WORKING OUT with David Osorio

Brooklyn, New York’s David Osorio on CrossFit South Brooklyn and building a *strong* community

Rebecca: Today we meet David Osorio, who has always been inviting people to work out with him.

David: So when I was growing up, I didn’t play a lot of team sports. I played a little bit of ice hockey and roller hockey and stuff like that—not very well. But I was always sort of intimidated by team sports. It’s not something that I naturally gravitated towards.

And then when I got into high school, I wanted to start getting in shape. I wanted to start working out. I didn’t really know where to start. So I’d start going to the weight room in my high school. And basically a lot of the teams would be working out and I would just kind of like mirror what they were doing in the corner and try to figure it out on my own.

I just really enjoyed it off the bat. I started to see some changes in my body and just felt better about myself. And then pretty shortly thereafter I started trying to bring my friends into the gym. A lot of my friends were the music kids, the art kids, etc. who weren’t working out as much. So really from the outset I was like: I want to share this with other people and I want this to be more of a communal experience.

So in high school, my junior year, I made this decision. I was like: I’m gonna start a gym one day.

Pete: But David didn’t want his gym to be one of those where everyone was together…working out alone.

David: That kind of standard commercial gym model where everyone just comes in, does their own thing, they’re on machines, headphones in, and they go home—I knew that wasn’t it.

And then I was introduced to CrossFit in late 2003 and I absolutely fell in love with the methodology. One of the things that attracted me to it was that in the early days — and this was prior to YouTube — they would post videos of people doing their workouts. It was a handful of people throwing down in the garage. It had this cool element that I had never seen in fitness before, where it almost reminded me of skate videos growing up. It had that DIY aesthetic to it. Like: Hey, we’re out here, we’re just doing this thing. We’re putting it out to the world. It’s us and our friends throwing down.

So in the beginning, I had no money. I was in New York City, I wasn’t about to take a lease or a loan out on a giant facility. So I just thought: Let me just start this thing in a park.

My worst case scenario in the beginning was just that I sit alone in the park for half an hour and then I walk home. And it was that quite a few times in the beginning. But the cost was so low for me that I was like: You know what? I’m gonna keep showing up. And a lot of it too was just trying to do something every day. So for the first many years, it was: Every day, what can I do? Can I try to go to Lowe’s and make a piece of equipment? Can I learn something new or put something out there?

So one day I got a call. A guy — he was a military guy — said: “Hey, I’m back from deployment and we were doing CrossFit overseas, so I want to continue that here.” So he showed up and it was just him. And again I was just like: Alright, it’s you and me, let’s do this.

And I went from one person to two people, three people. And I remember thinking, when it was like six or seven people, I was like: This thing is huge — I’m blowing up!

There was a lot of camaraderie. After the park, I was in a place called the Brooklyn Lyceum — I would rent by the hour there. We had one or two classes on the weekend. And then gradually I would increase classes as the membership grew, as the demand grew. And then around 2010, I was able to finally lease our own proper space.

And now we are 800 members, 11,800 square feet, coming up on 18 years now. Bootstrapped from the beginning: No investors, no loans, no debt, no partners — just get $20 per person as they show up, and just constantly reinvest it. And more than anything else, just focus on the quality of the experience. I get those people for one hour and I’m gonna try to make it the best hour of their day through fitness and community and fun.

Rebecca: CrossFit South Brooklyn has all the things you’d expect at most gyms.

David: We have group classes, we have open gym, we have personal training, we have some barbell clubs.

Rebecca: But the gym’s greatest amenity? It’s other people.

David: One of the things that I’ve heard so many times is that there are people that I never, in a million years, would have met — all these people who are well beyond your social circle come together. You’re all just wearing gym shorts and t-shirts.

And then you have this shared suffering. So it’s this combination of suffering and laughter. If you can get those two things — suffering in a safe space, and then also laughter and community. You go through something with somebody else for that hour, and then automatically it’s a great equalizer. Because everybody in that room, regardless of their background: A pull-up is a pull-up.