With Leather’s founding editor Matt Ufford attended the CrossFit Games in Carson, California last weekend. This is his report.

If you’ve never heard of CrossFit, the simplest description for it is “fitness cult.” As with most cults, there are gurus, a particular style of dress for its members, and a separate vocabulary that can take weeks or even months to learn. Notably — as with most cults — gurus and followers alike shy away from the word “cult.” But there’s one important difference between CrossFit and Scientology or Jonestown or the Movementarians: obeying CrossFit’s religion of short but intense workouts produces undeniable results.

Nowhere is that more obvious than the CrossFit Games, the fledgling sport’s annual competition to determine the fittest of the fit. The devotion of the faithful is on display everywhere: in the competing athletes, in the muscular bodies of the crowd, in the companies hawking fitness wear and protein drinks, in the food trucks selling snacks compatible with the paleo diet. Even as someone who works out at a CrossFit gym*, I felt out of place with my average build and torn pectoral muscle and general unwillingness to take off my shirt amidst a sea of physical perfection.

On the following pages is a photo essay of the Games, with my commentary peppered in. The professional-looking images are courtesy of CrossFit; the crappier candids were taken on my iPhone.

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Sir Charles Barkley is an eleven-time NBA All-Star and a member of the original Dream Team, but he was never really a fitness role model. He’s also 48 years old and spent the last half a decade rocking the Five Buck Box, so react with only mild surprise when you see him looking turrble in his first week of CrossFit. I’d struggle with it too, especially if Ludacris was screaming GET BACK MOTHERF**KER at me while I cleaned and jerked. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to be a member of Team COCKDIESEL.

Our own Matt Ufford is a CrossFit veteran, so I asked him what he thought of the video. His two cents:

I almost feel bad making fun of Barkley — this was apparently filmed during his first week of CrossFit, a time when a lot of the exercises are unfamiliar and uncomfortable (note: I’m endlessly thankful and relieved that my first week of CrossFit wasn’t filmed). Check out his cleans compared to everyone else’s: he doesn’t have the wrist flexibility to rest the bar on his shoulders.

We can laugh now, but if Sir Charles sticks with it, he’s going to look a hell of a lot better in six months.

Now to find that hilarious video of Detlef Schrempf doing P90X.