Is CrossFit for Athletes? Preparing For The Unknown & The Unknowable

It’s 2022 and people are still out here dogging CrossFit and its effectiveness as a training model. I think we’re at the point now where we can really look at CrossFit as a tool to develop all forms of athletes when the time is appropriate, and that's the big caveat here: timing.  

CrossFit at its core still embraces preparing its athletes for the unknown and unknowable. Testing them with new tests every year. When CrossFit competitors walk out onto the floor, they’re trying to be the best multipurpose athletes out there, they’re the swiss army tool of athleticism. That's not a bad thing, it’s what THEIR sport demands of them. 

Now on the other hand, we have athletes who participate in more traditional sports. In traditional sports like football, softball, swimming, track and field, etc they have clearer guidelines of what their “test” is going to be. 

For example, these athletes may be training for the 400m sprint, 100m freestyle, becoming a better outfielder or wide receiver. These athletes have a smaller (though not any less important) range of skills they need to refine based on the higher specificity of their sport or position. They simply don't require the broad spectrum of skill development, energy system training, and strength training that CrossFit athletes require.

That doesn’t mean that CrossFit can not be an effective training method for sport specific athletes, actually I believe it’s the exact opposite. Like I said earlier, it all depends on what you’re trying to improve and the time of year. 

CrossFit is a method built around functional movements, and although that's a very broad term, if we think about functional movements as movements that encompass movement patterns like the ones listed below, it gets a little less nuanced:

• Squatting

• Hinging

• Pushing (vertical & horizontal)

• Pulling (vertical & horizontal)

• Single Leg 

• Carries 

• Core

When athletes are in a pre-season, or a General Physical Preparedness (GPP) phase of training CrossFit can be an extremely effective tool in athletic development because of the “swiss army knife” approach to its training. 

It’s going to expose athletes to things they don’t see in pre- or regular season training programs and can help athletes stay motivated to train, improve resilience by training through various planes of movement that they aren’t normally exposed to, can help break through plateaus, and will ultimately build your athletes a broader foundation to continue building their sport specific skills upon as the training season progresses.

As a coach, thinking about incorporating CrossFit into your sport specific training program, I’ll leave you with this. Think of CrossFit as the foundation for all your sport specific training. It’s the most general and the least specific to your sport. In the world of periodization, we as coaches should all be putting our athletes through some form of foundational or general preparedness training before the real work starts. 

Focus on movement quality, joint and core stability, varied planes of movement, and incorporating all the movement patterns listed above in various forms and you will undoubtedly improve your athletes’ overall athleticism (not just sport-specific qualities) and their overall resilience. 

By Coach Ryan Bucciantini

To learn more about Conquer Athlete’s Individual CrossFit Programming, click here.