Programming is a popular topic in the CrossFit world and there are many resources that provide programming content and daily workouts for a variety of target audiences (competitors, affiliates, garage gym athletes, etc.). This is great but can also be confusing as to what program should be chosen or to even conclude if one program is better than another.
This is in stark contrast to when I first started CrossFit and the only resource available for online programming was CrossFit.com. Almost everyone who wanted to do CrossFit went to “dot-com,” did the daily workout, and posted their scores. This was fun for me and made me feel like an athlete again, but I was also extremely skeptical and critical of what was programmed. You see, I took exercise science, physiology, and strength and conditioning courses in college and earned another well-known credential in the strength and conditioning industry. What I was doing on dot-com flew in the face of everything I was taught. I had this notion these workouts were just programmed randomly to make me puke and make me sore! Where was the linear periodization? Where was leg day and then upper-body day? Where was the deload week? Why was I doing high-rep Olympic lifts combined with gymnastics elements and running? The list goes on and on.
I remained a skeptic but I decided to stick with it (mostly because I thought it was fun) and spent months reading everything I could find about the methodology. Along the way I got stronger (while doing less strength training), started learning new skills, my body-weight movements got better, I got more flexible, my body composition got better, and some of my nagging pains from a previous wrestling career started to improve. That was proof enough that I was going to continue what dot-com was doing.
Should I Program Workouts or Should I Follow Someone Else’s Programming?
Short answer: Yes! However, the amount of what you do can be dependent on your personal preference. For me, I love programming and it’s fun for me. I’ll spend the bulk of my time programming and shorter amounts of time following someone else’s programming for a change of pace and to get more time back in my day.
If you are newer, have a personal preference not to program, or simply don’t have the time to program, spend the bulk of your time following a program consistently and smaller amounts of time programming your own workouts. For people in this camp, I generally suggest following a program for three months and then programming on your own for one month, then continuing this trend.
Regardless of your preference, there are a variety of reasons why I recommend programming workouts with a major reason being I’m a big believer that if you are a coach and you have not experimented with programming workouts for yourself and for other people then you are limiting your understanding of how to effectively program workouts and how to really understand the desired stimulus of workouts that are programmed, amongst other things.
That does not mean I think following someone else’s programming and lesson plans is not valuable — these resources provide a ton of guidance and are a useful tool for development. But nothing replaces the process of doing it yourself, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and moving forward with improvements. Plus, there is just something cool about watching a group of people throwing down something that you created.
The Goal
A misunderstanding I had about CrossFit was the goal. The goal is to increase fitness, which we define as work capacity across broad time and modal domains, with the long-term approach being that we want to build our fitness levels as high as possible and sustain it for as long as possible so we have great capacity throughout all of the years of our lives. This is different from any goal that I had before. CrossFit wasn’t just a strength program or just an endurance program — it’s a “greedy” program that wants capacity everywhere! If you are challenged to lift something heavy, you should be able to do it. If you are challenged to hit up a 10K run, you have the capacity to do it.
These concepts were new to me but also made complete sense to me. As an added benefit, when we garner improvements across such a broad range of performance markers, our health markers tend to follow along with better body composition, better blood work, improved bone density, etc. I realized that fitness and health were not two different things but were closely related and largely dependent upon each other. Once I understood this goal, I started to understand how the workouts I was doing through dot-com made sense.
Variance and Intensity
There are two main ingredients to garnering the results we want and effective programming places a premium on — variance and intensity.
For variance, any conceivable factor in a fitness program is a variable that can be modulated. However, the primary factors to consider varying are those that affect power. We are talking about loads, reps or distances, time durations, and movements (movement functions and modality).
Loads
-Unloaded (body weight only)
-Light load (~20+ reps can be completed consecutively)
-Moderate load (~6-20 reps can be completed consecutively)
-Heavy load (~1-5 reps can be completed consecutively)
Volume
Total Reps in a Workout
-Low (Fewer than 50 reps)
-Medium (50-200 reps)
-High (200+ reps)
Total Distance in a Workout
-Low (Less than 800 meters)
-Moderate (Between 800-3200 meters)
-High (3,200+ meters)
Movements
Functions (examples)
-Push/Pull (vertical or horizontal)
-Hinge dominant
-Squat dominant
-Trunk flexion/trunk extension
Modality
-Weightlifting
-Gymnastics
-Monostructural
Time
-Very short (< 5 minutes and heavy days)
-Short (5-10 minutes)
-Moderate (11-20 minutes)
-Long (20+ minutes)
*Note: These numbers are a general guideline. Consider the total impact of a workout when assessing elements such as number of reps and total distances.
Intensity
Part of what we strive for in CrossFit workouts is to program a large bulk of our workouts with the goal of performing them at high-intensity levels relative to your individual capacity physically and psychologically. To achieve this goal, effective programming like that seen on CrossFit.com will program the large majority of the workouts with the following traits in mind.
Short Durations: Most workouts are generally in the 8-15-minute timeframe. This allows us to work at relatively high levels of intensity and accumulate adequate volume without overdoing it.
Complementary Movement Pairings: Most effective CrossFit workouts use movement pairings that complement each other. For example, Fran utilizes a thruster (squat to overhead press) and a pull-up (vertical pull). Programming well-thought-out movement combinations and rep schemes help athletes preserve high levels of intensity in their workouts.
High Power Movements: CrossFit workouts utilize compound movements that move large loads long distances quickly for a potent neuroendocrine response and to keep power output high. These movements maximize your training economy (ensure you are not wasting your valuable time). Less frequently, you will see movements that do not produce high levels of power (Turkish get-ups, handstand walks, etc.), and you may never see isolation movements included outside of warm-ups and cool-downs.
Couplets and Triplets: Although these workouts do not look fancy on paper, good programming generally relies on artistically programmed simple and bold combinations that are couplets and triplets. Oftentimes, people look at these workouts and ask, “Is that all I’m doing today?” Then after completing the workout, that response is typically, “Wow, that was deceiving. Thankfully that’s all I’m doing today!” Couplets and triplets are notorious for keeping the intensity high, and as an added benefit, our athletes typically get multiple rounds of exposure to each movement which aids in refining mechanics.
Task Priority: Although not a set rule, effective programming generally utilizes task-priority workouts that are completed for time vs. time-priority workouts like AMRAPs. Task-priority workouts tend to be more motivating from a psychological standpoint to get the work done as quickly as possible. A difficult element in a group-class setting is that these types of workouts place a demand on the coach to scale athletes effectively to hit a similar time duration.
To ensure effective variance, there needs to be a deviation from the above recommendations. This should be less frequent than sticking with the trends mentioned above. When reviewing your programming or another programming resource, a starting point could be to assess if the bulk of the programming hits the above recommendations.
How To Start: Have a System
There are multiple approaches to getting started, but if you are new to this, follow the following template:
Step 1: Create goals for the workout.
-Determine the duration of the workout.
-Determine the movement functions.
-Determine the loading parameters.
-Determine the format (single modality, couplet, triplet, chipper).
-Determine the priority (task priority, time priority, or heavy day).
Step 2: Program a workout.
-Determine the rounds and rep scheme.
-Finalize specific movements and loads.
Step 3: Analyze the workout programmed for accuracy for achieving goals, and adjust as needed.
This involves analyzing the movements, load, rounds, and reps. This information is used to accurately predict the duration of a task-priority workout and estimate the rounds/reps to be achieved on a time-priority workout. With exposure to performing many workouts yourself, in addition to seeing how workouts affect others, a coach should be able to predict almost exactly how long a workout should take their athletes to complete. These time duration and work guidelines can also help to scale a workout to achieve the desired result.
Analyzing a Task-priority Workout Duration
Step 1: Start by analyzing the approximate time to be taken per movement individually.
Step 2: Add the time for both movements to estimate the time for completion of 1 round.
Step 3: Multiply by number of rounds.
Step 4: Add additional time for transitions between movements and fatigue. This variable will depend on the movement, loading, rep scheme, and perhaps the gym layout, amongst other factors.
Analyzing Work to be Completed in a Time-priority Workout
Step 1: Analyze the approximate time for each movement to be completed individually.
Step 2: Add the time for each movement to estimate the time for 1 round to be completed.
Step 3: Factor in additional time for transitions and fatigue. This depends on the movement, loading, rep scheme, and gym layout, amongst other factors.
Step 4: After estimating the duration of 1 round including fatigue, divide the duration of effort by the estimated time for 1 round. This will give an approximate number of rounds to be completed.
Step 4: Determine Scaling Options
After a workout has been programmed, the coach will need to determine scaling options. The Rx’d prescription is generally based on higher-level individuals at your gym (not CrossFit Games athletes). To scale effectively, replicate as many of the workout variables as possible from the prescribed workout such as loading goals, movement functions, and time-duration goals.
Loading and volume (distances, reps, rounds, etc.) will be the primary factors to scale for most athletes. Consider if the load is intended to be light (more than 20 reps can be completed consecutively), medium (between 6-19 reps can be completed consecutively), or heavy (5 or fewer reps can be completed consecutively). Once the goal rep range of the loading is established, scale athletes to achieve that goal.
Coaches should strive to preserve the movement function for every exercise and reduce load and/or reps to keep athletes safe. Only alter a movement when absolutely necessary. If a movement needs to be modified, replicate the function of the movement as closely as possible. Consider the following options in order of priority for scaling the deadlift:
Option 1: Scale load only. This option preserves the movement.
Option 2: Scale load and/or modify movement to either a kettlebell deadlift or a deadlift with the bar elevated off the floor. This option preserves the function of the movement but may potentially allow the athlete to establish proper mechanics due to a slight movement alteration.
Option 3: GHD hip extension. This option is not ideal but replicates maintaining a static trunk while the hip flexes and extends similar to the deadlift.
Scaling to achieve time goals will involve an analysis of how long a task-priority workout is intended to take or how many rounds are intended for a time-priority workout. The coach can scale reps, as well as the loading and movements, to achieve these goals.
After you gain some experience, the true first step will be to analyze previous programming and consider more of a long-term approach to programming. This topic will be discussed in Part 2 of this series.
Program a Workout
For the first workout, I recommend keeping it simple and using the aforementioned common trends for effective programming as a starting point. Here’s how it could look:
Step 1: General Goals for the Workout
Duration: 8-13 minutes
Functions: Complementary for this workout — pull from floor, upper-body pressing, monostructural.
Loading: Moderate
Format: Triplet
Priority: Task
Step 2: Program a Rough Draft of the Workout
3 rounds for time of:
400-meter run
21 deadlifts (185lb/135lb)
12 strict handstand push-ups
Step 3: Analyze the Workout and Adjust if Needed
Again, considering a high-level athlete, we can approximate the starting point for the run being about 1:30 for this type of workout. The intent for the first round of the deadlifts (and potentially all rounds) is to be unbroken at a quick pace so we can allocate approximately 45 seconds (2 seconds per rep). Similarly, the first round of strict handstand push-ups is intended to be unbroken, and we can allocate approximately 30 seconds for a fast-moving athlete. Factor in about 10-15 seconds for transition time between movements. The first round at this pace will be approximately 3:15 for a total time of 9:45 if the athlete maintains this pace. Keep in mind, I went on the slower end of what a faster athlete may complete each movement in, and believe a higher-level athlete will be able to stay very close to this pace throughout the entirety of this workout (and some will finish a bit quicker).
Step 4: Scaling
The next step is having a plan of attack for scaling. You can create intermediate and beginner-level workouts for your clients. However, from my experience, these options serve as general guidelines but most will need to be scaled more specifically. Therefore, I prefer to analyze each movement individually and scale accordingly for each athlete.
Run: The general recommendation will be to reduce the distance if the initial run will take longer than 2:00-2:15 or if subsequent runs will exceed 2:30. If an injury is present, substituting another monostructural piece for a comparable time duration/distance is acceptable.
Deadlift: Loading used should allow for the first round to be unbroken and for subsequent rounds to be complete with no more than one to two very short breaks. For newer athletes, reducing reps based on their capacity will be a necessity. For those struggling with the set-up position from the floor, I may practice the full range of motion under no load in the specific warm-up before moving to an elevated surface.
Strict handstand push-ups: This will be the movement that will need the most scaling variability for this workout. With the recommendation of the first round being unbroken or not exceeding a minute, we can start by reducing the reps. From there, I’ll typically set a sliding scale from hardest to easiest scaling options, such as the following: pike handstand push-ups with feet on box > pike handstand push-ups with knees on box > pike handstand push-ups with feet on floor > strict dumbbell shoulder press.
General: Coaches can opt to reduce the rounds to two and keep the prescribed number of reps. Major focus on handstand push-up failed attempts in the first and second rounds.
Next Steps
The next article in the series will discuss looking at programming from a long-term perspective. However, when programming sequential workouts, a starting point could be to simply program something a little different than what was done the day before. Using our run, deadlift, and handstand push-up conditioning workout as a starting point, you may opt to do a squatting element the next day and/or an upper-body pulling movement or a toes-to-bar.. You could opt to lift maximally or do a very short or long workout. There are tons of options available. Just set a couple of goals that make sense and get cracking.
Trial and Error
Like anything in coaching, you will make mistakes along the way, and the experience gained through trial and error will be invaluable. I have been programming CrossFit workouts for 15 years and there are still times when things go unexpectedly. Take note of each workout you write and how it went. Learn from the mistakes, and enjoy the process!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric O’Connor is a Content Developer and Seminar Staff Flowmaster for CrossFit’s Education Department and the co-creator of the former CrossFit Competitor’s Course. He has led more than 400 seminars and has over a decade of experience coaching at an affiliate. He is a Certified CrossFit Coach (CF-L4), a former Division 1 collegiate wrestler, and a former CrossFit Games athlete.
Programming Basics: Part 1