About a year ago my best friend decided to start CrossFit for the very first time. As someone who has been doing CrossFit for over 13 years, and coaching for almost that long, I can’t tell you how excited I was for her. Unfortunately for me, she lives in Wisconsin (and I live in Indiana) so I couldn’t just have her join my gym, but I wanted to help her pick the best box in her area. When she asked me what she should look for in a gym and in a coach, here are the three things I told her to look out for:
Do they have a program for beginners? On-Ramp, Beginners, Onboarding, Foundations - call it what you like, but it is crucial that a gym has classes for new athletes. These classes might vary in frequency and length depending on class schedules and coaching availability, but having one is a must for any good gym. There are a few reasons for this. To begin with, a coach is responsible for coaching an entire class - he or she should be able to spend part of every class connecting with members, giving feedback, personalizing scaling, and generally leading the group as a whole. This becomes very difficult for a coach to do if there is a person in the class who doesn’t know what the movements mean and hasn’t worked out in years, or ever. In this scenario, the coach has to take time and energy from the rest of the class in order to make sure the new person feels comfortable and is safe. Furthermore, it’s not fair to the new member. A person shouldn’t be expected to jump right into a full CrossFit class without knowledge of how the class flows, what the movements are, and how to appropriately modify for his or her needs. For these reasons, and more, beginners classes are crucial.
What are the vibes like? For anyone who has been to more than one CrossFit gym, you know right away that each gym has its own very unique vibes. This is something I love about CrossFit and the way it was set up - box owners and coaches have the freedom to make their gyms into almost anything that they want. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it allows for a huge variety within the larger community. Among other things, this freedom ensures that no two CrossFit gyms will feel the same when you walk in the door or take a class. If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this, you’ll even find that each class time within each gym has its own vibe as well, but I think that’s putting the cart before the horse when it comes to choosing a box. The bottom line is, don’t assume that if you don’t like the vibe of the first box you go to then you just don’t like CrossFit at all. Try out a few, talk to the members and coaches, and see if you can even visit a few different class times. From there you can pick the box that best fits your personality and your goals.
How do their members do push-ups? I know this one seems straight out of left field, but anyone who has been coached by me in a class with push-ups knows that I hold this movement as the golden standard for the quality of a gym and a coach. This idea started to form in my head over a decade ago, when I noticed that so few coaches understood this movement properly, and even less understood how to coach it and why they should hold their athletes accountable to it. The thing is, the push-up is easy to do incorrectly, and very difficult to do correctly. This is because - when done properly - it takes one of the most foundational gymnastics shapes, front support, and puts it into a dynamic exercise. This means that the push-up is not just a chest-pump exercise, but a total body exercise which tests the athletes ability to hold front support while being taken through a range of motion. Depending on the workout, it is very likely that the athlete will also be out of breath and working on fatiguing muscles. If I walk into a gym and athletes are doing proper push-ups in a WOD - tight plank position (from knees or toes), elbows tucked in, full range of motion, resting and scaling when appropriate - I can almost guarantee that the coaches understand foundational movements, and therefore are more likely to coach everything else properly.
Whether you are an athlete considering joining CrossFit, you already do CrossFit and you’re looking for a new gym, or you’re a coach looking to stay competitive in the fitness industry, I advise that you keep these three questions in mind. They might help you find the perfect gym or the perfect class or the perfect coach for you - and if nothing else, they’ll help you start to make your own list of things you need at your gym.