"If a hurricane that wreaks havoc on a whole town can be Fran, so can a workout."

In this video shot at several CrossFit 101 seminars, Coach Greg Glassman talks about the birth of one of CrossFit's best-known and most challenging workouts: Fran.

As a young athlete, Coach believed training with weights would help him become a better gymnast. When three sets of eight lateral raises with a Ted Williams weightlifting set didn't replicate the feeling produced by a two-minute routine on the rings or parallel bars, Coach had to get creative. After coming up with and self-testing a workout involving three rounds of 21, 15 and 9 thrusters and pull-ups, Coach promptly threw up—but he knew he had found something that would make him better at his sport.

From there, Coach invited a friend to try the workout (with similar results), and a few decades later the WOD is still challenging CrossFitters around the world.