I read a CrossFit biography (Hard Work Pays Off: Transform Your Body and Mind with CrossFit’s Five-Time Fittest Man on Earth) for the first time in a long time. Shortly after doing so, I decided to, more or less, read all of the most prominent books in this category and develop a “ranking” system for them.
I think I’ve found the sole entry in the “S” tier.
I understand that Learning to Breathe Fire isn’t a biography in the technical sense; we’re not following a single person/athlete around from childhood through CrossFit glory, but it is probably the best “biography of CrossFit” out there.
I will also say that due to the book’s publication date (2015) I was really intrigued at the emphasis that would have to be placed on the early, early days of CrossFit. As someone who didn’t really know about CrossFit until 2012, didn’t start paying closer attention until 2017, and didn’t really start to follow until 2020, I figured this would be a treat.
Also, I’m not above stating that looking at the book’s 4.6 out of 5 cumulative rating (out of 744 reviews, at that!) was added incentive. With that much social proof, I figure I’d either like it along with everybody else, or I’d get to write some edgy, counter-narrative stuff, decrying how bad the book actually is.
Length/Layout
Learning to Breathe Fire is 316 pages of story (plus another ~25 pages of acknowledgements, key terms, plus extensive reference and “suggested reading” end sections).
While the book has an underlying theme (the “story of CrossFit”) and follows a mainly linear structure (we methodically move from the “pre-Games” days through the 2012 Games), each chapter is, in many ways, its own isolated vignette. Because of this, I almost felt like I was reading a bunch of closely connected, short stories rather than a full-length book.
I found this structure to be particularly engaging. I read a lot and I read long books so I tend to remain pretty focused when reading, but for those with shorter attention spans, the layout here is perfect.
Each chapter has a main theme (ex. the “Nasty Girls” chapter looks at the early women of CrossFit) along with the key personnel associated with it (Annie Sakamoto, Nicole Carrol, Eva T….the original Nasty Girls) that advances the story while providing a deeper look at a particular aspect of the CrossFit ecosystem.
There is a good amount of statistical data references as well as inclusions you’d expect more from a peer-reviewed journal (many chapters have 20-plus references), but Herz never made it feel like I was reading a textbook.
…but the one underlying theme is the story…the story of CrossFit.
There isn’t a chapter that goes by that doesn’t discuss a significant period in the history of CrossFit or a specific event. Much of this content takes a birds-eye view of things, focusing on the “big picture”, but just as much looks at things from the ground level. There is a lot of content involving some of the “normal” CrossFit pioneers and what their respective journeys involved.
So much of the book explores the trials and tribulations of new CrossFit affiliate owners during a period where the sport was definitely not in vogue. Herz also provides an engaging overview of the CrossFit methodology with bits sprinkled throughout the manuscript as well as concurrent “origin stories” (ever wanted to know how Rogue Fitness started? You get the full story here!)
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you could flip to a chapter and read it in an autonomous, disconnected from the rest of the book, manner. However, the mini-stories and topics presented in each keep things engaging, throughout.
It wouldn’t be a CrossFit book without a few pages of “common terms” (ex. AMRAP, “Hero WOD“) at the end, but this makes up such a small proportion, it doesn’t really matter; the structure is layout is excellent.
Main “Objectives”/Message
I’m not sure what J.C. Herz’s history with CrossFit is. Whether she is a practitioner herself, has ever served in an advisory role, or simply thinks the workouts are cool.
One thing is for sure, though…she paints a very beautiful picture of it.
Not a perfect picture. Not a picture without some flaws or some imperfections. Definitely not a polished or otherwise complete picture.
…but a beautiful picture, nonetheless.
However, the main objective and message of Learning to Breathe Fire isn’t to cheerlead CrossFit, promote it, or to otherwise shill it. It’s simply to tell its (early) story.
It’s obvious that Herz knew how attractive and interesting this story would be when she first started researching it, knowing that all she had to do was let these people talk and share their experiences and the readers would immediately be intrigued.
By reading about their success and about their struggles.
There is this underlying theme of all of the involved parties more or less being “normal” people who all share some type of exceptional quality (or qualities about them). By sharing this combined normalcy and greatness (or, in some cases, more “quirkiness” than anything else), Learning to Breathe Fire tells the story and paints the picture in the most effective manner possible.
Learning to Breathe Fire doesn’t really direct anything at the reader to “take action” or to “get involved” or whatever, but it’s hard not to want to get into it after finishing…which may be the main message after all…
Conclusion/My Take
I won’t say that Learning to Breathe Fire is one of my favorite books of all time, but it is one of my favorite “Sports/Fitness” books and is definitely the best CrossFit book I’ve ever read.
(To that latter category…like, by far…)
If you’re someone who likes a story combined with some research and statistics (which add context as well as provide more of a “big picture”-look at things), this is gonna be the book for you. On the other hand, if you prefer sports stories involving “defying the odds” or “coming from nothing” or “a great comeback!”, this may not be the book for you.
Ultimately, this book not only got me really excited to do CrossFit, but also got me excited about the entire CrossFit ecosystem and, possibly most importantly, what CrossFit is capable of. In a time when it is constantly under attack and possibly even facing irrelevancy, this is the book people need to read to recapture that fighting spirit.
To conclude, I want to emphasize that this book is so good, it gets the double McGriff/Emanski endorsement!
How ’bout that?!
