On June 6, 2026, Two-Brain Business founder Chris Cooper sat down with newly appointed CrossFit CEO Bruce Edwards for a live on-stage interview at the Two-Brain Summit in Chicago. Watch the full interview or read the highlights below.
Bruce Edwards was named CEO of CrossFit on April 28, 2026. He trained under Greg Glassman himself in the earliest days of CrossFit, co-owned an affiliate, and served as COO during CrossFit’s biggest growth years. He’s also, as I’ve noted before, the guy who fired me.
When he agreed to come on stage at the Summit, I wanted to give him real questions from real affiliate owners. The kind of questions you don’t usually get to ask a CEO.
Here’s what he said.
What was your first reaction when the offer came?
“Heck no.”
“I needed to make sure that the company wasn’t going to be sold, which was a real question, and obviously if you didn’t know, the sale is off.”
“I went back and forth a bunch, and my partner finally got in conversation with me, and she said, you know, ‘If you learned one thing from CrossFit, you learned how to do hard things. And I kind of went, ‘You know what? You’re right … The mission and the methodology and the communities we have are way too important to not make sure they’re going in the right direction. And so I decided to take the challenge on.”
Was CrossFit no longer being for sale part of your criteria for taking the job?
“Yeah, for sure. 100% part of my criteria. I wasn’t interested in coming and doing a short-term gig. My job is to create value. And the way I look at that is, first and foremost, for affiliates and for coaches and for CrossFitters. And when we do a really good job doing that, everything else works.”
“If you’re not focused on that, everything else isn’t going to work out, and so that’s really, that was a foundational decision for me to come back and also really really important for the greater CrossFit community as we go forward.”
What is CrossFit’s North Star right now?
“I think you start with: What’s the problem? … I don’t think CrossFit has a demand problem. I think CrossFit has a perception problem. … The methodology works. The communities around the affiliates work incredibly well. We just have to focus on the other parts.”
“Our North Star is: We teach people how to do hard things. … That message has been confused and lost to some extent, and there’s a whole bunch of things that go around that and you have to focus everybody on that. But that’s what we have to do.”
Does fixing that perception mean a lesser focus on the Games?
“The Games are an amazing proof of concept of the methodology. I’m a Games fan. I love it … It’s not the most important thing of CrossFit. And I think when you’re not clear on the North Star, and you’re not clear about the messaging and the media we send out, that becomes the most prevalent thing. And I don’t think the Games are bad. I think they’re disproportionately drowning out the rest of the message, which is what happens in boxes every day.”
“We need to shift the messaging. And the media is about telling the stories: why CrossFit is important for your life. It teaches you how to do hard things. And so that’s a differentiator.”
“The priority is affiliates and the methodology.”
How does being a former affiliate owner change your perspective as CEO?
“A traditional CEO’s view is: How do I drive revenue? How do I increase EBITDA? And that’s a very corporate CEO’s view.”
“The affiliate lens is different. You are the CEO of your affiliate, but your lens is different … How do I get this person who’s in this WOD to come back tomorrow? … How do I get someone who is afraid of CrossFit to come in the door? And realizing that’s probably my most important current client—because when they come in and realize it is for them, they’re going to tell their friends. And that blows up your gym.”
“So that’s the different lens that I think I bring. I have to run a company, but I have to run a company understanding that those are the fundamental elements that we have to deliver.”
How do you foresee using media to tell stories about forging elite fitness?
“I think being very focused on what we need to deliver is number one. And I think that starts to change the lens. The other thing is that, and this is to everybody in the room, whether you’re a CrossFit affiliate or not, because we’re all making the world a better place. Every time you do that and you tell those stories and you bring more people in, you create an opportunity for people.”
“A lot of people are controversially—or divided in fitness about GLP-1s. ‘Oh, they’re evil.’ ‘They’re a shortcut.’ I have a very different view. I think they’re a portal for people to change their lives. And I think when you have a community, you are poised incredibly well to bring those folks—who, by the way, spend a lot of money and are overcoming pretty massive hardship—into your community and show them a path.”
“70 million Americans will go on GLP-1s or have gone on GLP-1s this year … Probably 20 million of those will go into fitness. And man, if there isn’t a landslide time to have an opportunity to change the world and help a lot of people, it’s right now. CrossFit is a huge part of that and needs to be a bigger part of that. Everybody in the room is a part of that. And I think that the competition is not us. The competition is not us. The competition is chronic disease and sedentary lifestyle.”
What moves are affiliates going to see you make in the first six months?
“I think what’s been great about being here and talking to a ton of people is what it does is it provides clarity in terms of prioritization”
“So the number one uniform thing … is media and telling the stories in a smaller way and a bigger way about how great CrossFit is for you.
“There’s some amazing papers out there. Amy West, a Harvard doc, was published in November—really hasn’t gotten much press. A whole bunch of doctors proving the efficacy of CrossFit. It’s not dangerous. It’s incredibly effective to change your life.”
“I think you’ll see changes in the way we view things like the Open … I think we have a big commitment to changing partnerships, bringing back in the spirit of the Subject Matter Experts—because that’s all about education and training .. Becoming the hub of human performance information anchored by the L1, the L2, the L3 and the L4.”
“We know the methodology works … We know the communities work. We know that there’s a bigger prize for all of us out there. Let’s come back together. And so that’s what you’ll see a lot of this fall.”
What about owners who de-affiliated? What would you say to them?
“I have a friend who’s an affiliate owner … He told me a great story … He said … ‘In the teens, CrossFit was throwing a big old party, and it was super fun, and someone needed to go on a beer run. So we gave CrossFit a whole bunch of money to go on a beer run. They never came back, and they kept the money.’”
“And I said, ‘So, I’m here. I’m going to bring the beer back.’”
“I think the important thing is listen to the message—or the messages because there’s more than one—and when we do that and we create a bigger community again, then people will come back.”
“And if you’re ready now, great. If you aren’t, you’re waiting to see, that’s OK too. The proof in the pudding for me and the team is to put the value back in.”
What should affiliated gym owners be doing right now to help rebuild the brand?
“First and foremost, be loud … Don’t underestimate the power you have around your own media and I think your own messaging … We have 10,000 affiliates worldwide. If every one of them posted about that person once a week that was scared to come in and do CrossFit and came in and changed their life, it’s 10,000 posts a week. Forty thousand posts a month. And that’s the collective power of the brand and all those individual stories.”
“My opinion: That’s way more powerful than us [HQ] driving media, although you put it together, I think it’s super powerful … So don’t underestimate your own power and your team’s power.”
My Take
This was the most candid conversation I’ve had with a CrossFit CEO in a long time.
Bruce knows the history of CrossFit because he lived it. He knows the affiliate experience because he ran one. And he’s clear on what he needs to do to turn the ship around.
If you want help building the kind of gym that takes advantage of every shift in the market—CrossFit’s renewed direction, the GLP-1 wave, whatever comes next—we can help you build the systems to grow.
