Why I treat my CrossFitters a bit like 5 year-olds...

When Bob or Hilda start at CrossFit Uckfield, I tell them that the whiteboard in a CrossFit gym is golden.  It is where the magic happens.



The planning is done for you, by an experienced and qualified coach, who puts a lot of thought into ensuring your training is balanced, varied and interesting as well as effective.  It means you don't have to think, you just turn up and get the work done.

The whiteboard gets posted every day on our members' page on Facebook.  This allows people to compare themselves to others, compete with others and wish they'd come in on the days they missed.


I have found, over time that the whiteboard is a brilliant tool for encouraging and motivating people, keeping them accountable and involved.

However, there are some times when those numbers on the board become counter-productive.
If you didn't do as well as you felt you should have or you were beaten by someone who always (or never) beats you.  Or you were bottom of the board or top of the board or middle of the board - all these things have the power to demotivate you if you let them.

So, as a coach, what can I do about this?
I find it useful, a lot of the time, to treat my clients as if they were primary school children.  I don't mean this in a derogatory way but how a primary classroom works is, in a lot of ways, similar to how a CrossFit classroom works.

As a primary school teacher, I found it vital to ensure my class of 30 children, with wildly varying abilities, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes, knew why we were learning what we were learning in the way we were learning it.  This knowledge gave the kids autonomy over their learning.  It demonstrated to them that what we were doing had a valid purpose that impacted in a very real way on their lives.

So I am implementing learning objectives and success criteria.



I want my guys to realise that their training isn't always a test (see the previous post) and that their training has a purpose.  It isn't random, it is designed for a specific purpose but that purpose does need to be shared with the group.

If you know why you are doing something, how it is designed to benefit you and how it will make you better as an athlete, then it will resonate much more.

I hope that by sharing with my members the purpose of their training, they will take greater ownership of their movement, that they will become more responsible for their own improvements.  But most of all, I hope it will stop them comparing themselves to others and start helping them compare themselves with them yesterday, or last week or last year.

You can not compare yourself to anyone else because they are not you.  You don't have the same age, experience, abilities, height, weight, dinner, conversations, children, jobs, worries, anxieties, strengths, goals, loves, hates, fears, successes, failures, clothes, shoes, cars, houses, holidays, parents, grandparents, blood types, DNA, injuries, ailments, friends, support etc. etc. etc. as anyone else!
If you aren't comparing apples with apples, it is never a fair comparison!



So be fair to yourself, work out what you are genuinely trying to achieve in each workout and think less about the numbers on the board and more about how you are going to improve as an athlete.  Then you are in a position to test yourself better when one of those workouts comes up.  

If you test yourself every single session, when do you get to revise?  When do you get to practice and learn?

Look at the learning objectives and achievement targets and work out what they mean to you...not Bob or Hilda.

How to really leave your ego at the door.

We hear it all the time in CrossFit.  Leave your ego at the door. Don't let arrogance get in the way of good form. You're only in competition with yourself!

Why is then that some of the biggest proponents of this ideal actually have the greatest difficulty adhering to its principles?  And what does it really mean to leave your ego at the door?

In order to answer that, we need to have a look at why we do CrossFit.  What is it that motivates us?

In the ideal world, we do CrossFit to become better versions of ourselves.  To get fitter, faster, stronger (both physically and mentally) and learn and hone new skills and generally become pretty bad-ass along the way.

In a lot of people there is an element of vanity - which is perfectly OK - if you eat right and train hard and regularly, CrossFit will deliver an awesome body.


For most people the community is a huge aspect of doing CrossFit.  It's what keeps us coming back but it's also a vital part of the whole thing - we make friends who understand what we are going through.  We make pretty serious bonds with people we have sweated, sobbed, screamed and laughed with.

For many, CrossFit is about health; improving or maintaining health for some, life-saving for others.

If we take all that together, CrossFit is just about making us better.  Better athletes, better people, or just making us more well.

So with that in mind, how does ego get in the way of that?

Choosing a weight that is inappropriately heavy for the wod because someone you are chasing went heavier.  Miscounting reps deliberately to get a better score.  Not going through the full range of motion because it's harder and takes longer. Picking a weight that is inappropriately light for the task in order to get more rounds and reps.  Faking or exaggerating an injury to get out of a wod or movement you hate. Working only on your strengths so you don't look rubbish at something in front of other people.

But mostly....worrying about the numbers on the board.

Let's take a look at the numbers on the board...You know what? They genuinely don't matter!

The sooner we can get that into our heads the better. They just don't matter.  Sure, it's nice to see that you went heavier than a rival or that you beat your score last time you did this wod but you just aren't ever comparing apples with apples. You are not the same as anyone else in the gym and you never will be. Someone else has more or less experience than you, weighs more or less than you, trains more often or less than you, has better or worse coordination than you, has more or fewer injuries than you, eats better or worse than you, slept better or worse than you....You are never going to ever look like or train like Rich Froning because, do you know what? You aren't Rich Froning.  All you have is you!

When you know the guy or girl who is always pretty strong in workouts didn't do as well as you expected in a wod, you don't think any less of them.  You might, for a fleeting moment, wonder if they were having a bad day or hadn't slept or eaten well or had a sore shoulder or were just taking it easy that day but you certainly don't consign them to the rubbish heap.  So why would you feel that way about yourself?  One bad workout does not make you shit.  Even a month or year of bad workouts doesn't make you shit.

Sometimes life gets in the way. 

Now let's start looking at the purpose of your workout.  Every day cannot be a test day, which means that the vast majority of the workouts you do are just a workout - just...
your training! 

Remember that!  The workouts you do on a daily basis are your training!


That means deviating to poor form just to get the reps in is idiotic because it won't make you stronger or fitter or faster - it will just hone your skills at being a bit shit.

The way to leave your ego at the door is to stop comparing and stop testing and 
start training!

I passed my level 2 exams last week.  
                                                        Am now fully-fledged fitness instructor!

Last week I was also on my PT course with Lifetime and learnt so much; the instructors were brilliant. It was a lot more interesting and fun than the level 2 stuff.  I have still to complete a case study on a client (husband has volunteered) I have a nutrition exam in 2 weeks, a gym practical in 5 weeks and my anatomy and physiology in July.  I also have a business module and a first aid course to complete and then I'll be a PT!

I've learnt a lot more about nutrition and advanced CV and advanced resistance, core and stretching techniques.  Gonna try them all out on Russ!

Krish x