Are We Too Fast To Stray Away From The CrossFit Charter?

Are We Too Fast To Stray Away From The CrossFit Charter?

Firstly, as a reminder, what is the CrossFit Charter?

To establish the mechanics of a movement, secondly the consistency around that movement and then after that adding the intensity.

As a coach it's a really difficult balance, we want people to progress, it motivates them, motivates us and keeps people coming back for more. There is also the fact that, in order for the CrossFit Charter to work, you need to add intensity until a point where the consistency breaks down (as it will when people get tired) so you can bring them back a step to work on what could be improved before cranking them back up to that intensity. It's a classic right, how often do people perform a fantastic deadlift one moment, add 10kg and it looks entirely different?

Weight lifting is the easy example though. I think where it becomes interesting is when we start to talk about kipping. As I said in last weeks blog, kipping pull ups or handstand push ups can put people at risk if they have not built their bodies ability to deal with the strain of movement. AND that's the challenge…

I was struck by an interview of Caroline Lambray (coach of 2023 CrossFit Games Champion Jeffery Adler and CrossFit Affiliate owner) where she was incredibly strong on her stance that if you can't do 5 strict pulls ups or Handstand Push Ups then you shouldn't be doing the kipping version. It's something that is certainly difficult to manage and depends on a number of different factors:

1. Checking the Ego at the door.

This goes for both athletes and coaches. The athlete part can be out of our control, especially if there isn't a really strong culture of it in the gym. But there is a reality that even with that, not everyone comes into the gym able to do that. There is an argument that some elite individuals are only elite because of their ego… but let's be honest that is a very, very small minority of people who walk through our doors. In order to the enforce the charter, you have to be able to take people back a step in order to help them take two steps forward, that's a skill that takes time to get right and great communication skills. Again, not everyone will react to that well no matter what you do. As a coach it's that fine balance, wanting, needing, people to improve and take steps forwards but equally understanding that, that can be a slow process and being comfortable with people taking small steps… It's not every day that you are able to introduce a new skill and take people from not being able to do it at all, to doing it comfortably in an hours class.

2. Knowing The People You Coach

It can be difficult, take it from me as a part time coach. Sometimes you only see people every now and again. I find it slightly easier with the 6am class I coach but that is mainly because the majority of classes I participate in are 6am so you get to see, hear and understand where people are. Evening classes where people are a little more in and out, or holiday cover when you cover a class once, at a time you never really coach, are a bit more difficult. You have to be adaptable to people, be able to pick up on where they are quickly, ask good questions and hope that people are happy to listen. Writing now, getting handovers from the coach you are covering makes a lot of sense.

3. Having a collective agreement amongst coaches/ in an affiliate

This is a really big challenge. Is every coach at a gym on the same page? Again made difficult when there is a mix of part and full time coaches all of differing experience levels. It takes affiliate owners to set the tone and communicate well with experienced coaches while helping more junior ones. It can be a confusing message if one coach is saying no to a kipping movement while another one, the next day, says yes. Whilst every coach would and should bring their own flavour to things, the fundamentals, ideally are relatively similar so as not to confuse people.

So do we stray from the CrossFit charter too quickly? Sometimes, sometimes it's not in our control, other times we push too far or let people push too far and have to pull it back (sometimes unsuccessfully). But the most important thing is that we continue to care about the safety and development of people. We will make mistakes along the way, of course we will, but as long as we continue to try and do the right thing for the right reasons then I think we'll be ok.

Andy