Training to compete Vs competing for fun Vs Training for health in CrossFit.

Following on from last weekend’s epicenes that was the filthy 150 where Guerilla Fitness dominated in all categories from scaled, RXd and masters it’s important to sit back and digest what happened and reevaluate what you are doing and why you are doing it. I remember reading a segment from John Kavanagh, the godfather of Irish MMA and coach to Conor McGregor make a point about the high % of local fights that get called off at last minute mainly due to fighters pulling out. His point was that in every MMA gym some people come into get fit and train in MMA and some display promise in the SPORT and a coach asks them if they would like to fight at which point they think hell ya. However as they have to put in much more training, sell tickets and the idea of fighting and or losing in front of family and friends become more of a realistic possibility they get cold feet and pull out. Coach Kavanagh’s solution, don’t ever ask a person to compete in a sport, wait until you are approached and make people aware of the task at hand.  CrossFit is freakishly similar to the above. Many people come into CrossFit as a means to get fit and healthy while having fun, but some people show promise in the sport of fitness and coaches coax people into competition and the demands are too much for them, they realise there is little fun in this anymore and they get spat out the other end. So as I see this there are 3 categories that people can fall into within both the sport of CrossFit and the training methodology. The biggest bracket is Training for health and fitness. This is where 60+ % of people are but should contain 80+ % of people. This is where the general population start and should stay. Focus here is on getting to a gym consistently to improve body composition, movement patterns, cardiovascular fitness, strength and power etc. This should be enjoyable and the sole focus should be on betterment and enjoying the journey.  You are aware of the sport of fitness but have no ambitions to compete and rather enjoy the social element of your CrossFit community then the sporting element. Your goal is to be injury free and not put yourself in a position where injury is possible. However, as is the case many people catch the CrossFit fever and get caught up in all things Reebok and CrossFit and want to get a delta tattooed to their face and enter every competition like a true weekend warrior. They become an annoyance to their friends and families because they just can’t shut up about CrossFit and want to be a full on regional athletes in 5 weeks!! This bracket contains about 20—30% of the people in any CrossFit gym. Some of them may genuinely have found their sport and want to make sacrifices to do what’s needed to compete in this sport.  However, the vast majority of people in this group “competing for fun” is what we will call it like the idea of competition and competing but still go out every weekend, have poor mobility and their nutrition and recovery is shit poor, yet despite this they are disappointed after every weekend competition and just end up more and more frustrated. Like any 10km road race, it’s fantastic to put yourself out there and keep you motivated and give you something to work toward but I never seen anyone run a local 10k road race and be disappointed at the finish line. I never seen someone compare themselves to the winners who are running sub 20 mins and belong to running clubs who train hard for their sport.  CrossFit should be no different, you may be competing against people who train full time, recover properly and make sacrifices so they can perform optimally. They compete to win and for the sport. If you just want to compete for fun while have an active social life with dodgy weekend nutrition and poor recovery then don’t be disappointed when you are not competitive. However, as I said about 20-30 % of gyms make up this category and feed into the next category “training to compete” but the vast majority of this bracket are made up of people who should genuinely never compete. People with poor movement patterns, poor mobility, niggly injuries etc should never be on a competitive platform and going as hard as they can because serious injury is never far away as a result. The focus should be for everyone and anyone who is genuinely not a competitive athlete should always be to be get healthier. Finally the last group is made up of about 10% of most gym but really should only make 1% at MOST, this is the group of people who train to compete. This is the athlete that wants to go to a RX competition and WIN and be in the top 100 in their region in the Open. This person dedicates 14+ hours of training time to specialised individual Programmeming along with 4-5 active recovery hours and upto 70 hours sleep throughout the week. Their nutrition is faultless and they have no idea what a social life is anymore. Anyone who truly wants to compete in this sport will tell you its not fun. Its demanding, its challenging and the only enjoyment comes when you see progress and taking your body to its absolute max. This is the pinnacle for most in this sport and the key is that although many want to be here you simply are not willing to do what needs to be done to get here.   So to finish I will go back to my original statement, after such a big competition its important to not get sucked into feeling of oh I need to up my training if I want to do better, I need to do ABC because such and such an athlete does it that way. Ask yourself why you got into CrossFit ? Was it to get fit or to compete? Ask yourself what you want to do now? Do you want to get better and healthier while doing the odd competition for fun? Maybe you want to be a competitive athletes, but are you willing to be that dedicated and give up so much ? I see far too many people getting confused between CrossFit as a training Programme and CrossFit as a sport, just know why you started and which camp you want to belong in.