Planning a CrossFit Class: The Napkin Timeline

Creating a structured and detailed lesson plan will allow you to take some of the guesswork out of coaching a training session and maximize the effectiveness of your athletes’ time in the gym.

Previously, we looked at a detailed lesson plan that took into account many of the components of coaching a class: developing a timeline, equipment management, details of the general and specific warm-ups, workout stimulus, and scaling options. Here, Pete Shaw (CF-L4) provides a resource that can be utilized to streamline the initial step in developing a lesson plan: creating a timeline. Pete provides a template that can act as a starting point before filling in the specific details for each element of the class.

As with your fitness — or developing any skill — garnering proficiency demands consistent practice, and this quick drill can be used on a daily basis to build proficiency in your lesson-plan development.

Additional Resources

CrossFit Lesson Planning Course – This course digs into all the details of building a high-quality lesson plan and provides a document containing 50 lesson plans to utilize as a resource for your development.

CrossFit Affiliate Programming (CAP) – Not only does CAP provide high-quality workouts, but it also offers in-depth daily lesson plans complete with coaching notes, warm-ups, and timelines to help you facilitate the workout of the day. This is a FREE resource for active affiliates (although we do encourage coaches to develop their own lesson plans periodically).

about the author

Peter Shaw is a Seminar Staff Flowmaster for CrossFit’s Education Department and currently coaches at CrossFit 1855 in Ottawa, Canada. He has been coaching at an affiliate for over a decade and enjoys coaching a full spectrum of athletes from CrossFit Games competitors to grandmothers. He is a Certified CrossFit Coach (CF-L4), a backyard affiliate owner (CrossFit Petra), and a former CrossFit Games individual and team athlete.