How to Transition into a Competitive CrossFit Athlete?
From classes to competition: how to transition into a competitive CrossFit athlete?
Whether it’s about tackling weaknesses, hitting new PBs or qualifying to your first international event, here’s what you’ll have to take into account when making the transition.
- Build tolerance to more training: it’s not as easy as simply starting doing double sessions every day of the week. Yes, you’ll need to do more work outside of classes and focus on competition, but you need to do it smartly. One of the biggest mistakes people wishing to transition into competitive athletes do is to ramp up their training too fast; slowly add volume to build tolerance to training.
- Approach training smartly: don’t just turn up to classes and do the workout, train with intention. Look at your workouts with an idea as to where they’ll help you in the grand scheme of things.
- Set a goal: the reason you’re not at an international competitive level (yet!) is because you’re either not strong enough, not fit enough and/or lack enough skills. Analyse where your weaknesses lie and prioritise your training accordingly, putting a plan in place.
- Understand the training process: just like getting your first muscle up, it’ll take time to achieve your goals. You can’t check every single box right from the start. Remember this, and think of every training session as bringing you closer to your goal, instead of trying to hit new PBs every week or even every training session. Having an understanding of training processes and incremental loading week by week will help here.
- Prioritise your goals: once you’ve analysed where you’re currently at and where you want to be (clean a specific amount of weight, be able to efficiently handstand walk under fatigue, etc.), find a path to help you get there. Start with the smaller, easier goals (the lowest hanging fruit) and build your way up from there, this will make the journey a lot more manageable (and realistic).
- Make mistakes and become smarter: you’ll have to learn and understand many aspects of training and recovery in your process of becoming a competitive athlete. It’s great to listen to coaches and sought expert advice, but ultimately everyone responds to training differently, so you’ll have to try things for yourself to learn, for example, how well you adapt to volume or how much and what you should/can eat before competition. Experience is the greatest teacher. Expose yourself to different environments (some of which might not work) and constantly learn.
- Train with a group: of course you’ll have to focus on your individual weaknesses, but if you want to compete, training with a group is a great way to build important tactics and techniques that’ll help when throwing down against others.
The Athlete Program’s Compete and Elite Programs are specifically designed with a competition focus.
The Elite Program runs five days a week, twice a day, and is build specifically to get athletes to peak for the CrossFit Open – the qualifier for most big competitions. It’ll also means athletes carry over a solid base into March and going forward into the competition season.
Or join the Compete Program, running five days a week with one training session a day, specifically designed to keep athletes in good shape year round.
Both are only £29 per month (or £20 if you join for a year upfront). Perform at your best
