Coach Greg Glassman once said something that shook the entire fitness world because of how simple, and true it was:
Doctors are lifeguards. Coaches are swim coaches.
And both are necessary.
Think about that for a moment.
A lifeguard doesn’t teach you how to swim.
That’s not their job.
They’re there when things go wrong, when you’re drowning, panicking, or in real danger.
Their job is to save you.
A swim coach, on the other hand, keeps you out of the water in trouble in the first place.
They help you build skill, capacity, confidence, and endurance.
They prepare you for the deep end long before you ever get near it.
And that’s exactly the relationship between healthcare and CrossFit.
Healthcare Is the Lifeguard
Doctors are incredible. They’re trained to rescue people from medical emergencies, stabilize crises, and manage conditions once they’ve already developed. They work in a system that is overloaded, understaffed, and stretched beyond its intended limits.
But their job is not to prevent you from drowning.
Their job is to pull you out once you already are.
Most people treat healthcare like swim lessons. They wait until something goes wrong. They wait until pain shows up, until blood sugar spikes, until mobility is lost, until the body is sending out loud alarms. Then they rush to the lifeguard chair hoping for help.
And while doctors do heroic work every single day, even they know the truth:
You can’t medicalize your way into long-term health.
You have to train your way into it.
CrossFit Is the Swim Coach
A swim coach doesn’t wait until you’re sinking.
A swim coach teaches you how to move efficiently, breathe properly, float, kick, recover, and build strength and stamina.
They don’t save you when you’re drowning,
they make sure you don’t get there.
That’s what CrossFit coaches do.
We teach people how to move safely.
We build strength that protects joints.
We improve mobility that prevents injury.
We build cardiovascular health that keeps you out of the ER.
We create a community that supports consistency and habits.
We’re not reacting to problems, we’re training resilience.
We prepare people for the “deep end” of life: aging, stress, illness, physical challenges, unexpected events, and the daily demands of being a parent, worker, provider, grandparent, or community member.
A CrossFit coach is not a replacement for a doctor…
but a doctor is not a replacement for training.
You need both.
And you need them in the right order.
The System Breaks Down When We Rely Only on Lifeguards
Right now, most Americans only rely on the lifeguard.
No one takes swim lessons.
No one trains.
No one learns how to move, eat, sleep, or manage stress.
Then they jump into the deep end of modern life, poor nutrition, high stress, sedentary jobs, processed foods, long hours without skills and without conditioning.
Eventually they start drowning… and they expect the lifeguard to save them, again and again.
The truth?
The healthcare system was never designed to handle an entire population drowning from preventable conditions.
And it’s not fair to the doctors or nurses who are doing everything they can to keep up.
The Real Work Happens Before the Rescue
Imagine if more people learned to swim.
Imagine if fewer people needed to be rescued.
Imagine if strength, fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle weren’t afterthoughts but the foundation.
That’s what CrossFit was built for.
Not to replace the medical system, but to reduce the burden by empowering people to take ownership of their health.
We’re here to teach people how to move.
How to eat.
How to build capacity.
How to live with strength and confidence.
How to stay out of the danger zone long before a doctor ever needs to intervene.
Learn to Swim. Don’t Wait to Drown.
If something goes wrong, you absolutely need a doctor.
You need that lifeguard.
You need their expertise, their judgment, their training.
But if you want to thrive?
If you want long-term health?
If you want to age with strength and dignity?
You need a coach.
You need consistent training.
You need community.
You need habits.
You need skill.
You need accountability.
You need someone teaching you how to swim, every week, every month, every stage of life.
Because your health isn’t built in the rescue.
It’s built in the preparation.
And the water isn’t getting any calmer.
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