Social identity and athlete identity among CrossFit members: an exploratory study on the CrossFit Open

The exercise regime CrossFit is known for the strong community among members. Furthermore, CrossFit has positioned itself as a sport and labelled participants as athletes. CrossFit’s strong community and positioning strategy should have implications on members’ identity. Research on CrossFit is incipient and none has examined it from an identity perspective. This study therefore explored CrossFit participants’ social identity and athletic identity before and after members participated in CrossFit’s annual competition, the CrossFit Open. Thirty-four participants were recruited into a pre–post quasi-experimental design study. Social identity was high among members, athlete identity was modest and both measures were stable over time. Further analysis suggests that while some may identify as athletes, others do not. Thus by positioning CrossFit as a sport, divisions may be unintentionally created around role identity. This could have negative implications because if hierarchies develop, individual’s social identity may be challenged, which may ultimately harm the community.