Buzz
Marjorie Taylor Greene is back posting CrossFit videos. This time, it seems to be a continuation of the conflict that started on the House floor. In the past, she's used similar footage to appeal to Christians, promote Donald Trump, and, most notably, suggest during the pandemic that exercise could replace the COVID vaccines.
Before you ask, 'Isn't her form on those exercises awful?' (and I will address that!), let me first invite you to consider a different question.
That question is: 'Why is she sharing these exercise videos?' There are several possible answers, but I believe she's using exercise as a symbol, a way to convey moral superiority. Take this video, where she's portraying herself as strong in the face of 'persecution' (which, according to her, means being labeled an extremist, a category she identifies with). Or look at the clip she posted yesterday, responding to a congresswoman's insult about a 'bleach blonde, bad built butch body.' Greene’s caption asserts how 'built and strong' she is, implying that her physical fitness makes her a better person.
But let's be clear, that's nonsense. Your worth as a person—your strength in a moral sense—has nothing to do with what you can or can't do at the gym. Think about that for a moment. Now, ask me again if you want me to critique her form. Do you really want to hear that she's doing her exercises wrong? Because that might give you a fleeting sense of superiority: Maybe you can’t nail the perfect power clean, but you'd love to know that MTG tried and failed. Would that make her a worse person? (Can she even be a worse person?)
Let’s stop attaching morality to 'form.'
What’s the message supposed to be when someone has poor 'form' during an exercise? Having been immersed in the fitness world, I've heard it all. People with bad form—those who perform exercises incorrectly—are often accused of being too dumb to learn the proper technique or too arrogant to follow instructions. They’re seen as defying the sacred rules of (checks notes) handling heavy weights while thinking that they know better than the rest of us. They’re bound to get hurt, it’s their fault, and they’ll deserve it!
These attitudes combine to create a dramatic form of policing other people's smallest movements. If someone squats without going below parallel, who are they harming? If a teenager picks up a weight that's too heavy for a strict curl and uses momentum to get it into position...so what? Those people may not be training in the most effective way (or maybe they are, but that's a conversation for another day), but there’s no reason to take personal offense just because it's happening near you in the gym.
(I’ll now pause while everyone rushes to the comments to explain why I’m wrong and the 'form police' must save such people from themselves. Never mind the fact that there's no proof that poor form increases injury risk. Those dire warnings about danger are mostly based on wishful thinking and a desire to score a dunk.)
Sometimes someone with bad form is simply still figuring out the movement. Other times, they’re performing a lift you might not fully understand—like kipping pull-ups, which are different from strict pull-ups, but both serve valid purposes. I can do 10 strict pull-ups, but I struggle to do more than three or four kipping ones. Kipping pull-ups rely more on gymnastics skills than pure strength, and both types of exercises have their place in athletic development. Even ‘ego lifting’ isn’t all that bad—it’s okay to push your limits at the gym! It’s okay to have fun! Chill out!
But her form is awful, right?
Here’s the one thing you really need to understand about MTG: she’s a right-wing political extremist and professional provocateur who doesn’t belong anywhere near a government position due to her toxic views and the harm she’s trying to inflict on the American public. This holds true, regardless of whether or not she’s any good at Crossfit.
And here’s the tough pill to swallow: She’s actually good at Crossfit. Or at least, she's no worse than the average person at your local functional fitness gym. As I pointed out to Jezebel when Greene posted that anti-vaccine video, her lifts—and even her butterfly pull-ups—are perfectly fine.
In her latest video, she’s performing power cleans, an exercise derived from Olympic weightlifting that’s a staple in not just weightlifting and Crossfit, but also in the weight rooms of athletic teams everywhere. For comparison, here’s a video of me doing the same exercise:
As a certified USA Weightlifting Level 2 coach (yes, I’m flexing my credentials here), I can watch her power cleans and point out a few things that could be improved. For instance, she could use her legs a bit more when pushing off the floor; Crossfitters are known for having a bar path that’s too forward-bouncing, which isn’t ideal in competitive weightlifting. I think my power cleans are better, but, to be fair, I’ve got things to work on too. We both perform our power cleans worse than top-tier weightlifters, but we’re still better than your average high school football player.
Does this change your opinion of MTG? Does it make you want to join her in believing the 2020 election was stolen or that we should strip healthcare from pregnant and trans people? Obviously not, because none of that has anything to do with whether her power cleans are being performed correctly.
