#171 - Speed & Power in CrossFit
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
Speed and power training is something that is gaining traction in the training world and trickling into the CrossFit world. Elite athletes are posting videos of the more "out there" training they are doing, some people in the community are calling out the testing body of the CrossFit Games, and GPP purists in CrossFit are getting involved. Should speed and power be tested at the CrossFit Games, and is it something appropriate to give to general population clients in classes? In short, yes and yes. In both cases this is a gap in the testing and training we typically see in CrossFit....
info_outline
#170 - Health vs Longevity for Athletes
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
CrossFit's primary message has always centred around health, but how healthy is competing in CrossFit at a decent level, and how healthy is taking any sport to its highest level? The trade-off between performance and long term health can be a murky line. Many hobbyists who take the sport seriously push performance to a point where it starts to affect their short and long term health. The common trade-offs range from general aches and pains and reduced immune resilience through to more catastrophic injury. CrossFit training tends to build an extreme tolerance to training volume, which means the...
info_outline
#169 - Optimal Amount of Noise in Training
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
Training that is structured has its upsides, it is predictable and a safe bet, but progress can be slow and it can become boring. Chaotic training can produce quick results but tends to lead to plateaus and a lack of direction. Finding the right balance between the two is one of the more constant challenges in programming, particularly in a group class setting. How much variation is useful noise and how much is just randomness is not always easy to judge. Managing the expectations and psychology of different members is often harder than writing a smart progressive programme. You are never...
info_outline
#168 - 2026 Open Programming
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
This year's CrossFit Games Open workouts ruffled some feathers. The constraints of having only three tests mean that overdoing certain movement patterns, time domains, or workout styles can significantly skew the testing. This can really impact the enjoyment of your average CrossFit box member, who is not overly invested in their results but genuinely enjoys taking part. Ultimately, these situations raise the question of who the Open is for, what the main goal of this competition is, and whether the programming is aligned with these factors. In this week's episode, we talk all about the Open,...
info_outline
#167 - Using and Deciding on Fitness Standards
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
Striking a balance between using metrics and standards to guide fitness, without overdoing it, is more important in CrossFit now than ever. Fewer people are participating in the sport, both seriously and recreationally. The demands of the sport keep getting higher, and the competitive scene is unclear and somewhat chaotic, so more people are taking part in events like Hyrox or simply training for the sake of training. Todd has recently put together some standards for South Loop Strength and Conditioning, and in this episode we continue our discussion about what fitness standards and metrics...
info_outline
#166 - Right Amount of Legibility in Training
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
There is a fine balance between using metrics to guide your training and becoming overly fixated on daily results. Tracking data too closely can lead to counterproductive habits, such as "rep shaving" during classes or attempting to force progress, often undermining long-term consistency and general enjoyment. But failing to track performance at all can result in a lack of clarity regarding progress and this is something many people in CrossFit expereince. In the earlier years of CrossFit, single-modality testing and benchmarking were popular. Standarising tests like a 2km row, a max set of...
info_outline
#165 - How to Write Programming Faster
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
Getting stuck writing programmes on a Sunday night, with creative energy at zero, is an all too common occurrence for coaches and is probably where a lot of copy and pasted programming comes from. Writing programmes needs some creative input, but having systems in place to make it easier, and understanding the many small tasks involved in programming and stacking them together, can be really helpful. In this episode we talk about our ways of managing dips in creativity, where we get inspiration from, and how we batch certain tasks and programmes together. Check it out if you want to learn a...
info_outline
#164 - Templates for Group Programs
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
The programme for a CrossFit affiliate’s group class programme versus a CrossFit competitor is obviously going to look different, but does this mean the process for writing the programme has to be any different? We have spoken a lot on this podcast about the importance of templates, how to structure them and why this is how you should start a programme for a CrossFit competitor, and we have all written programming for a CrossFit affiliate in a similar way. However, there is still a large portion of affiliate programming that uses a very zoomed out method. This might work for balancing things...
info_outline
#163 - Staying Power of Fitness Racing
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
Weird and wonderful fitness races and challenges have been around for a while. Over the years, CrossFit has created a sport that provides the variety and spectacle we see in other sports, but now we are seeing many more styles of fitness races becoming very popular. Hyrox has gained a significant amount of momentum over the last couple of years and still seems to be on the way up. Athx is trying to create an event that sits somewhere between Hyrox and CrossFit, providing a one hour fitness race like Hyrox, spread across three different workouts that test strength, endurance and mixed modal...
info_outline
#162 - Learning How to Program
Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast
We often hear programming referred to as an art grounded in science, and learning to write good programming can take time. You get those with some academic background who struggle to match it with real world application, often leading to programming that is not feasible or that misses the forest for the trees. On the other hand, some coaches may struggle with the theory behind programming, which can create challenges in long term development or in understanding how to go deeper when training certain qualities. A combination of learning the essential theory, like learning basic multiplication,...
info_outlineWith the recent announcements from CrossFit regarding changes to the 2025 season, some athletes are exploring alternative avenues for competition, placing less emphasis—if any at all—on the Open and the CrossFit Games season as a whole.
While the top athletes in the sport excel in both in-person and online competitions, at the mid-tier and local level, the profile of athletes who perform well in online competitions often differs from those who thrive in local, in-person events. This disparity largely comes down to the types of workouts, movements, and equipment used in these formats.
Online competitions, constrained to the four walls of a gym and a more limited equipment list, generally rely on one key element: volume. Over the years, the volume of movements in online competitions has increased substantially. For example, in the very first Open workout (2011), top scores included 270–300 double-unders in a 10-minute workout. Seven years later, in 18.3, the best scores reached 800 double-unders in a 14-minute workout.
In contrast, in-person local events often incorporate challenges that cannot be replicated in an online format. It’s not uncommon for up to 20% of the testing body to consist of a single movement, such as a running-only event like a 5k trail run.
In this week’s episode, we explore the differences between these types of competitions and discuss whether it’s worth adjusting your training to prepare for more in-person local competitions.
If you're not already subscribed to our newsletter, head over to www.legionsc.com to get a weekly selection of training tips and our favorite articles.
We run online workshops for coaches as well. Find out when our next workshop is here: https://legionsc.com/program-design-workshops
These podcasts are posted in video format on YouTube as well.
Show Notes:
- [2:00] A renewed interest in other competitions following the CrossFit Games 2025 season announcement
- [3:00] Key differences between online and in-person competitions
- [8:00] Equipment considerations for online competitions
- [12:30] How running translates into general aerobic fitness and conditioning
- [16:00] The importance of volume tolerance versus general fitness
- [20:30] Using online competitions to build training volume early in your career
- [23:30] The trade-off of building volume for movements that are less frequently tested