Preparing for Competition

Honing Skills albany fitness

As time goes on, the skills required to be competitive at CrossFit events is increasing. They will get stuck at the first rep of an AMRAP WOD if they can't get a muscle up. Rich Froning Jr lost to Graham Holmberg in the 2010 CrossFit Games partially because of his lack of rope climbing skills – an area he clearly addressed before the 2011 and 2012 games that he dominated.

It is not just muscle ups and rope climbs befuddling athletes now a days, however. Paralette hand stand pushups, L-sits, double unders, chest to bar pullups, sled pulls, tire flips, precision hammering – even handstand walks – are becoming necessary skills to acquire to be a solid CrossFit Games competitor. 

Many skills can be broken down into a continuum of increasing difficulty, allowing your members to scale properly while actively achieving their goals. We're going to break some of them down for you in this issue, so you can start helping your members check movements off their wish list!

Make sure to check out these competition journals – loaded with checklists, nutritional information and previous Games scores so you can track your progress!

Handstand Pushup

Beast Skills

Knee pushups
Plank pushups
Pike pushups (change the height of your feet to increase difficulty)
Tiger pushups
Handstand pushups
Parallette or ring handstand pushups
Freestanding handstand pushups
Freestanding parallette handstand pushups

Double Unders

Buddy Lee Video
Again Faster Video

Singles (100 jumps no misses)
5 singles followed by a double under attempt
Double under attempts
Single-Double-Single-Double….
Double unders
Triple under attempts
Triple unders
Weighted double unders

Muscle Ups

Jeff Tucker

Banded pullups + banded ring dips
Kipping pullups + banded ring dips (thin bands)
Dead hand pullups + unbanded ring dips
Banded muscle ups
Jumping muscle ups
Muscle up
Kipping muscle ups
Strict muscle ups
Weighted muscle ups

L-sits

Relative strength advantage webpage

Bent leg hold
Uneven L-sit (one leg in, one leg out)
Straight leg hold (L-sit)
Piked hold (V-sit)
N hold (bent leg hold from the floor instead of on parallettes)
Uneven N hold (from the ground)
L Hold (from the ground)
V hold (piked position from the ground)

Chest to bar pullups

Gymnsatics WOD

Ring pullups
Banded pullups
Kipping pullups
Deadhand pullups
Weighted pullups
Ring pullups
Weighted ring pullups
Chest to Bar pullups
Weighted chest to bar pullups

Rope climbs

Gymnastics WOD

Rope climb from squatting position on floor
Rope climb from pike position on floor
Rope climb with rope wrapped around leg for extra hold
Regular rope climb
Rope climb in pike position
Rope climb in V position
Rope climb without feet
Weighted rope climb

Courtesy of JournalMenu.com