Book Summary
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The thing you dread should be your first priority. Because if you’re not willing to find the chink in your armor, the Hopper, the Unknown and Unknowable, the randomness of life, will find it for you.
Learning to Breathe Fire
The authoritative narrative of CrossFit's beginnings, rapid grassroots growth, and emergence as a worldwide phenomenon.
Learning to Breathe Fire is one of the most insightful novels ever written on a sports subculture, combining vivid sports writing with a deep meditation on what it means to be human. J.C. Herz, a seasoned journalist, discusses the science of maximal effort, why the contemporary gym fails a fat population, and the psychological benefits of ending up on the floor feeling like you're going to die in this book.
From a solitary underground gym in Santa Cruz to adoption as the exercise of choice for elite special forces, firefighters, and cops, to its popularity as the go-to fitness regimen for everyday Joes and Janes, the tale follows CrossFit's growth. Herz's depiction of The CrossFit Games, which began as an unofficial competition on a California ranch and evolved into a televised global proving ground for the world's fittest men and women, as well as hundreds of thousands of lesser mortals, is particularly compelling.
Herz brilliantly portrays the distinctiveness of a fitness culture that cultivates primordial fierceness in normal people in her portrayal of the sport's great players, impassioned trainers, and "chief armourer," Rogue Fitness. And, via the shared experience of an all-consuming workout, she unearths the ritual intensity that has been with us since humans started sports, demonstrating how, at our core, we're all tribal hunters and first responders, waiting for the signal to go all-out.
The thing you dread should be your first priority. Because if you’re not willing to find the chink in your armor, the Hopper, the Unknown and Unknowable, the randomness of life, will find it for you.
