The 10 Most Popular CrossFit Workouts

On beyond the whiteboard, we currently have 95,167 different workouts in our database.  The vast majority of these are random workouts created on a whim by an individual athlete.  But in the CrossFit world, certain workouts (most of them named) are done over and over again.  Here are  the 10 most popular CrossFit workouts.

  1. Fran
  2. Cindy
  3. Helen
  4. 5k Run
  5. CrossFit Total
  6. Fight Gone Bad
  7. Annie
  8. Angie
  9. Filthy Fifty
  10. Grace

-Jonathan, originally posted on blog.beyondthewhiteboard.com on 11.2.10.

Assisted Pull-ups: The Mystery Unraveled

Up until this point, no one ever really knew how much assistance the various bands provided when used during a pull-up. This made calculating work performed and avg. power output for band-assisted pull-ups impossible.

By the way, which is harder: using blue and purple (or plain) bands together, or just using the green alone? And just how much harder is the blue band than the green band? What about blue and red? We get these questions all the time at our gym.

During the process of incorporating power calculations into beyond the whiteboard, we decided to measure and quantify the assistance provided by the various colored bands. We now know very accurately how much work is being performed by the athlete during assisted pull-ups. These numbers depend on the weight of the athlete, the distance they travel during a pull-up, and the band(s) they are using for the pull-up. This was a huge step toward our goal of enabling comparison between Rx’d and scaled workouts based on work/power output.

Based on our findings, we have created a PDF that shows the relative assistance of the various bands and band combinations, and have made it available as a free download. We hope that CrossFit Affiliates and individual CrossFitters alike will find it a useful addition to their gyms. Feel free to print it out and post it near your pull-up bars, that’s what we did!

bandassist

Color Version PDF
Black and White Version PDF

-Jonathan Kinnick and Corey Tripp, originally posted on blog.beyondthewhiteboard.com on 6.20.09

 

As Rx’d or Not As Rx’d? That is the Question.

In CrossFit, we use the term “as Rx’d” to denote that we did a particular Workout of the Day (WOD) “as Prescribed.”  This means that we completed the workout as written, with no scaling or modifications, with full range of motion (ROM).

The issue of what counts as “Rx’d” or not has been coming up more and more over the last few months.  Especially with the introduction of beyondthewhiteboard.com, many athletes are focusing more on their times than they used to.  This is fine, up to a point.  Let me offer some clarification.

In my opinion, marking a workout performance “as Rx’d” is something special.  It means something.  It means that you are a pretty solid athlete.  It means you did all of the prescribed reps, with no substitutions or scaling.  If you substitute an exercise, or scale the workout somehow, it is NOT “as Rx’d”.  It also means that you demonstrated solid form throughout the effort.  Some of your very last reps might not have been absolutely perfect and beautiful, but 97% of them should be.  It means that your ROM was complete on EVERY rep.  In order to do a WOD as Rx’d, you must redo reps that were not complete.  I know its hard to go all the way down to floor on each push-up, especially towards the end of a workout.  But if you don’t, you didn’t do it RX’d, Period.

Your development as an athlete is much more important than your time on a given workout.  If you shortchange your WODs to get a better time, you are just hindering your own progress.  Improvements in times that come from a reduction in form or ROM do not mean anything.  They just mean you’re not very honest or disciplined with yourself.

Remember, it will take at least 6 months of consistent CrossFitting before you can do the majority of workouts “as Rx’d”, sometimes much longer.  There may be a few you can do as Rx’d early on, depending on your strengths and weaknesses.  Don’t rush into trying to do all workouts as Rx’d.  If your push-ups are weak, use bands until they get strong enough.  That’s the fastest way to development.  Trying to cheat on your push-ups is not.  And this applies to dip depth, pull-up height, squat depth, Wall Ball height, etc.  Hold yourself to a higher standard and you will see the best gains.  Work on your weaknesses.

Jeremy consistently has the best times and the best form/ROM on just about every workout at CrossFit Kinnick.  There’s a reason for that.

-Jonathan, originally posted on crossfitkinnick.com on 3.18.09