As a competitor moves up the ranks, the experience they get from different competitions can vary drastically. At some competitions, the standard of the division matches really well with prior expectations and the qualification process. Whereas in a different competition, divisions are named the same as others, but it's a notch or two up or down when comparing. This difference can be very frustrating as an athlete and coach. It means that some competitions don't provide useful information to help...
Jul 07, 2025•29 min
Cheating in CrossFit has been around since the early days of the Open and online qualifiers. From athletes looping videos to some competitors being exposed year after year at Regionals, it's a persistent undercurrent in the sport. But how widespread is cheating and does it always happen intentionally? At one end of the spectrum, you have blatant rule-breaking, like switching out a medicine ball for a lighter one. At the other, you see more subtle infractions, such as a judge giving a warning for...
Jun 11, 2025•26 min
One of the classic clichés often repeated by coaches is that the best programme in the world, executed poorly, is far less effective than the worst programme executed well. While it’s true that a poorly designed programme can still be ineffective, there is merit in the idea that how you train matters more than what’s on paper. Teaching athletes how to train effectively and execute a programme to the best of their ability is one of the best leverage points for a coach. Much of this comes down to ...
May 18, 2025•26 min
One of the challenges in a highly varied sport like CrossFit is determining whether we’re actually improving. Once an athlete has accumulated a significant amount of training volume, the classic test-retest approach on isolated elements of the sport becomes less effective. We can spend weeks or even months working on a particular movement, only to struggle with it again when the context shifts slightly. Coaches can use tools such as variation, psychological momentum, and developing complementary...
May 07, 2025•27 min
Have you ever felt the urge to flip the table and completely change your training or someone else's programme? Maybe a few small competition experiences have made you feel like your training is heading in the wrong direction. Perhaps you're getting tired of working on the same things. Or maybe you want to change your training goal entirely. Whether you're making big changes to your training goals and what you train for, or you're shifting the direction and focus of your training while keeping th...
Apr 02, 2025•30 min
Having a formal education in sports science, kinesiology, or a similar field may seem beneficial for a CrossFit coach. However, you might end up learning a lot of technical information without any context or knowledge of how to apply it. Conversely, you may develop extensive coaching experience and navigate situations in the moment with ease but lack the technical knowledge or critical thinking skills to tackle more complex challenges. This week's episode is all about striking a balance between ...
Mar 10, 2025•28 min
When learning anything, it can be difficult to step back from the details, and this is especially true for CrossFit programming. Often, you'll find coaches who are highly focused on the means (the exercises, the sets and reps) rather than the methods (the programme, the desired stimulus, the weekly plan, etc.). As much as constructing a programme or workout based on the latest sports science information is considered the best approach, sometimes it doesn't hold up, and you need to rely on your o...
Mar 02, 2025•27 min
In the past couple of months, a new type of fitness competition has been generating a lot of anticipation. Headed by multiple-time CrossFit Games athlete Will Moorad, the World Fitness Project is entering the competitive landscape in a year when the CrossFit Games is undergoing its biggest changes yet. The competition consists of two tour events and a finals event at the end of 2025. There are 20 professionally signed male and female athletes, along with 10 challengers at each event. Additionall...
Feb 19, 2025•29 min
There are a few qualities in CrossFit that can be quite difficult to improve for certain people. It’s usually a mix of different problems that manifest in one or two specific styles of workouts in CrossFit. It’s not quite this, but not quite that, either. One of those qualities is moderate-weight barbell conditioning pieces—typically something like a 135/95 barbell performed for high reps with a lot of other movements included in the workout. It’s not a heavy barbell where strength is going to s...
Jan 20, 2025•26 min
Now that the Open is advancing significantly fewer athletes to the next stage of the CrossFit Games—online semi-finals—will we see athletes shifting their training to become more specialised? Looking at the numbers, only a very small number of athletes will make it into the top 1% of the Open. This means even the best of the best cannot afford a poor performance in any of the three weeks of competition. Given the constraints of needing to complete Open workouts in an affiliate —most likely able ...
Jan 13, 2025•24 min
With the recent announcements from CrossFit regarding changes to the 2025 season, some athletes are exploring alternative avenues for competition, placing less emphasis—if any at all—on the Open and the CrossFit Games season as a whole. While the top athletes in the sport excel in both in-person and online competitions, at the mid-tier and local level, the profile of athletes who perform well in online competitions often differs from those who thrive in local, in-person events. This disparity la...
Dec 19, 2024•25 min
In this episode, we dive into the upcoming 2025 CrossFit Games season, sharing our initial concerns about the increase of online stages. Recorded before the official details were released, this discussion reflects many of the common opinions circulating within the community about the new season. We talk about the logistical challenges faced by affiliates, the high potential for cheating, and how lower scores are impacting athlete qualifications. We also explore how these changes are affecting th...
Dec 03, 2024•35 min
One common issue for athletes with some experience in their sport is struggling with 1–2 specific movements in grunt-style conditioning workouts. Even after extensive effort to develop these movements, they can still be a weak point, especially in competition or qualifier workouts. How can we help athletes improve at these movements? Should we focus on mastery, or reframe progress by mitigating their impact in competition to make them less of a weakness? Adjusting technique can provide quick win...
Nov 20, 2024•29 min
For busy individuals competing in CrossFit, it’s rare to complete a training week exactly as planned. Sessions may be missed, accessory work moved, or entire training days shifted around. Athletes often worry that these adjustments will compromise their progress, especially those receiving individualised coaching. However, when asked if it’s okay to adjust training, our answer is almost always yes. The added stress of forcing a rigid training schedule usually outweighs any benefits of perfect se...
Nov 13, 2024•31 min
Ever taken time off from training and found getting back to it feels like an uphill battle? In this episode, we dive into some of these challenges of returning to CrossFit competition and training after a layoff. Luke reflects on jumping back into a team competition after a five-year break, and Todd shares his journey of rebuilding post-Achilles injury. We discuss the hurdles of getting reacquainted with volume and intensity, dealing with unexpected cramping, and how to develop durability and re...
Nov 05, 2024•30 min
In a varied sport like CrossFit, athletes often gravitate toward specific areas of focus, which can be influenced by their height and weight. Since weight is a changeable factor, some athletes set specific bodyweight goals. For example, some aim to lose weight to enhance bodyweight movements like pull-ups and handstand push-ups, while others seek to gain weight to increase strength in heavy lifts, particularly during off-season training. A crucial aspect of CrossFit is determining whether a weig...
Oct 27, 2024•26 min
Every athlete has probably experienced it at some point—hitting that wall in the middle of some mixed-modal intervals. One second, you're holding pace, and the next, it feels like everything falls apart. Bonking on mixed modal intervals is more common than when doing cyclical work because you don't have immediate feedback on paces from the machine. There is also a lag effect: You will likely push too hard on one movement but not feel it one or two movements later. In this episode, we take a clos...
Oct 08, 2024•23 min
There comes a stage in training where week-to-week progress grinds to a halt, and it is often met with feeling like you have regressed or are stuck. You can even stretch this timeline out, and it might feel like noticeable progress doesn't happen for months. This can be a difficult realisation to overcome, and it is a constant battle that challenges many athletes and coaches. But progress doesn't have to be measured by adding more weight to the bar or knocking off seconds on your interval split ...
Sep 12, 2024•23 min
For someone devoting themselves to the sport of CrossFit, the way they train and approach competition is pretty clear-cut. Similarly, for the person doing classes to be healthy and stay fit, the way you train is clear-cut. But for the person who wants to do local competition, treat CrossFit as a recreational sport, but isn't interested in overstretching themselves, it can be more challenging. It's this messy middle ground that can be hard for athletes and coaches to navigate. The sport of CrossF...
Aug 21, 2024•27 min
Continuing with our very timely podcast release schedule about this year's CrossFit Games season, this week's podcast features a recap of the semi-finals for one of Jon's athletes, Jacob Schmidt. This year, Jacob switched to individual competition after competing at the games for CrossFit Omnia's team in the last few years. Jacob's preparation was by no means a walk in the park. He had to get used to a different competition style, start training for a competition he didn't plan on doing and mana...
Jul 31, 2024•29 min
A little late on posting this topical podcast. Here are our thoughts on the quarter-finals penalties that happened this season. Jon experienced firsthand as a coach how these penalties were rolled out this year. Check out this episode where we discuss the events of this season, live versus in person competition as well as how these situations could be resolved in future years and competitions. If you're not already subscribed to our newsletter, head over to www.legionsc.com to get a weekly selec...
Jul 11, 2024•30 min
It is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture in the fitness and performance industry. There is a lot of misleading information that coaches and athletes have to sift through, which is difficult when the information is accurate most of the time. But do many of these claims move the needle and improve an athlete on the things that matter? Does doing a lot of zone two work help with CrossFit performance? Do certain mobility protocols help with recovery? In this podcast, we discuss developing skep...
Jun 26, 2024•29 min
This year's quarter-finals workouts were well received by the CrossFit community as a whole. Many enjoyed the simplicity of the workouts, which provided a good challenge for athletes of various levels. We saw workouts that were more compartmentalised than in previous years. There was less chaos, simpler skills, and no crushingly high volume of work on things like GHD sit-ups. The workouts this year actually present some useful retests and KPIs for athletes to use in their training. In this episo...
Jun 09, 2024•30 min
Qualifiers can be a stressful experience for athletes. The online leaderboard and the doubt created by not seeing other athletes perform all make for potentially neurotic self-comparison. With quarter-finals being much easier to qualify for, the open has less weight than in previous years. And now you're starting to see athletes say they are not interested in peaking for the open, who then get upset when they perform not to where they expected. Managing the psychology and framing expectations fo...
Apr 24, 2024•22 min
Often, when someone comes through the ranks of class workouts and starts to contemplate competing in CrossFit, they conjure up an image of their training having to dramatically change to "take it to the next level". In reality, they need to get more exposure to the sport and develop experience. Telling someone to do more of the sport can seem like a cop-out answer, but there is so much to work on and develop in CrossFit; it can take a few years to see where you need to focus your training. In th...
Apr 11, 2024•26 min
After a competition, athletes are usually keen to get to work and train for potential weaknesses highlighted in the competition. But often, this is too hasty, and it's wise to have a process figured out on how to approach the review and planning post-competition period. This week, we discuss some of our processes for reviewing an athlete's performance after a competition, reducing the noise, and clarifying what needs work. Do you follow what the leaderboard says or go off of the subjective exper...
Mar 14, 2024•25 min
Since Adrian Bozman has led the programming for the CrossFit Games, each season has seen more variety in the skills and movements involved. From the max sandbag to shoulder event at the games to learning cross-over single unders in class, everyone in the sport has felt this inclusion of new skills in some way. This shift in the programming pays homage to the roots of CrossFit, and acts as another variable to progressing the sport, as you can only increase weights and volume to a certain extent. ...
Feb 08, 2024•25 min
In a data-heavy sport like CrossFit, it can be pretty easy for athletes to get overwhelmed when setting goals. You have your placings in the open and other competitions and your training numbers. We don't have much control over leaderboards and tend to overestimate what we can achieve in our training when increasing numbers. In this episode, we talk about goal setting for CrossFit, how it can be easy to get overly invested in the open and why competing can help you enjoy your training and give y...
Jan 24, 2024•32 min
Recently, CrossFit announced a price increase for the yearly affiliation fee and that you must also hold a CrossFit Level 2 qualification to open an affiliate. This episode is a topical one, where we talk about the value of the CrossFit name now, whether the price increase is warranted and whether this is acting as a filter to elevate the brand name of CrossFit. If you're not already subscribed to our newsletter, head over to www.legionsc.com to get a weekly selection of training tips and our fa...
Jan 10, 2024•33 min
Since the first CrossFit Games, there have been certain trends that athletes have adopted to excel in the sport. There have always been those athletes who do well under the direction of a coach and others who might be more independent or even train with a group of fellow competitors. But as the sport grows and coaching businesses grow with it, you're starting to see a lot of athletes training under a training camp model. You're even finding that many of the best athletes from years past are head...
Dec 31, 2023•27 min
