Trial Class
🏋️♀️ The 10 CrossFit Skills
As a continuation of our 10 year Anniversary celebrations and because we cannot do parties we are going to do
🎉 one special workout a month focused on one of the 10 CF skills 🎉
What is Fitness ?
In the article 'What is Fitness?' CrossFit founder Greg Glassman wrote that the 10 skills are CrossFit’s First Fitness Standard.
“You are as fit as you are competent in each of these ten skills.
A regimen develops fitness to the extent that it improves each of these ten skills.“
If we know what each term means we’ll know what we need to improve, and how.
So let’s look at the 10 skills
The first 4 are often termed the “Hardware” skills
as they are related most closely to the physical body: our muscles, bones, lungs, etc.
1. Endurance: or to be exact “Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance”
is the ability of the body to use oxygen.
We can feel the lack of endurance when we have to slow down during a WOD because we’re gasping for air. Many of us feel this during running or rowing, the traditional “Cardio” exercises (Cardio is short for “cardiovascular).
2. Stamina: is the ability of the body to use energy.
We may notice this while doing push-ups, pull-ups or sit-ups. It’s not lack of air that stops us from completing another rep, it’s that the muscles do not have enough energy to keep going.
3. Flexibility: how much range of motion do you have at a specific joint?
We do not need to be able to do a full split, but for CrossFit and everyday life most of us need more range of motion in our ankles, hips and shoulders.
4. Strength: how much weight can you lift at one time? Can you do a full push-up or a pull-up?
If we can do those, are we able to do dips, handstand push-ups and muscle-ups? Each one requires a greater degree of strength as the muscles have to work harder to complete the movement.
The next 4 skills are the “Software”
as they are more affected by the brain and nervous system.
5. Coordination: can you combine several movements into one single move?
One of the best examples is the wall ball (see video above): We have to combine a front squat and a throw. If the two parts of the movement are poorly coordinated we waste the power of the legs during the throw.
6. Agility: the ability to move quickly from one movement to another.
The best exercise to demonstrate this is everyone’s favourite, the burpee 😉 Have you tried burpees? We have to move as quickly as possible from standing into a push-up and finally a jump. The more agile we are the faster this transition will be and the more we’ll be able to work on stamina and endurance 😀
7. Balance: “controlling our centre of gravity in relation to its support.”
You might think of handstands as the classic CF balance exercise but we also need balance for pistols. In addition, we practice balance in many of our warm-up exercises, especially during the perfect stretch.
8. Accuracy: perhaps the simplest example of accuracy in CrossFit is being able to hit the target with a wall ball.
Other exercises also demand that we control movements in a particular direction at a given intensity, for example stopping a kettlebell directly overhead during an American style swing, or getting to full depth in a squat. Keeping track of our reps in a workout is another slightly different but also important type of accuracy.
The last two skills are a combination of the “Hardware” and ”Software”
9. Speed: making a repeated movement take as little time as possible.
In order to sprint we need the strength to move our legs, the stamina to keep going, coordination so we don’t waste energy and balance to prevent ourselves falling over.
10. Power: is the main goal of CrossFit and a combination of speed and strength.
We want to be able to move heavy things as fast as possible and as far as possible. The heavy thing could be your body or a barbell, a ball or a baby, a backpack or a shopping bag.
