Developing Athleticism Revisited

[whooshing sound] As I think about skill limitations for the CrossFit athlete, there's sort of three different demographics of athlete that come to, to my mind.

First is the person who's still learning all the skills that are required that are, again, typically tested in the, in sort of like the normal testing body, um, in like a, a quarterfinal style test where like a, a decent local competition maybe, right? Where it's, like, double unders, handstand pushups, handstand walk, toes to bar, chest to bar, muscle ups, handstand walking, right? Some of those, I won't call them basic skills, but for the competitive athlete, they are sort of the fundamentals, so the basics in that sense.

Where skill work for that more beginner athlete or someone who's still learning those skills, it's gonna be largely centered around those things because that's what's gonna be necessary in order for them to be able to c- compete, and to be able to ultimately kind of build and layer on capacity into those things.

'Cause those are often tested in sort of a capacity-based approach, even though they're skills.

No different than, like, toes to bar and shoulder to overhead.

Again, most people are thinking that as maybe an engine workout, but if you don't have those techniques refined, you're not gonna be able to express your engine.

So it's a very similar thing for that type of athlete.

Now if you go to the other end of the spectrum and we have, like, a, a games level athlete who's a professional in what they do, they are going to be having a whole number of things that they're asked to do that are outside the normal testing body of the sport because they are a spectacle.

So if somebody goes to the CrossFit Games or they go to the Rogue Invitational, they can expect to see a completely different battery of, uh, tests and exercises and novel implements, and all these unique things that they're gonna be asked to do because they are basically put on ...

Like, they're part of the show, essentially.

So for them, it's, even in semifinals and like, uh, higher level competitions that are, like, CrossFit licensed event and things like that, they're just, like, more professionally run.

You're gonna see more and more of that where we're having, you know, novel formats, novel implements, right? Like, somebody like a Rogue Fitness c- they have the capability of, like, making their own equipment and, like, having all this unique things that, that appear.

Like peg boards the first time they appeared, like the pig, like those circus dumbbells.

Like, there's a million different things that they could use, and therefore the Games athlete needs to be prepared for that.

And since it's part of their testing body, they need to be brushing up on all these different skills.

A lot more inversion work, right? Handstand ramps, all that sort of stuff.

So they're sort of on the other end of the spectrum.

And for me, I feel like perhaps I've neglected the athlete a bit in terms of a skill development perspective in the past, and I think this is, A, because they're, they do sort of sit in the middle where, uh, they have the, the techniques, they're pretty clean.

We might be doing some things like drills, technique work, unfatigue practice of those things to continue to clean up the movements themselves, like working on, you know, handstand walk body line drills, and making sure that, uh, the chest to bar's as fluid and as, uh, you know, clean and as efficient as possible.

But not doing a lot of developmental skill work, because they're relatively unlikely to be tested on that sort of thing.

And now that's sort of shifted a little bit with, uh, Bozman at the helm.

He seems to be pushing a lot more of the skills forward and having a little bit more novelty in the programming, especially in the 2022 season we saw that.

So that's one of the reasons why I've started to change my mind on this a bit.

It's not just like I've, "Oh, I think this is a good idea." It's more so reflective of changes in the programming style and who is actually in charge of that, and I know it might be a little more collaborative at the moment between Bozman and Castro.

However, we don't exactly know the dynamics of that, and we certainly know that Adrian Bozman has a hand on it, so likely we're gonna continue to see the envelope get pushed in certain ways, and that's something that will have a trickle-down effect to that sort of semifinal bubble to open bubble level athlete.