Reebok CrossFit GamesJul 30, 2015 by Armen Hammer
What CrossFit HQ Should Learn From The 2015 CrossFit Games
What CrossFit HQ Should Learn From The 2015 CrossFit Games
The 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games have come and gone. Now's the time for us to look back and see what we can learn from this past season. Current and future competitors learned some key lessons and spectators had some important takeaways as well, but what about the head honchos at CrossFit HQ? They've historically done a good job of learning from past mistakes (without actually admitting they made mistakes of course), so what should they learn from the 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games?
People Will Complain No Matter What...
With social media these days, everyone has a voice and they love to use it. On top of that, everyone loves to get hurt feelings over just about anything. Everywhere you turn, you hear "The programming sucks!" or "Are you trying to kill these athletes?" or "I liked Dave's hair better with highlights" (okay, you probably won't hear that last one from anyone).
HQ does a good job of ignoring a lot of the noise out there because most of those complaints just aren't legitimate. Not a lot of people even understand what goes into making the Games happen and their complaints only highlight their ignorance to not only how the whole thing comes together but also how CrossFit HQ works.
...But Sometimes They're Right
That said, HQ needs to be able to separate the wheat from the chafe (or whatever the gluten free version of that metaphor is).
While complaints of absolutely poor programming don't really have legs to stand on, there are issues with how it all turned out. For example, every Games athlete was given a custom Assault Bike as a hint to what was to come...and the bike was used for a total of 2 minutes in the whole weekend by maybe half the field.
Instead of sending the athletes Assault Bikes, HQ should have sent every athlete a pair of pegs. This would have accomplished a few things including appropriately hinting at what was to come, giving the smarter Games athletes a small chance to practice something most of them had never touched before, and also limited an embarrassing moment for CrossFit when almost no women were able to finish even a single ascent of the pegboard.
The pegboard is a great tool for upper body development and a cool test for CrossFitters, but it's not fun or interesting to watch 90% of the field fail to complete something. If they had sent the athletes a pair of pegs before the Games or hinted at the pegboard instead of playing up the "obstacle course" (which just ended up being a zig zag and few hurdles, hardly an obstacle at all), they would have accomplished a few things for HQ, but mainly Pedal to the Medal 1 would have been more exciting to watch.
The Games are a sports entertainment event and they're broadcast both online and on ESPN. Making the event fun and interesting to watch should be a huge priority. HQ has learned a lot about this since the Games first started and improved greatly in this matter, but apparently still needs help. Running and yoke carries are boring and people standing around staring at something is boring too.
(As an addendum to this, it would have been more interesting to see the Games athletes struggling with something that's actually novel and unique instead of something that is relatively common in a lot of training facilities. You just don't want to have "the fittest men and women on the planet" to fail at something that a huge number of people could call easy.)
Respect The Athletes
On top of making the event more entertaining to watch, HQ needs to be more respectful to the athletes and their time. The Games are an insanely difficult sporting event where almost every single competitor is an amateur. Most CrossFitters make CrossFit their career but don't really make a whole ton of money through the competitions involved. In many ways these athletes are the best advertisement for CrossFit. They live and breathe CrossFit, they own, run, or coach at CrossFit affiliates, they teach the Level 1 Seminars, and the thanks they get from HQ is being used as an example of failure on national television.
The expectation shouldn't be to go easy on the athletes because the Games are about survival as much as they are about fitness, but HQ should be prepared to make the Games not only interesting to watch but also designed to make the competitors look good, within reason.
People Will Complain No Matter What...
With social media these days, everyone has a voice and they love to use it. On top of that, everyone loves to get hurt feelings over just about anything. Everywhere you turn, you hear "The programming sucks!" or "Are you trying to kill these athletes?" or "I liked Dave's hair better with highlights" (okay, you probably won't hear that last one from anyone).
HQ does a good job of ignoring a lot of the noise out there because most of those complaints just aren't legitimate. Not a lot of people even understand what goes into making the Games happen and their complaints only highlight their ignorance to not only how the whole thing comes together but also how CrossFit HQ works.
...But Sometimes They're Right
That said, HQ needs to be able to separate the wheat from the chafe (or whatever the gluten free version of that metaphor is).
While complaints of absolutely poor programming don't really have legs to stand on, there are issues with how it all turned out. For example, every Games athlete was given a custom Assault Bike as a hint to what was to come...and the bike was used for a total of 2 minutes in the whole weekend by maybe half the field.
Instead of sending the athletes Assault Bikes, HQ should have sent every athlete a pair of pegs. This would have accomplished a few things including appropriately hinting at what was to come, giving the smarter Games athletes a small chance to practice something most of them had never touched before, and also limited an embarrassing moment for CrossFit when almost no women were able to finish even a single ascent of the pegboard.
The pegboard is a great tool for upper body development and a cool test for CrossFitters, but it's not fun or interesting to watch 90% of the field fail to complete something. If they had sent the athletes a pair of pegs before the Games or hinted at the pegboard instead of playing up the "obstacle course" (which just ended up being a zig zag and few hurdles, hardly an obstacle at all), they would have accomplished a few things for HQ, but mainly Pedal to the Medal 1 would have been more exciting to watch.
The Games are a sports entertainment event and they're broadcast both online and on ESPN. Making the event fun and interesting to watch should be a huge priority. HQ has learned a lot about this since the Games first started and improved greatly in this matter, but apparently still needs help. Running and yoke carries are boring and people standing around staring at something is boring too.
(As an addendum to this, it would have been more interesting to see the Games athletes struggling with something that's actually novel and unique instead of something that is relatively common in a lot of training facilities. You just don't want to have "the fittest men and women on the planet" to fail at something that a huge number of people could call easy.)
Respect The Athletes
On top of making the event more entertaining to watch, HQ needs to be more respectful to the athletes and their time. The Games are an insanely difficult sporting event where almost every single competitor is an amateur. Most CrossFitters make CrossFit their career but don't really make a whole ton of money through the competitions involved. In many ways these athletes are the best advertisement for CrossFit. They live and breathe CrossFit, they own, run, or coach at CrossFit affiliates, they teach the Level 1 Seminars, and the thanks they get from HQ is being used as an example of failure on national television.
The expectation shouldn't be to go easy on the athletes because the Games are about survival as much as they are about fitness, but HQ should be prepared to make the Games not only interesting to watch but also designed to make the competitors look good, within reason.