First: What It Takes to Win

by Rich Froning, David Thomas, Sean Pratt (Narrator)

Reigning CrossFit World Champion Rich Froning is "The Fittest Man on Earth." He's fast, he's strong, and he's incredibly disciplined. But it takes more than physical strength to compete and win at an elite level. It takes incredible mental and spiritual toughness as well. And it is the precise balance of all three that makes Rich Froning a champion.In First, listeners follow Rich as he trains for and competes in back-to-back CrossFit World Championships. Along the way, Rich shares invaluable training tips, motivational techniques, and spiritual insights that, in keeping with the CrossFit philosophy, will prepare you to respond to any real-life physical, mental, or spiritual challenge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sports, Biography, Fitness, Memoir, Health, Biography Memoir

7 pages, Audio CD

First published June 1, 2013

Reviews

[lucie · Rating 3 out of 5]

'It's about the community.'

Obviously, Rich Froning is one of the best crossfit athletes in the world and his book is truly inspirational and motivational. It was interesting to read about his mindset and see how he approaches this sport.
Loved the inside look to the crossfit games, which I know only from youtube videos.

[Charlie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have an enormous amount of respect for Rich Froning and his crossfit accomplishments, so it was very hard to give this book a poor rating.
Unfortunately it was poorly written, and not very entertaining at all. It took a few odd turns as well. I'm a crossfit fanatic, and a Froning fan, but I'm going to have to say pass on this one.

[Keegan Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful example of how to pursue the thing you’re passionate about with a high level of intensity while also making that passion your platform for ministry. It sheds a light on the importance of your “why” as an elite athlete, or anyone else for that matter. It is also a great picture of incredible work ethic and grit.

[Janis Knecht · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are looking for a well written novel, this isn't it. It's written as if Rich was speaking. An easy read and good insight into CrossFit. The book is in 2-3 star area. If Mr. Froning put as much effort into writing a compelling and colorful story as he does into his multiple daily workouts, it would likely come out with a higher rating.

[Shelby Kenville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an awesome book. I loved learning about how Rich got started and how his main focus is to glorify God in all that he does. He has been my inspiration for making CrossFit my greatest ministry took. Rich isn't an author, but this book kept me enthralled. He was able to recall every detail of his competitions and it felt like I was sitting there watching him. Great job Rich, and God bless.

[cellomerl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another “what makes me tick” book by a CrossFit athlete. Not just any CrossFit athlete, but Rich Froning. A natural athlete also bearing the gift of very good looks, he gets a lot of understandable attention, but he’s aware that fitness isn’t the whole story in life, is dedicated to his faith, and he works very hard to stay humble.
I admire these champion CrossFit athletes, Their high work ethic and remarkable achievements are astounding. The workouts are obnoxious, even for someone like me who isn’t a stranger to competitive sport. Reading a book like this makes me feel inspired and tired at the same time.
Audiobook, read by a narrator. The narrator did a fine job but as always I like to hear a book read by its author when possible. I’ve never heard Rich Froning speak…maybe he sounds like Elmer Fudd.

[Tyler King · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book! Rich Froning is the champion of the Crossfit Games four years in a row. He explains his ups and downs of his career and just how he kept going on his journey to be....First!

[Val ⚓️ Shameless Handmaiden ⚓️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 to 3.5 Stars

More later

[Ron S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Crossfit'n for Jesus,
Crossfit'n for Jesus,
Makin' all my lifts...

The Crossfit icon details his rise in the sport, along with his Christian faith.

[Adam Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!! Loved Rich's thoughts about his spiritual journey and how he ties it into his Crossfit journey. It is a motivational and encouraging book.

[John Poulain · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this for free and didn't really think about the context of it. The book was written whilst Froning still competed so the nuance of his training methods are vaguely recounted "In "Go Time" I'll work out 5 times a day six days a week. Doing Olympic lifting 5 times a week and metabolic conditioning 6 times a week." and don't really match up to Fraser's book or anything else coming from the fitness world. The book wants to speak mostly about Froning's Faith and relationship with God, including a Bible Study WOD which seems a bit odd. For a short book there's not much in there on his competitive career other than rehashing a lot of parts that were covered in the Games Documentaries (including the oft mentioned Rope story)

Partway towards the end he states "I support my kids on Crossfit and the risk of PEDs would be massive. Steroids wouldn't help with crossfit as they would make you too bulky and throw off your balance." And whilst he days EPO might be helpful afterwards it seems a bit odd that someone as into sports and fitness as he is wouldn't see any benefit in using steroids for a strength cycle before lowering his weight on a subsequent cycle. If true that he's never done any drugs (legal, recreational, prescribed or PEDs) imagine what he could achieve on a bit of gear!

In the middle the book states "I feared people would know me more for Crossfit than anything else. That was not the legacy I wanted to leave and I wanted to correct that. That's where the bible study started.  I started Matthew and then with the other Gospels and then the rest of the New Testament." And I feel if that had been the beginning I'd probably have switched off, but if developing faith is the point of the book why wouldn't it start that way?

[Nuralia Mazlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an easy read but it's not a book I would reccommend. The book centres a lot on his faith and while I am usually tolerant of others' faith, I had to skip quite a lot of pages on his faith - it feels like reading a book on bible interpretation at times. I do understand how this could appeal to people whose faith is so tightly intertwined in every aspect of their lives but as for me, this book is an easy finish but it's a difficult comprehension. I would pass, there are other books about athletes that would catch your attention more than this one - Chrissie Wellington's A Life Without Limit is a more in depth read if you want to understand how an athlete find their grit, mental power, and willingness to perform at a competitive standard.

[Judah Cofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rich is awesome! Loved reading his story and thoughts.

[Annabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good insight into fitness, and Rich's journey as an athlete. Very humble, an easy read.

[beno hwang · Rating 5 out of 5]

an easy read. i really enjoyed having that view from the competition floor thru rich's stories. in general, this book was very inspirational.

[Kimball · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Dang it, he didn't narrate it. Minus half a star, Rich! You got your priorities wrong if you can't narrate your own audiobook. I picked up this book without knowing a thing about him or how famous he was at CrossFit. I think he jumped the gun like Lindsay Stirling by publishing a memoir way too dang early in life. Especially since he won two more CrossFit games after this. But maybe if read in it's time it would have been valuable.

I'm not that big of a CrossFit fan, primarily because I hate CrossFitters (on a related note I hate cat owners more than cats themselves or I hate Apple owners more than the Apple devices themselves) But These guys are strong. Can't believe he increased his snatch to over 300 pounds in just a few short years. Too bad this sport is a young man's game more so than any other.

He's pretty religious. Like Tim Tebow religious. And I think he should have joined the Navy and been a SEAL. I wonder what he does now with his life since CrossFit athletes peak early and retire early. It's not an old person's game like other sports.

At least this book helped me realize I don't want to be a fireman anymore (even though I hate firemen but I envy their day on two days off schedule. On that note, though, his excuse of firefighters being away from their home 4 months out of the year is invalid because any job you have you're away from your home for 4 months out of the year, it doesn't matter if it's 8 hours of a day shift or doing a 24 hour shift.

In the morning he works out for an hour or 2 then another workout in the mid-day. He doesn't go full speed though.

There's always a cost to consider for being better in a particular area. Like running for an hour will take away from other physical activities you could be working on.

I wish I could recommend this to Talmage but he'll never get around to reading it.

[Joshua Southard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been a fan of CrossFit for quite some time. I discovered it back in college when it was brand new. I have been able to watch a lot of the events described in this book first-hand. I’ve always been a fan of Rich Froning. He’s a great champion. He dominates, but never by belittling others. He wrote this book after winning the CrossFit games twice, but since then he’s won the Games Six more times (that’s 4 individual titles and 4 Teams titles). This book covers his youth and his development into the legend he is today. He describes his crucial failure in 2010 at the CrossFit Games where he finished second overall and was forced to reevaluate his priorities. This quote sums up the book: “People want to know what has enabled me to win back-to-back Games. The answer is simple: my faith.” After he failed in 2010, Rich reevaluated his priorities and motivations. By focusing on his faith, he was freed from a lot of the pressure to win. The Foreword of the book is written by Dave Castro - the head torture mind of the CrossFit games. His final lines seem prophetic and indeed have proven very true: “The next few years are going to bring more growth for the sport and more fame for Rich. He is a star, and his star is going to shine brighter and brighter. But Rich will stay the same: true to himself, true to his fans, true to his family, and true to his faith. Rich Froning is the most powerful Crossfit athlete I know.” 


I recommend this book to anyone interested in CrossFit and anyone seeking a good example of living their beliefs with courage and integrity. 
(Rated PG, Score 7/10, Paperback, 282p) 

[Thai Son · Rating 4 out of 5]

32/73
By the time What It Takes to Win was published in 2013, Rich Froning Jr. had already become the defining figure of CrossFit's formative years. Four consecutive CrossFit Games titles (2011–2014) would cement him as the sport's first dynasty, but the autobiography captures something arguably more significant than athletic achievement: it documents the moral imagination of early CrossFit. Froning is presented not simply as an exceptional competitor, but as an ordinary working-class American whose faith, work ethic, humility, and relentless discipline produce extraordinary results. As I was reading through a somewhat anthropological lens, the book works doubly as cultural artifact of an emerging fitness movement searching for its ideal hero as it does a memoir.

One useful framework for understanding Froning's narrative is the tradition of Muscular Christianity, a nineteenth-century Protestant movement associated with figures such as Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley. Muscular Christianity argued that physical strength, athletic competition, and disciplined labor were not distractions from religious life but expressions of moral virtue. The healthy male body became evidence of character: courage, self-control, sacrifice, and service to God were cultivated through physical hardship. Although separated by more than a century, Froning's worldview reproduces many of these assumptions almost instinctively. Success is never portrayed as the consequence of superior genetics alone. Instead, victory emerges through disciplined routines, humble acceptance of suffering, unwavering faith, and an almost ascetic commitment to daily work.

The body therefore becomes morally legible. Froning repeatedly resists celebrating himself as uniquely gifted, instead attributing success to divine purpose and personal responsibility. This rhetorical move matters because it transforms athletic excellence into something accessible rather than unattainable. If greatness is fundamentally moral rather than biological, then anyone willing to embrace the same virtues can participate in the project. CrossFit consequently appears not merely as a training methodology but as a community organized around shared ethical commitments. Workouts function almost ritualistically, producing solidarity through collective suffering and mutual accountability.

This helps explain why CrossFit expanded with remarkable speed during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The movement emerged at a moment when many commercial gyms had become anonymous spaces centered on isolated machine training and aesthetic bodybuilding. CrossFit offered something radically different: measurable performance, small communities, public competition, and a vocabulary celebrating functionality over appearance. More importantly, it provided identity. Joining an affiliate often meant adopting new dietary practices, learning specialized terminology, participating in local competitions, and becoming embedded within a close-knit social network. Anthropologically, this resembles the formation of what scholars would call a lifestyle community rather than simply consumer participation in a fitness program.

Froning's autobiography captures precisely this first generation of believers. His rise predates CrossFit's transformation into a global fitness industry populated by corporate sponsorships, international affiliates, streaming broadcasts, and professional athletes. The early Games possessed an almost amateur quality: competitors frequently maintained full-time jobs, prize money was modest, and the culture retained the intimacy of an enthusiast subculture. Froning himself embodied these values. He worked as a firefighter, maintained an unpretentious public persona, emphasized faith over fame, and appeared largely indifferent to celebrity despite becoming the sport's most recognizable figure. In this sense, he represents what innovation theorists might identify as the movement's earliest committed adopters, the community that embraced CrossFit before its legitimacy had been established.

Only later would CrossFit successfully cross into mainstream global markets. As affiliates spread internationally, equipment manufacturers standardized products, documentaries introduced millions to the Games, and social media amplified elite athletes into global influencers, the movement gradually evolved from a niche fitness experiment into a recognizable international sport. Yet Froning's image remained central because it embodied the founding mythology. Even as CrossFit professionalized, it continued to celebrate authenticity, humility, and hard work over glamour. His biography became part of the movement's origin story, offering members a shared narrative about what CrossFit was supposed to represent before commercialization inevitably complicated that identity.

The book's limitations emerge from the same qualities that make it culturally significant. Froning spends relatively little time interrogating structural factors behind his success. Questions of economics, sponsorship, institutional growth, media production, or the commercialization of fitness remain largely absent. Instead, virtually every achievement is interpreted through the lens of individual discipline and religious faith. This perspective is internally coherent but reflects a distinctly American moral framework in which personal responsibility often eclipses broader social analysis. Readers looking for critical reflections on CrossFit's business model, controversies surrounding injury rates, or debates about inclusivity will find little engagement.

As autobiography, What It Takes to Win is competent but conventional. But of course, as a sort of autoethnography the text is very interesting. Froning unintentionally documents the values, rituals, and symbolic universe of early CrossFit at the precise moment the movement was evolving from passionate niche subculture into an international phenomenon. His story illustrates how successful fitness movements rarely spread because of exercise science alone. They succeed because they offer compelling moral narratives about identity, belonging, and the kind of person one becomes through disciplined participation. In that respect, Froning was not merely CrossFit's first champion. He became its first cultural archetype.

[Howard Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uplifting to hear from a successful athlete about his faith. Thank you for sharing Mr Froning.

[Joel Maust · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most compelling read but still ok. It’s a pretty straightforward narrative or Rich’s quick ascension in CrossFit and first three Games seasons. As a CrossFitter that really enjoys following the pro side of the sport, it was interesting to read the commentary and see some glimpses behind the scenes. It was more biographical than I expected based on the subtitle. He models what it took for him to win throughout but doesn’t really spell out “what it takes to win” until the final chapter. Non-Christians will find his council cliche and even I as a Christian found it a bit trite. But it’s Rich’s journey and truth to share and not for me to judge. It’s his relationship and walk with God and I highly respect all he’s accomplished in his priority areas of faith, family and fitness. Can’t argue with the fruit of his life, especially seeing how much influence and legacy he has established now 10 years later.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As an avid CrossFitter and one with a deep respect and admiration for Rich Froning, I loved the insight into Rich the son, father, husband and coach. I especially enjoyed the details of his struggle to determine his purpose and his stories regarding his faith. Yet, the book is written at a very basic level, presumably to be attainable to a wider audience. If the prose were a bit more colorful, it would have been a 4 star-since I rarely give 5. If you are into CrossFit or just interested in the sport, it's a must read. Rich had challenges with some basic CrossFit skills and his method of tackling them was definitely inspirational and shows that even the 4 time champ works his butt off in the box.

[Jaci Gehling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been a fan of Rich for the past 12 years so I have been wanting to read this book. My library doesn’t have it so I used some no-rush credits on Amazon to purchase the Kindle version. After I downloaded it, I was so disappointed when I realized it was written in 2013. So much has happened since then in Rich’s life. I pretty much knew most of what this book was about but it was nice to learn a little more about his childhood and his thoughts about different workouts in the 2010-2012 CF Games. I love that he talked about his faith so much. Critics say that the book isn’t well written and I would agree with that but it didn’t bother me. It sounds exactly like Rich talks and I don’t mind that in a memoir.

[Paul Amerigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a two-time CrossFit champion then this is the book to read. Rich Froning Jr. could have been a three-time CrossFit champion if he had known how to climb a rope with his legs. What this book reveals however is how that rope challenge served as a kind of personal Rubicon for the author and how that weakness led to many changes in his life. A very interesting read on how faith and hard work worked together for a CrossFitter like Rich.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I am a card-carrying crossfitter. So, yes, I quite liked this.

His background and the crossfit games birds-eye stuff was great. Likable, hardworking, crazy-talented individual.

He has a lot in there on his faith and how it relates to his crossfitting. I have a difficult time relating to that perspective, but I understand his better now.

Maybe I will get a tattoo as well.

[Taylor Sherrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich is a normal guy. I relate to him in that sense. He does extraordinary things but at his core he is a man who sweats blood and tears to get what he gets. Love his premise of Faith is what brings out the winner. Not because you ask God to make you a winner but because through a relationship with Him you become a winner by default, not always in a way that you intended however. You are a winner in the way God wants to use you.

[Helfren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just starting to read about this book on first: how to win. This book has a very interesting title and my opinion before reading I am probably learn something about the psycholgoy of winning . Can't wait.

[Gabriel Takács · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book which took me inside fascinating Rich's life and Crossfit experience and showed how it looks like at Crossfit Games.

[Vanessa Pfaff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very happy to have cross with Rich story. I loved every single minute I spent in his book.

[Taylor Jaeger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick, easy read.

[James Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have never heard about rich droning or followed his this book is great to learn from the beginning his background and where he came from.