Twenty Years of CrossFit: Catching Up with CrossFit OG Jason Khalipa
When it comes to CrossFit, few have accomplished what Jason Khalipa has.
He is a CrossFit Games champion and has competed seven times as an individual.
He has opened gyms all around the world with his company NCFIT.
He commented for ESPN, won the Spirit of the Games award, and is a Level 4 coach who has taught at more than a hundred Level 1 seminars over the years.
- Two decades have passed since Khalipa opened his first gym. However, today the 40-year-old Khalipa is still training, still coaching, still evolving, and still deeply committed to the community and the methodology that launched it all for him in 2006.
We caught up with Khalipa to reminisce about it all.
2006 to 2026
Khalipa found CrossFit in 2006 when a co-worker’s mother stumbled across CrossFit.com.
Two years later, in 2008, the former football player showed up to the second CrossFit Games in Aromas, CA, and won the whole thing, taking home a $1,500 paycheck.
- That same year, Khalipa opened his first gym, CrossFit Santa Clara in CA. Shortly afterward, he opened his second location – CrossFit Mountain View – which he later rebranded as NorCal CrossFit.
In 2018, Khalipa rebranded once more as NCFIT and started opening and operating gyms worldwide under that name.
By the end of 2019, NCFIT owned or operated close to 30 gyms, including seven NCFIT locations in California’s Bay Area, one in Mexico, and many across Asia.
- When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, like many gym owners, Khalipa was forced to pivot. This caused Khalipa to consolidate NCFIT, closing several gyms in the process.
Today, he continues to own and operate two gyms in California – his NCFIT Mountain View location is one of the top 10 most checked-in gyms on Wodify – while the NCFIT Collective provides session planning and programming to hundreds of gyms worldwide.
Although Khalipa continues to work hard as a business owner today, he has a new project that is taking up a lot of his time and energy: Train Hard Men’s Club.
The idea came about almost three years ago, when Khalipa realized that most men connect over burgers and beer. He wanted to offer an alternative.
So he thought he’d invite a group of men to work out together in a parking lot, and then go for a coffee afterward.
- “I remember telling myself, ‘What if I put out this message and nobody shows up?’” Khalipa said in an interview with the Morning Chalk Up. He was apprehensive about starting this new club.
Men did show up. A lot of them, and before he knew it, 100 guys were regularly throwing down with him in a parking lot.
- “Week after week after week, it just grows and grows and grows organically,” Khalipa said.
Today, in addition to the parking lot meet-ups, Khalipa also hosts regular virtual meet-ups that attract men from all around the world. Further, Train Hard also offers an app with training programs.
Despite their growing online presence, Khalipa believes it’s the in-person experience that has made his men’s group so popular among the men it serves.
- “We’re trying to be the anti-AI. In a world that’s constantly digital, we’re trying to connect men, and the best way I have ever found is through a shared workout experience,” he said. “There are so many men out there who need to create connections, who need to be able to have that shared suffering, shoulder to shoulder.”
He added: “When guys get together and do something hard, the conversations and the barriers just start to break down, and that’s where I find it to be super impactful.”
Twenty Years In: It’s Still Just CrossFit
In some ways, Khalipa’s life looks very different today than it did in 2008, when people hadn’t heard of CrossFit, when there was little competition, and Khalipa was “flying by the seat of my pants” as a young 21-year-old gym owner straight out of college.
And after nearly two decades, Khalipa, a father of two, still believes that the key to longevity as a business owner in this space is a willingness to adapt.
That said, as much as things like his programming and professionalism have evolved, his big-picture mission today hasn’t changed since he opened CrossFit Santa Clara in 2008.
His ultimate goal remains to help people transform their lives through fitness, connection, and community. And he will always be grateful to CrossFit founder Greg Glassman for laying the foundation.
- “Greg did a lot for the fitness space. I think you walk into a hotel gym today and see kettlebells primarily because of Greg, and that’s exciting,” Khalpia said.
But even more important than the constantly varied, high-intensity functional movements Khalipa has made a regular part of his life is how the methodology fosters connections.
Twenty years in, Khalipa is helping foster these all-important connections for a group of men who desperately need them.
- “What I’m really excited about Train Hard is that it reminds me a lot of the old school days of CrossFit in the sense that we’re just trying to connect people and get dirty. In the early days, everyone was so connected. We were all on this shared mission, and I miss that, and I think we’re getting that again through the men’s club,” he said.
Khalipa added, “Tomorrow it’s going to be raining, and it’s going to be something special.”
