Louie isn’t a crossfit trainer. After Rippetoe told Crossfit to shove off, somebody at Crossfit HQ hired Louie Simmons to do there powerlifting certs, i.e. Crossfit guys come to Louies gym to hear him talk about his training methods. Also, he trains a bunch of college athletes, wrestlers, and MMA fighters.
Louie’s gym is free to those invited to train there. He also pays his lifters for winning competitions. He has to pay the bills someway.
He had a ‘home’ model glute ham raise awhile ago, that was sold on TV informercials. He was in the commercials wearing a sweater that I hear are pretty funny, but nobody posted them.
Tate who Louie had about 20 years of coaching in and was pretty much responsible for turning into a high level powerlifter, left and started Elite which Louie got very little $$ from.
Now, Louie has stuff sold through Rogue fitness, which started as a Crossfit gym then starting selling equipment to the growing Crossfit market. They also have GSA contracts now and sell a lot of equipment to military bases/gyms that are starting Crossfit gyms like crazy. Its capitalizing on a very big market.
Additionally, the Crossfit games winner from this year just got a Reebok sponsorship and there is like a 10 year deal between Reebox and Crossfit HQ now. This is big bucks. The winner of the games this year got $25k from a Progenex sponsorship, and Progenex is a sham. Now, Reebok may put $100,000 on the line for next years game. Now we will have real athletes showing up for the games.
