The future of CrossFit

Here's a quick summary

1. In the future, the smartest CrossFit competitive athletes will basically be Olympic weightlifters with excellent work capacity.
2. CrossFit athletes should focus on strength. No one wins competitions with bodyweight exercises.
3. CrossFitters should work on their strength and technique and keep their misses at 10% or below. The fewer misses you make, the more stable your technique will be under stressful conditions.
4. They need to use the correct maximum weight when planning their weights. When planning your weights, you should start with a weight that you can do 7 or 8 times out of 10.
5. CrossFitters should ditch your mindset that focuses on personal bests, you need to ditch scoreboards, AMARAPs and time caps.
6. In the future, the best CrossFit athletes will be those who plan their workouts, push themselves hard at the right times, resist the urge to exceed their recovery capabilities and use supplements wisely.

CrossFit training is growing up

I work with a lot of advanced CrossFit competitors. In fact, these are the athletes I enjoy training the most. They work the hardest and, contrary to what most people believe, are the biggest overachievers when it comes to technique.

CrossFit is evolving as a sport and the training is slowly catching up. As you probably guessed correctly, the best competitors at the CrossFit Games don't just perform the daily WOD handed to them from CrossFit Headquarters.

To be good, you have to excel at the Olympic weightlifting exercises

No one wins with their bodyweight exercise skills. Even though being really bad at bodyweight exercises can prevent you from winning, even if you are excellent at those exercises, you won't win a flower pot if you are weak at the heavy exercises.

There have been a few CrossFit competitive athletes in the past who have done abnormally well in the deadlift and clean and jerk or snatch at 90 kilos or more, but today you have tons of girls doing 85 kilos or more in the snatch and 115 kilos or more in the deadlift and press.

As for men, there were once people who thought Froning was an alien because he could snatch 135 kilos, but today you can't even qualify for the CrossFit Games if you can't snatch at least 130 kilos. There are even some CrossFit athletes who can do 185 kilos on the deadlift and press!

Keep the following in mind:

• There is always some form of ladder training that you can use to work your way up to super heavy weights at all major CrossFit competitions. In most cases, this is a variation of the Olympic weightlifting exercises.
• Variations of the Olympic weightlifting exercises are being incorporated into more and more competition WODs and today much heavier weights are being used than in the past.
• The competition is so close that every second counts. You need brilliant technique more than ever, as every failed repetition can mean dropping 2-3 places.

As a result, a large part of your training should be spent on the Olympic weightlifting exercises. For example, I have the athletes I work with train the Olympic weightlifting exercises two to three times a week and they also train these exercises on their own to a certain extent on one or two days.

Add to this the fact that many high level CrossFit competitive athletes were former elite weightlifters (Matt Fraser and Lauren Fisher, for example).

In fact, in a couple weeks I'll be taking some of my CrossFit athletes to a weightlifting competition to qualify them for Nationals. Some of these should make it.

In the future, the smartest CrossFit competitors will basically be Olympic weightlifters with excellent work capacity, as they will be training a lot like high level weightlifters, plus doing metabolic conditioning and working on their technical skills. We will also see more and more athletes competing in both CrossFit Championships and Weightlifting Championships.

As far as Olympic weightlifting exercises are concerned, the following requirements are crucial:

1 - You must have excellent technique

The level of technique you see in elite competitors today is beyond anything you've seen in any other athlete - except perhaps weightlifters. Don't judge their technique based on what they do in competition WODs, because even Klokov and Ilyin would look like they are using poor technique if they were performing a competition WOD.

It's natural for technique to deteriorate in places during a competitive WOD. All well and good, but if you had poor technique to begin with, it would become terrible during a WOD! If, on the other hand, you have excellent technique, then you will maintain decent form even under time pressure.

2 - You must have an 'automatic' technique

The more stable your technique is, the less likely you are to fail to complete reps cleanly, which can cost you valuable time during a WOD. And the only way to achieve this kind of solid technique is to improve your strength skills. To achieve this, you need to train the exercises frequently with good form.

3 - You need to learn how to use your legs properly

CrossFit is "pull-dominant" when it comes to the lower body. Deadlifts, kettlebell swings and the like train the hip hinge mechanism and as a result, this becomes the primary weightlifting strategy of CrossFit competitive athletes.

As a result, they often push the bar away from their body using their hips and lack precision when it comes to where the barbell lands. They need to learn to move the bar up from the floor close to their body using their legs and not their back.

And then they need to learn how to open up their torso as they move the bar up close to their thighs to get into a position where they can explode upward using their legs instead of forward with their hips.

The hip joint should mainly be used to get the bar in the right position to use the legs properly, but the thighs should be responsible for the actual explosive movement upwards.

4 - You need to work on technique and strength

You won't achieve this by using maximum weights every day or trying to set personal bests, which is common in CrossFit circles. In competitive weightlifting, everyone knows that you develop your quality of exercise execution (technique and strength) by doing a lot of volume with 75 to 85% of your 1RM weight.

Yes, it's important to use heavier weights than this, but most of your work should be done in the 75 to 85% range with sets of 3 reps.

You're probably thinking, "Yeah, but Bulgarian weightlifters go to their max every day!" or "Pat Mendes on YouTube always goes to his daily max."

Well, you are neither a Bulgarian weightlifter nor an advanced strength athlete. Once you have developed world-class technique and technical stability regardless of weight, then you can start talking about the Bulgarians. Until then, focus on what works to develop both technique and strength.

5 - You need to work on making fewer misses

Even in the field of weightlifting, this is a hotly debated topic. There's the "Bulgarian" school of thought, where a weightlifter attempts a maximum weight several times a week - and sometimes even every day. They allow a weightlifter up to 6 failed attempts at a given weight. If they don't make it after 6 attempts, they stop.

Then there are the Russian and Chinese schools, where it seems there is never - or very rarely - a miss during training.

I'm on the side of the second group. I used to belong to the first school of thought - I trained super heavy all the time and allowed myself up to 6 misses - and wasn't particularly good as a weightlifter. I was strong (280 kilos on squats, 220 kilos on front squats), but I had inconsistent technique.

If I had known then what I know now, I could have achieved a lot more. But being a bad weightlifter also helped me to become a good trainer.

So you should rarely make a mistake in training - especially during the development phase. Failures will probably happen, but you need to keep the number of failures to 10% or less.

The fewer misses you have, the more confidence you will have and the more stable your technique will be under stressful conditions.

6 - You must use the correct maximum weight when planning your weights

CrossFitters base everything on their personal records. This is a mistake for athletes who do not yet have a stable technique.

When planning your weights, you should start with a weight that you can do every week without any special preparation - a weight that you can do on at least seven to eight attempts out of ten.

7 - You need to drop the mindset that focuses on personal bests

When it comes to Olympic weightlifting exercises and basic strength exercises, everything seems to revolve around personal bests.

This is not surprising. It goes hand in hand with an obsession with achieving the best time, completing the most reps and being the fastest. Chasing personal bests is to weightlifting what WODs, where you go all out, are to metabolic conditioning.

You are preparing for a personal best. You train for it. You develop an optimal technique to perform your personal best efficiently. Chasing a personal best is like trying to learn by just taking tests.

A personal best should come naturally. With proper technique, there will come a point where your technique is so efficient and your muscles are so much stronger that a personal best will come naturally.

Trying to set personal bests when your technique is not stable is just plain stupid. If you can't maintain the same technique during these attempts as you do during your regular training, then you're not ready.

To be good you need to focus on strength development

How strong do you need to be? The answer to this question will always be "stronger than you are now". I don't see a limit when it comes to how strong you should get if you want to compete in CrossFit competitions.

Of course, you won't get as strong as the top powerlifters who specialize exclusively in strength, but you should try to get as strong as you can get. To be a strong CrossFit competitor you should be able to move 70% of the maximum weights of raw powerlifters.

For example, let's take the average CrossFit competitor who weighs between 88 and 92 kilos. The raw powerlifting records in the 90 kilo weight class are as follows:

• 341 kilo squat by Jesse Norris
• 257 kilo bench press by Larry Danaher
• 395 kilo deadlift by Andrey Belyaev

So an elite CrossFit competitor should be able to lift something along the lines of 238 kilos for squats, 180 kilos for bench presses and 277 kilos for deadlifts.

Based on these weights, we can also estimate the weights for some other exercises:

• Front squats: 175 kilos
• Standing shoulder press: 107 kilos
• Push press: 138 kilos

Do all high level CrossFit athletes have elite strength levels? No. And not all of them have a balanced strength distribution, but these are good goals to aim for. If you achieve them, then your strength will never be a limiting factor for anything you do during your training or during a competition.

Still, we have to ask ourselves the obvious question: Why do CrossFit competitive athletes need to be so strong?

1. Competition WODs include more and more heavy exercises.
2. The stronger you are, the proportionally easier the WODs will be for you.

Performing 20 repetitions of deadlifts at 125 kilos is much easier when your maximum weight is 250 kilos than when it is 150 kilos.

The stronger you are, the greater your potential in Olympic weightlifting exercises

Being strong is no guarantee of achieving good results in the Olympic weightlifting exercises. I know a lot of guys who can deadlift almost 275 kilos but can't snatch more than 100 kilos.

However, if you have a high reserve of strength, this will allow you to achieve better results once you have mastered the technique of Olympic weightlifting.

Another factor is that you won't develop elite strength levels just by performing WODs. And even if you train the Olympic weightlifting exercises often, they alone will not develop elite strength. To get strong, you need to do strength training!

Karim El Hlimi and Roch Proteau - who competed in the CrossFit Games - are two excellent CrossFit coaches I work with and they schedule strength training 3 to 4 days a week. They don't use a particularly high volume because CrossFit athletes already spend a lot of time doing other things like technique training and metabolic conditioning.

They usually perform 1 or 2 strength exercises per training session. If they do two, they do it in an alternating fashion. And they usually perform 4 to 6 sets.

My athletes will do 1 to 2 strength exercises after their Olympic weightlifting workouts. We usually focus on front squats and deadlifts or snatch deadlifts, but if someone has very unbalanced strength levels, then that person should probably put more energy into improving their weak points.

To be good, you have to give up a few things

The root of most of the problems associated with CrossFit are related to the scoreboard or scoreboard mentality. Sadly, this is one of the things that made CrossFit great.

A training session is designed to build your body, your skills and your physical capacity, not to test yourself. Can you improve by testing yourself in the gym? Sure! But if you do this all the time, you'll increase your risk of injury, overstretch your recovery abilities and hit a wall pretty soon in terms of your progress.

Training should be demanding, but it must remain within your recovery capacities, otherwise you will have problems and positive adaptations will turn into negative adaptations (stagnation or even regression).

Roch Proteau, who has participated in the CrossFit Games both as an individual athlete and as a team athlete and who trains a large number of competitors at a high level, told me that his athletes usually train at around 8/10 or even just 7/10 on the perceived exertion scale.

They occasionally go up to 9/10, which is close to their limit, but not to a point where their technique starts to deteriorate.

His athletes are given a workload to complete. If it's a WOD, they have to do it fast, but there's no time limit and the emphasis is not on getting the best time, but on doing the exercises as well as possible while challenging the right energy system.

There is no scoreboard in his studio where athletes write down their WOD points.

Ignore the scoreboard!

The scoreboard is a big reason why CrossFit has become so popular: people like to compare themselves to others and impress others.

Some get an extra boost of motivation from knowing that others will see what they have done. They don't want to look bad, so they work extra hard to achieve a good time. The scoreboard also gives people the feeling that they are competitive athletes, which is something that attracts a lot of people.

But what started out as a good thing in theory has led to more problems than benefits.

If there's a scoreboard, then everyone can see what you've done and how you compare to others. You will therefore tend to train as quickly as possible - often at the expense of effectiveness and safe technique.

When the main goal is to be fast, people tend to take "technical shortcuts". Even at the CrossFit Games, you won't always see perfect technique, but that's okay - it's a competition after all.

Criticizing an athlete at the CrossFit Games for their technique on power cleans during a competitive WOD is the same as criticizing an NFL running back for not showing perfect sprint mechanics during a run.

The first step is to get rid of the scoreboard. Then you have to change your mentality. When you're in the gym, you're training, not competing. No athlete in the world trains with the same intensity as they do during a competition.

You can have a short training phase during which you give it your all. Usually 2 or 3 weeks in a 12 week cycle should be weeks where you go all out (not always back-to-back), but 9 to 10 of those weeks should be used to improve your physical capacity and skills. Focus on quality.

By going all out all the time, you not only risk injury and developing bad motor habits, but you also increase the risk of exceeding your recovery capacity. And if this happens, your performance, motivation and well-being will suffer.

No AMRAPs

For the same reasons, I believe that AMRAPs (As Many Reps/Rounds As Possible) should be avoided within a given period during regular training and only used if you want to test yourself.

AMRAPs have the same effect as a scoreboard. They will make you focus on your "points" rather than on the best possible training effect and the quality of exercise execution.

To be good, you need to supplement wisely

I've spent a lot of time in CrossFit gyms and one thing that always fascinates me is the amount of supplement doses these athletes carry around in their training bags. This is especially true for competitive athletes who are desperate for an edge over the competition.

Sadly, most are using supplements that are ineffective (especially in terms of their specific goal) or suboptimal, if not counterproductive. CrossFit athletes seem to have fallen in love with their pre-WOD formula. They use formulas that are rich in stimulants and hope that these will give them an edge during their WODs.

I have nothing against the occasional use of stimulants. However, I prefer to use supplements that affect the nervous system in a more precise way - increasing or improving focus, confidence, coordination, etc.

Pure stimulants like energy drinks should be used as an occasional tool when you are lacking energy. They should not be part of your daily program.

Instead of focusing on getting high, CrossFitters need to focus on actual training nutrition.

Training nutrition to maximize recovery

Optimizing your nutrition before, during and after training is the most important thing you can do to maximize your gains.

If you have the right nutrients in your body when you train, this will maximize the transport of nutrients to the muscles that are actually being stimulated. Not only will this increase your gains, but it will also help your body recover much faster after training, which will allow you to train harder and more often.

A big problem with CrossFit training is that people tend to push the limits of their body's ability to recover. This is especially true for competitive athletes who need to maximize many different physical capacities and abilities.

If you take the right nutrients before, during and after training in the form of smart supplementation, you will recover faster and be able to handle a higher training load without suffering from a decline in performance.

If you can train more and harder without exceeding your recovery capacity, you will make faster progress.

Supplements are there to address a specific problem. Don't let yourself be emotionally seduced, let yourself be intellectually convinced.

An evolving sport

In a nutshell, here are the keys to becoming a good CrossFit athlete:

1. Be good at the Olympic weightlifting exercises. You can achieve this by training like a weightlifter instead of performing the exercises during a WOD.
2. Be strong.
3. Forget the scoreboard. Training is not a test.
4. Supplement wisely. Focus on your training nutrition
5. Have solid bodyweight exercise skills.
6. Have good basic aerobic capacity.
7. Have very high anaerobic capacity and power.
8. Develop physical capacity without the need for a strong athletic ability component. Want to build strength? Train heavy with the big basic exercises. Want to improve your anaerobic capacity? Work hard with the weight sled, farmer's walks, rowing ergometer or airdyne bike.
9. Do more general training the further away your competition is. This means that you should focus on training the basic capacities (strength, aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity) and skills (weightlifting exercises and bodyweight exercises) for yourself and try to get them to the highest level possible.

As you approach your competition, you will start to incorporate more specific training into your training program. This means combining different elements in the form of complexes.

Initially this may mean performing supersets/complexes of strength exercises with an athletic skill or performing a complex of a strength exercise and an athletic skill exercise together with a metabolic conditioning exercise.

In the future, the best athletes will be the athletes who train like athletes - who plan their training correctly, push themselves hard when it's time, resist the urge to exceed their recovery capacity (fatigue masks fitness) and use supplements intelligently.

By Christian Thibaudeau

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/future-of-crossfit-training