ESSENTIALS

CrossFit doesn’t just challenge your body — it rewires how you view success and failure. In this brutally honest (and strangely motivating) piece, we explore why CrossFit never gets easier, how failure becomes your most powerful coach, and why falling short might be the greatest victory of all. Ready to get uncomfortable? Read on.

Velites, a leader in innovative sports gear for functional fitness, has been named the Official Apparel and Footwear of the 2025 CrossFit Games.

The CrossFit Open may highlight our strengths and weaknesses, but real progress happens year-round. By strategically incorporating 15 key benchmark workouts — from strength tests to endurance challenges — you can track your fitness, identify gaps, and ensure your programming drives well-rounded improvement. Rather than training for the test, these workouts serve as checkpoints, helping you assess whether your training is building strength, stamina, and resilience across all modalities. Ready to take control of your progress? Let’s dive in.

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. CrossFit embodies this principle by focusing on high-intensity, functional movements, constant variance, and mixed-modality workouts to deliver maximum fitness gains efficiently. Unlike traditional training that prioritizes volume, CrossFit optimizes intensity to drive adaptation, ensuring long-term progress without excessive time investment. With proper nutrition as its foundation, CrossFit’s methodology enables athletes to achieve elite fitness levels in less time, leaving them more opportunities to enjoy life outside the gym.

CrossFit and Hustle Up are thrilled to announce the extension of their partnership through 2027.

CrossFit’s mission is to forge elite fitness, but an undeniable byproduct is its athletes' strong, capable physiques. Unlike traditional bodybuilding, which often prioritizes aesthetics over function, CrossFit’s constantly varied, high-intensity training produces bodies that are powerful, resilient, and beautiful. Rooted in the training philosophies of early strongmen and Olympic weightlifters, CrossFit builds muscle, strength, and endurance through functional movements, lifting heavy, and pushing intensity. When paired with a whole-foods-based diet, this approach delivers the ultimate combination — unmatched fitness and an athletic physique. In short, train like an athlete, and you’ll look like one, too.

Achieving health and fitness goals isn’t about willpower alone — it’s about creating a smart action plan, reshaping your mindset, and focusing on small, manageable steps. By automating decisions, addressing triggers, and designing environments that support healthy habits, you can reduce reliance on willpower and build momentum. Viewing willpower as a skill to practice and linking small, achievable goals to larger ambitions creates a cycle of success. Whether you’re reigniting an important goal you set months ago or preparing for the 2025 CrossFit Open, these strategies will help you stay on track and achieve lasting progress.

Struggling with gymnastics skills in CrossFit? You're not alone. Many athletes feel overwhelmed by movements like toes-to-bars and handstand push-ups, unsure how to improve. The key to mastering gymnastics is breaking it down — just like weightlifting — by focusing on four foundational elements: shapes, tension, flexibility, and strength. By consistently practicing static holds, mobility drills, and strict strength work, you can build a solid base for kipping and dynamic movements. This guide offers a structured three-week plan to improve your gymnastics skills, helping you do workouts as prescribed with confidence.

Affiliate owners, we want to feature your programming in the official Community Cup workouts! Learn more about the contest from how to submit a workout, who can participate, programming considerations, and more.

The 2021 NCAA basketball tournament highlighted a long-standing misconception about women and strength training, but CrossFit has always challenged this narrative. In CrossFit, women lift heavy, develop real-world strength, and reap the benefits of resistance training — including improved metabolism, bone density, mobility, and overall health. Strength is essential for true fitness, and any program that neglects it is incomplete. Strong women aren’t the exception — they’re the standard.