Balancing risk and self-care: A model of health behaviour decisions in CrossFit

Athlete health behaviour requires athletes to negotiate risk and self-care, yet remains under-theorised from a multi-dimensional perspective of health. Within debates on risk, pain and injury in sport, this study examines how athletes interpret and negotiate health-related risk in CrossFit. CrossFit offers a useful sociological setting because it combines opportunities to train through pain with physical, psychological and social harms as well as benefits across recreational and competitive participation. A sequential mixed-methods design, informed by critical realism, combined a survey ( n = 198) using validated measures of injury and illness responses, athletic identity, social pressure, demographics and training characteristics, with 20 semi-structured interviews exploring training through injury and illness, self-care, health impacts and support needs. Athlete health behaviour is best understood as a configurational trade-off across physical, psychological and social well-being, shaped by motivation, sporting sub-culture, sport-specific affordances and trust in medical guidance. The study advances the sociology of risk, pain and injury by positioning health trade-offs as a central mechanism and by proposing a model that extends existing accounts of cultures of risk.