What began as a 12-student trial in 2011 has become a remarkable point of introduction to CrossFit. Approximately 2,340 Auburn University students have now participated in the physical education course at CrossFit on the Plains in Auburn, Alabama. With roughly 75 students enrolling each semester, the partnership has given generation after generation of college students the opportunity to experience CrossFit inside a working affiliate. For many, a class selected for college credit becomes their first real entry point into a lasting fitness community.
The idea took shape before CrossFit on the Plains had even established itself in the Auburn community. The affiliate opened at the beginning of the fall 2010 semester, and Dalton Ard, owner of CrossFit on the Plains, had already made a university physical education course part of his business plan. The inspiration came from a CrossFit Journal story about an affiliate owner who taught university students on campus. Ard’s Auburn concept made one important change: students would come to the affiliate.
A gym member who was pursuing a doctorate offered to pass the idea to the head of Auburn’s kinesiology department. Within days, Ard was meeting with a departmental group to make the pitch. The department head understood what CrossFit could offer, and the university approved the course on a trial basis.
The first course launched in spring 2011 with space for 12 students; 10 enrolled. Auburn renewed the contract after that semester and added a second section. The program continued expanding, reaching its current size of five sections in 2014. That steady growth has created an impact far larger than a single class roster: approximately 2,340 students have now come through the program, with another 75 or so introduced to the affiliate during a typical semester.
So proud of how everyone showed up, put in the work, and absolutely crushed it from start to finish.
The students entering the course have changed over time. In the early years, only one or two students at most arrived with previous CrossFit experience. Today, more than half typically have some CrossFit or strength-training background. Even so, every semester still brings students who have never experienced CrossFit before. The program therefore does more than serve students who already train: it continually widens the circle of people who understand what CrossFit is and how it can fit into their lives.
“Being able to properly introduce someone to CrossFit and make fitness a priority in their life is one of the best parts of this whole program,” Ard said.
Those numbers make the Auburn course more than a long-running partnership. It has become a sustained form of outreach for CrossFit—one that meets students at a formative point in their lives and lets them learn the methodology under the supervision of coaches. Some enter with years of training experience, while others are learning how to squat, hinge, press, and scale intensity for the first time. Both groups train in the same environment, but the opportunity may be especially consequential for beginners who might never have walked into an affiliate on their own.
A University Course in a Working Affiliate
The course runs for roughly 15 weeks, totaling about 43 class days. Five sections meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with each class lasting 50 minutes. Each session begins with a workout brief. Coaches explain movement mechanics, often using a demonstration video, and discuss how students can scale the workout to their current fitness level. A thorough warm-up reinforces foundational positions and movement patterns before coaches guide students through the day’s workout. Class ends with a cooldown, which also gives coaches time to ask questions and get to know the students.
Learning continues beyond the daily workout. Students receive a nutrition guide focused on properly fueling their bodies. At the end of the semester, they also complete an open-note final exam covering CrossFit methodology and basic exercise physiology. That academic component is important: the course is not simply a series of workouts completed for credit. Students are expected to understand the ideas behind the training, including how and why exercise can be adapted, sustained, and integrated into their lives.
That combination of practice and education separates the course from a drop-in workout experience. Over class meetings, students repeatedly encounter coaching cues, scaling decisions, warm-up progressions, and conversations about recovery and nutrition. The final exam reinforces that they are not only learning to complete the workout in front of them; they are building a basic vocabulary for understanding training well beyond the semester.
Auburn offers a broader catalog of physical education courses taught by contract instructors, including golf, tennis, bowling, scuba diving, martial arts, and yoga. CrossFit fits within that model, but the setting is central to what makes the course work.
“It is much more beneficial to hold the class in our facility because it allows us to train them exactly how we would like, with our equipment, in an atmosphere that creates the most energy,” Ard said. Music can be loud, bumper plates can be dropped, and students can experience the pace and culture of a working affiliate rather than a scaled-down version in a conventional classroom or recreation space.
The division of responsibilities is straightforward. Auburn manages the course listing, enrollment, and contract-instructor agreements. CrossFit on the Plains develops the curriculum, provides the facility and equipment, and maintains insurance compliance. Instructors are employees of the affiliate and are compensated by the affiliate. Before each academic year, the university asks the affiliate to set a per-student fee for the semester, which the affiliate collects from students at the beginning of the term. The simple process supports the affiliate’s revenue and outreach while introducing students to the methodology.
The Student and Coach Experience
For students, the course experience begins with coaches meeting them where they are. General manager and coach Nathan Steele said some arrive confident because they have played sports or trained before, only to be “humbled a little bit” by the intensity. Others worry that they will not be able to perform a movement or that lifting will make them bulky. “My job as a coach is to help them feel comfortable first and then teach them where they can start pushing themselves,” Steele said. “I want them to trust me as their coach and understand that I’m there to help them get better and improve, not just to make them suffer through a workout.”
Confidence builds as students repeat workouts and recognize their own progress. “When students start noticing that they’re moving faster, getting fitter, and getting stronger, their confidence naturally grows,” Steele said. One student nearly left after being time-capped in his first workout. Steele asked him to commit to five classes before deciding. He stayed for the semester and then joined the affiliate. For Steele, the experience showed what can happen when an instructor meets a student at the right starting point and helps him see what he is capable of.
This beginner-focused setting can also make the difference between being curious about CrossFit and feeling ready to participate. One current student had attended other high-intensity interval training gyms but had never tried CrossFit. She expected something familiar and was surprised by both the intensity and the technical instruction. “CrossFit places a heavy emphasis on completing movements with proper form, which is not something I had anticipated going into it,” she said.
Learning alongside classmates also makes the experience less intimidating. “It would have been really scary to just jump into a regular CrossFit class where everyone already knew the terminology, what weights to use, and how to complete movements,” she said. Instead, coaches introduced movements step by step, and the small group of beginners made it easier to ask questions and learn. Now taking the course for a second semester, she brought two friends with her. “I think it is so cool to see how much you can improve in just one semester and how strong you feel after completing the challenging workouts,” she said.
A former student who later became a member described a similar shift that was experienced because of the unique infrastructure of the program. The academic component supplied accountability: because attendance affected her grade, she kept showing up on days when she might otherwise have skipped the gym. What remained after the semester was as social as it was physical. “It’s just an hour of my day, and it gets me moving my body and keeping it healthy, all while being around an amazing community,” the former student said. Her biggest takeaways were the friendships she made and the realization “that working out in a gym isn’t as scary as some people think.”
The program also focuses on tangible concepts. “I teach methodology and physiology through movement first, theory second,” Steele said. Instead of beginning with a lecture on energy systems, students might complete a short maximal-effort piece, a five-minute workout, and a 20-minute workout, then compare how duration and intensity shape the experience. Movement instruction is similarly connected across skills. Students learn how the hinge and hip drive in a Romanian deadlift carry into a hang power clean, or how the leg drive, lean, and pull of rowing relate to that same lift. Squatting variations reinforce that the basic pattern remains consistent even when the load changes position.
Benchmark workouts also become lessons in pacing and scaling. During “Cindy,” for example, students who begin too aggressively may discover why coaches encouraged them to break up pull-ups and push-ups early. Students who are uneasy about those movements learn how ring rows, body position, or push-ups from the knees can preserve sound mechanics and the intended stimulus. The goal is not simply to finish the prescribed version, but to understand how to make a workout appropriate and effective.
The result is a class that brings students from a wide range of backgrounds into a working affiliate. Not only to train and receive coaching, but to understand the CrossFit methodology itself. By the end of the semester, students know how to scale movements, manage intensity, and apply what they have learned long after the course ends.
A Pathway into Membership Coaching and Lasting Habits
For CrossFit on the Plains, the value extends beyond the course fee. The university program introduces a steady stream of students to the affiliate, and word of mouth carries the relationship across semesters and even generations. Some students are children of current or former members; others enroll after hearing about the course from siblings, relatives, or friends who took it previously.
Ard estimates that about one in five students either retakes the class or becomes an affiliate member. Some repeat the class even though they can earn academic credit only once; the program record is four semesters. The course has also become a coaching pipeline. One coach who recently left after graduating and beginning a full-time job first entered the gym through the university class. The new coach hired as a replacement followed the same path.
The one-in-five estimate captures only the students who remain visibly connected to CrossFit on the Plains. The program may also influence students who graduate, move away, or continue training elsewhere. A student who learns how to scale a workout, recognize sound movement instruction, or feel comfortable entering an affiliate carries that knowledge into the next community. In that sense, the course’s reach extends beyond Auburn and beyond the students who ultimately appear on the gym’s membership roster.
One of the program’s current goals is to connect with freshmen and sophomores; giving students time to repeat the course, join the affiliate, or deepen their involvement before leaving campus. Yet the program’s influence cannot be measured only by how many students eventually buy a membership. Its broader value is that it makes structured fitness easier to prioritize during a stage of life filled with competing demands.
“Let’s be honest, when young people are in college, they have many things taking up their time; everything from going to class, studying, Greek life, clubs and organizations, intramurals, sporting events, and socializing of all kinds can quickly take up most of their time. The college environment is not the easiest for prioritizing nutrition and fitness. By providing an accredited course that requires them to attend three days per week and work out to receive credit is a great incentive that can often be the catalyst for a fitness lifestyle maintained for years beyond their time on campus.”
For affiliate owners considering a similar partnership, the CrossFit on the Plains story offers a practical blueprint. Start with the department responsible for physical education or kinesiology. Understand how contract instruction works at that institution. Be prepared to explain what students will learn, not only what workouts they will complete, and make responsibilities for staffing, facilities, risk management, assessment, and fees easy for university leaders to understand.
Fifteen years after its first trial semester, CrossFit on the Plains has shown what can happen when an affiliate is treated as an educational setting as well as a gym. The program has introduced thousands of students to coached, scalable training and has produced members, repeat participants, and coaches. Most importantly, it has given college students a structured opportunity to make fitness part of their lives while lifelong habits are still taking shape.
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