CrossFit Level 2 Training Guide & Workbook

Key ideas to understand

• A big chunk of the L2 is hands-on: 'Practical Exercises' and 'Teach Backs' where staff run you through coaching drills and give you real-time feedback on how you coach the foundational movements in front of peers.
• The single best preparation is coaching experience. The target is at least 50 hours of coaching before you attend — roughly two classes a week for six months.
• That experience matters because the course puts you on the spot: coaching in front of peers and taking constructive feedback live. If you've never done that, the reps you bank beforehand soften the shock.
• Use the Level 1 Training Guide to prep — specifically the 'Appendix: Movement Guide' covering the nine foundational movements. Print copies to bring to the course.
• Printing isn't the point — actually study and practice that material so you can teach your peers effectively, not just reference it.
• The L2 guide also includes summary sheets for the nine foundational movements to help you get ready.
• Take three online courses before you attend: the Online Scaling Course, the Online Lesson Planning Course, and the Online Spot the Flaw Course — they sharpen scaling for any athlete, writing effective lesson plans, and identifying faults.

Words to know (plain English)

Practical Exercise

A staff-led coaching drill in the L2 course where you practice a coaching skill (like teaching or fault identification) and get feedback on it.

Teach Back

A graded segment where you actually coach your peers through a movement while instructors evaluate you across the coaching areas.

50 hours of coaching experience

The recommended amount of real coaching to have before the L2 — about two classes a week for six months — so you're ready to coach and take feedback in front of peers.

Appendix: Movement Guide

The section of the L1 Training Guide covering the nine foundational movements; the recommended study-and-print resource for L2 prep.

Spot the Flaw Course

An online CrossFit course that trains your eye to identify movement faults — one of three recommended before the L2.

Key ideas to understand

• These are reference sheets, not prose. Each movement is broken into the three coaching jobs: TEACHING (setup + execution cues), SEEING (the primary points of performance you watch for), and CORRECTING (the common faults you'll catch).
• The sheets are built on inheritance: the air squat is the base for all squats, the shoulder press is the base for all presses, and the deadlift is the base for the deadlift family. The harder movements say 'SAME AS [base], PLUS' and only add what's new. Learn the base cold and you've learned most of every variation.
• AIR SQUAT, teaching: shoulder-width stance, full extension at hips and knees to start; hips descend back and down, lumbar curve maintained, knees in line with toes, hips go lower than knees, heels down, finish at full hip and knee extension.
• AIR SQUAT, seeing (points of performance): lumbar curve maintained, weight on heels, depth below parallel, initiate with the hips moving back, knees track in line with toes.
• AIR SQUAT, correcting (common faults): loss of lumbar curve in flexion, weight in or shifting to the toes, not going low enough, initiating with the knees so weight goes to the toes, knees caving inside the feet, immature squat.
• FRONT SQUAT adds: hands just outside the shoulders, loose fingertip grip, elbows high (upper arms parallel to the ground); maintain the front-rack position, bar over the middle of the foot, bar stays close to the frontal plane. New faults: improper rack position (bar not on the torso), elbows dropping so the bar leaves the frontal plane.
• OVERHEAD SQUAT adds: wide (pass-through) grip, shoulders push up into the bar, armpits face forward; maintain the overhead position, bar over the middle of the foot, bar close to the frontal plane. New faults: inactive overhead position (shoulders inactive, elbows bent), bar moving forward of the frontal plane.
• SHOULDER PRESS, teaching: hip-width stance, full extension at hips and knees, elbows slightly in front of the bar, hands just outside the shoulders, full grip; chin moves back, bar over the middle of the foot, spine neutral and legs extended, heels down, shoulders push up into the bar, finish at full arm extension.
• SHOULDER PRESS, seeing: lumbar curve maintained, heels down, bar close to the frontal plane, move through full range of motion, active shoulders. Faults: overextending the spine (ribs sticking out), bar arcing out around the face, bar finishing forward of the frontal plane, bent elbows or inactive shoulders at finish.
• PUSH PRESS adds the dip-drive-press: bar rests on torso, torso stays vertical as hips and knees flex in the dip, hips and legs extend then arms press, heels down until hips and knees extend, bar over the middle of the foot, finish at full hip/knee/arm extension. New seeing points: move the torso in a straight line, extend the hips before the arms press, fast turnaround from down to up. New faults: forward inclination of the chest, muted hip, arms pressing before the hip extends, pausing at the bottom of the dip. PVC progression: (1) dip and hold, (2) dip-drive slow, (3) dip-drive fast, (4) push press.
• PUSH JERK adds the press-under: dip, drive, press under, stand. Hips and knees extend rapidly then arms press to drive UNDER the bar, receive in a partial overhead squat, finish at full hip/knee/arm extension. New seeing points: reach full hip extension in the drive, receive with locked-out arms, receive in a sound partial squat. New faults: lack of full hip extension in the drive, poor active overhead position when receiving, landing too wide, not standing up with the weight before re-racking. Progression (steps 1-3 no PVC, step 4 with PVC): (1) jump and land hands at sides, (2) jump and land hands at shoulders, (3) jump and extend arms after the hips open, (4) push jerk.
• SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL, teaching: stance slightly wider than shoulder width with knees in line with toes, hands INSIDE the legs with a full grip, shoulders over or slightly in front of the bar, bar on the shins, arms straight, eyes on the horizon. Execution is deadlift-shrug-pull: lumbar curve maintained, hips and shoulders rise at the same rate until the bar passes the knees, hips then extend rapidly, heels down until hips and legs extend, shoulders shrug then arms pull, elbows high and outside, bar over the middle of the foot, finish at full extension with the bar pulled under the chin.
• SUMO DEADLIFT HIGH PULL faults (on top of deadlift faults): shoulders shrug or arms bend before the hips extend, elbows pulling low and inside, moving too slowly (segmenting), incorrect descent (hips flex before the arms extend), shoulders rolling forward during the pull. PVC progression: (1) sumo deadlift, (2) sumo deadlift-shrug slow, (3) sumo deadlift-shrug fast, (4) sumo deadlift high pull.
• DEADLIFT, teaching: hip- to shoulder-width stance, hands just outside the hips with a full grip, shoulders over or slightly in front of the bar, bar on the shins, arms straight, eyes on the horizon; lumbar curve maintained, hips and shoulders rise at the same rate until the bar passes the knees, hips then extend, bar over the middle of the foot, heels down, finish at full hip and knee extension.
• DEADLIFT, seeing: lumbar curve maintained, weight on heels, bar close to the frontal plane and body, torso angle relatively constant during the initial pull, active shoulders. Faults: loss of lumbar curve in flexion, weight shifting to the toes, shoulders behind the bar in the setup, hips not moving back to initiate the descent, bar losing contact with the legs, hips rising without the chest, shoulders rising without the hips.
• MEDICINE-BALL CLEAN, teaching: shoulder-width stance, ball between the feet with palms on the ball, knees in line with toes, shoulders over the ball, arms straight, eyes on the horizon. Execution is deadlift-shrug-pull under-stand: lumbar curve maintained, hips extend rapidly, shoulders then shrug, heels down until hips and knees extend, arms pull under to the bottom of the squat, ball stays close, finish at full extension with the ball in the rack position. New seeing points: reach full hip extension in the drive, receive the ball in a sound front squat. New faults: lack of full hip extension, curling the ball, collapsing in the receiving position, receiving too high (power clean then squat), no pull-under (tossing the ball up), not standing up before lowering. Progression with the medicine ball: (1) deadlift, (2) deadlift-shrug fast, (3) front squat, (4) pull-under, (5) medicine-ball clean.

Words to know (plain English)

Summary sheet

A one-page cheat sheet for a movement, organized into Teaching, Seeing, and Correcting so a coach can reference setup, points of performance, and common faults at a glance.

Teaching (setup / execution)

The cues you give to build the movement: how the athlete sets up and how they execute it step by step.

Seeing (primary points of performance)

The small list of must-haves you watch for to judge whether the movement is sound, e.g., lumbar curve maintained, weight on heels, bar in the frontal plane.

Correcting (common faults)

The predictable errors for a movement that you scan for and fix, e.g., knees caving, elbows dropping, muted hip.

Frontal plane

The flat vertical plane running side to side through the body; bars should travel close to it (not arc out front) for safe, efficient lifting.

Front-rack position

The bar resting on the shoulders with elbows high and a loose fingertip grip; the receiving and carrying position for the front squat and clean.

Muted hip

A fault where the hip fails to fully open and drive; the dip-drive collapses so the legs and hips don't deliver power into the press.

Press under / pull under

Dropping the body under the bar or ball to receive it overhead (push jerk) or in the rack (clean), rather than pressing or muscling it all the way up.

Active shoulders

Shoulders pushed up into the bar with arms locked out, keeping the overhead or pressing position stable and strong.

Immature squat

An underdeveloped squat pattern (poor depth, posture, or mechanics) listed as a common air-squat fault, typical of a beginner.

Key ideas to understand

• L2 has SIX areas it's built to improve in you, and they're worth knowing as the spine of the whole course: (1) essential mechanics of functional movement, (2) fault identification and correction, (3) the essential qualities of an effective trainer, (4) effective programming design and evaluation, (5) class management for group workouts, and (6) effective nutrition strategies for compliance and maintenance.
• Notice the shift from L1 to L2: L1 is mostly about doing the movements yourself; L2 is about COACHING -- seeing faults, fixing them, managing groups, programming, and driving long-term client behavior.
• By the end of the course you'll be able to do TEN specific things -- this is the checklist the course delivers against. Know them; they map directly to how you'll be evaluated.
• Objective 1: Identify and demonstrate the essential qualities of an effective trainer. (You have to both know them and show them.)
• Objective 2: Identify and assess STATIC and DYNAMIC faults of functional movements. (Static = a position fault like a bad setup; dynamic = a fault that happens during the movement.)
• Objective 3: Identify and describe the common themes of functional movements -- the recurring elements (like midline stabilization, core-to-extremity) that show up across movements.
• Objective 4: Implement appropriate movement corrections using VERBAL, VISUAL, and TACTILE cues -- the three cueing channels you use to fix what you see.
• Objective 5: Effectively communicate the points of performance for functional movements to BOTH individuals and groups.
• Objective 6: Exhibit appropriate presence, attitude, and group management skills -- how you carry yourself and command a room.
• Objective 7: Design AND assess the effectiveness of a program -- not just write workouts, but evaluate whether the programming is actually working.
• Objective 8: Assess an individual's current fitness and athletic capacity and apply appropriate SCALING.
• Objective 9: Understand and implement the key components of an effective class.
• Objective 10: Identify and discuss effective nutrition strategies for education, implementation, compliance, and maintenance.
• Big picture: the six goals are the WHAT the course improves; the ten objectives are the provable, do-it skills you walk out with. Together they're the syllabus -- everything else in the L2 guide exists to deliver these.

Words to know (plain English)

Course goals

The six broad areas L2 is built to improve in you -- mechanics, fault ID/correction, trainer qualities, programming, class management, and nutrition.

Learning objectives

The ten specific, demonstrable things you'll be able to do by the end of the course -- the assessed deliverables.

Static fault

A movement error in a position or setup -- e.g., a bad starting stance or finish position -- that's there before or apart from the dynamic action.

Dynamic fault

A movement error that occurs during the movement itself -- e.g., losing hip extension or excessive forward inclination as the rep happens.

Common movement themes

The recurring elements (like midline stabilization, core-to-extremity sequencing) that show up across functional movements and let you assess any of them.

Verbal cue

A correction delivered by speaking -- telling the athlete what to change.

Visual cue

A correction delivered by showing -- demonstrating or modeling the change.

Tactile cue

A correction delivered by touch -- physically guiding the athlete into position (with appropriate consent and professionalism).

Points of performance

The key checkpoints that define correct execution of a movement -- what you teach and communicate to athletes.

Scaling

Adjusting a workout to an individual's current fitness and capacity so it stays safe and effective while preserving the intended stimulus.

Key ideas to understand

• L2 is a TWO-DAY course (about 9 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. each day) totaling 13.2 contact hours, built from three segments: Methodology Lectures, Coaching Development Practicals, and Workouts & Demonstrations.
• Where the time goes (the big takeaway): Coaching Development Practicals are nearly HALF the course -- 6.3 hours (48%). Methodology Lectures are 4.2 hours (32%). Workouts & Demonstrations are 2.7 hours (20%). The course votes with its clock: hands-on coaching practice dominates.
• The Methodology Lectures (4.2 hrs total) cover: course overview/intro, Foundations of Effective Training (the six criteria), Common Movement Themes, Class Structure and Lesson Planning, Program Design and Scaling, and Nutrition. Nutrition and Program Design each get a full 1.0 hour -- the heaviest single lectures.
• The Coaching Development Practicals (6.3 hrs total) are the heart of L2: the Teaching and Seeing Practical, the Seeing and Correcting Practical, the Teach Back One-on-One, and the Teach Back Group. The GROUP teach-back alone is 2.6 hours (20% of the entire course) -- the single biggest block, because coaching a group well is the hardest, most-assessed skill.
• The Workouts & Demonstrations (2.7 hrs) include a Day-One workout (coach others under load, apply scaling and threshold training), a Day-Two workout (participate in and evaluate an effective class), and a short training demonstration.
• Day-One learning objectives are a subset of the full course: by end of day one you can identify/demonstrate effective-trainer qualities, identify/assess static and dynamic faults, describe common movement themes, implement corrections with verbal/visual/tactile cues, and communicate points of performance to individuals and groups.
• Reading the schedule: each day alternates short Methodology Lectures with longer Coaching Development blocks, with a workout woven in mid-day -- the rhythm reinforces that you LEARN a concept, then immediately PRACTICE coaching it.
• Why this matters: the time allocations tell you what CrossFit weights most -- coaching practice (especially group coaching), then methodology, then doing workouts. Study where the hours are.

Words to know (plain English)

Contact hours

The actual instructional hours of the course -- L2 has 13.2 of them across two days.

Methodology Lectures

The classroom segment (4.2 hrs, 32%) teaching the concepts: effective training criteria, movement themes, class structure, programming, and nutrition.

Coaching Development Practicals

The hands-on segment (6.3 hrs, 48%) where you actually practice teaching, seeing, correcting, and teaching back -- the largest part of the course.

Workouts and Demonstrations

The segment (2.7 hrs, 20%) where you train, coach under load, and observe/evaluate an effective class.

Teaching and Seeing Practical

A coaching drill focused on teaching a movement clearly and identifying faults.

Seeing and Correcting Practical

A coaching drill focused on spotting faults and applying verbal, visual, and tactile cues to fix them.

Teach Back (One-on-One)

A graded practical where you coach a single individual using the effective-training criteria and receive feedback.

Teach Back (Group)

The largest course block (2.6 hrs) -- a graded practical where you coach a small group and receive assessment and feedback.

Threshold training

Training at the edge of intensity an athlete can sustain with sound mechanics -- practiced during the Day-One workout.

Key ideas to understand

• L1 taught you the movements and the methodology; L2 is about one thing — getting better at coaching other people. That's the whole shift.
• A trainer's ability to coach rests on six capacities: teaching, seeing, correcting, group management, presence and attitude, and demonstration. Memorize these six in order — they're the backbone of the whole course.
• Your capacity in each area doesn't just decide whether your clients get fitter, it decides HOW fit they get. A green coach still gets results because constantly varied functional movement at high intensity works on its own — but a good coach safeguards health and pushes a client further than they'd ever get on their own.
• The six areas overlap in real life. You're never doing just one at a time on the floor. A weakness in even one area blunts your whole reach — the example given: a coach who's brilliant at teaching, seeing, and correcting but has no personal connection (presence and attitude) will still struggle to keep members.
• Effectiveness has a definition you can check: are your clients optimizing work capacity across broad time and modal domains — i.e., getting as fit and healthy as possible? That's the yardstick.
• No matter how good you already are, the mark of a real professional is a commitment to improving every area across your whole career. This is the coach's version of the athlete refining mechanics — it's how you chase virtuosity in coaching.
• TEACHING — articulating and instructing the mechanics of each movement, hitting the major points of performance before the subtle ones, and changing your instruction based on what the athlete in front of you needs.
• To teach, you first have to know what proper mechanics ARE and what causes poor movement. But know this: most of the job isn't describing the ideal position — it's teaching people how to fix poor positions and bad patterns.
• Outside knowledge helps too — anatomy, physiology, nutrition, even knowing a specific sport. The more advanced the athlete, the deeper your knowledge has to be to keep producing gains. You build that breadth over a career.
• Knowledge alone does NOT make you a good teacher. Teaching is about transferring what you know — if you can't get it across, it doesn't count.
• Communicate to the student in front of you. Change your style to match their background, ability, and learning style. Use multiple channels — verbal AND visual. When communication breaks down, that's the trainer's responsibility, not the athlete's. If a client is frustrated, YOU change strategies until they succeed.
• You can grade your own teaching by results: if nobody in the group moves to the level you expected, the problem is usually your instruction, not the athletes.
• Break complex movements into a progression or logical teaching steps so athletes practice pieces that build on each other. Showing a full barbell clean and asking the class to copy it gets you almost nobody matching it; using a progression (like the medicine-ball clean from L1) gets gross mechanics fast — and helps you spot faults too.
• Teach 'as much as is necessary' — boil your knowledge down to the one or two most important points for THIS athlete RIGHT NOW. Fast movement gets wrecked by long explanations; short, broad-brush cues land better. Your knowledge stays deep — the explanation gets simple. Ask: 'What is the one thing this athlete needs right now?' The answer changes as they progress.
• SEEING — telling good mechanics from poor mechanics and spotting both gross and subtle faults, whether the athlete is moving or holding still.
• Seeing is the necessary first step before you can change anyone's mechanics — but it rests on teaching (your knowledge). If you don't know what good positions look like, you literally won't see the correctable problems.
• Static faults — faults at the points where the athlete isn't moving, even briefly. Static positions show up at the end ranges (start, receiving, finish) or during a pause or slowdown, often at a change of direction. Examples: the deadlift setup, the bottom of a squat. These are EASIER to judge because you get more time.
• Dynamic faults — faults while the athlete is moving between static positions, often fast. Examples: not reaching full hip extension in the drive of a clean, pressing early in a push press, starting a squat with the knees. Harder to catch because you have less time, and you have to know WHEN and WHERE in the movement to look.
• A profile view offset about 45 degrees is generally the most useful angle to read mechanics — but don't lock yourself into only that view.
• Seeing dynamic faults gets harder as (1) the athlete moves faster and (2) the faults get more subtle.
• Two ways newer coaches build the skill of seeing, especially dynamic faults: study film (slow movement into static frames — your own athletes or internet footage, then replay in real time to bridge static to dynamic), and survey for ONE fault at a time (watch only for hip extension for a few reps, then only heels). Trying to see everything at once usually means you see nothing. And watch one athlete per rep instead of scanning the whole group every rep.
• CORRECTING — getting an athlete to better mechanics using visual, verbal, and/or tactile cues, including triaging (prioritizing) faults by importance, which means understanding how faults relate to each other.
• Correcting depends on teaching AND seeing. Weak in either one, and your correcting will be weak too.
• Correcting both raises performance and lowers injury risk. Expect to correct mechanics forever — they refine infinitely as the athlete progresses. Strive for excellent mechanics, don't settle for 'OK' movement. Set a high standard and be relentless.
• Correcting hinges on four things: use successful cues, know multiple corrections for each fault, triage faulty movement, and balance critique with praise.
• A cue is 'good' only if it improves the movement — there's no formula, the value is in the result. A cue's job is to get the athlete to execute, not to perfectly describe the movement. Keep cues short, specific, and actionable. 'Push your knees out' works: short (four words), specific to a body part (knees), with action and direction (out).
• Don't confuse cueing with fault identification. 'Your knees are caving in' names the fault but doesn't tell the athlete how to fix it. Making that leap from naming the fault to giving the fix is YOUR job, not theirs.
• Skip the technical-sounding language ('you're losing your midline') — it assumes knowledge the athlete may not have and is, at best, a vague cue. Keep it to plain words anyone understands. And avoid non-specific stuff like 'get tight!' or 'chest!' — meaningless without instruction.
• A three-step process to build a short, specific, actionable cue: (1) identify the fault, (2) identify what's out of place — name the body part, (3) give that body part a direction.
• Even a perfect cue isn't guaranteed to work. Keep trying different cues until the fault resolves. A cue that fixes one athlete may fail another — e.g., 'weight on your heels' keeps most heels down, but some athletes take it too far and fall backward. That doesn't mean the cue or coach was wrong — it means try another one.
• Build a bank of corrective strategies for every fault, and include all three channels: verbal (telling), visual (showing — contrasting current vs. preferred), and tactile (touching — physical targets). More strategies = higher odds you fix it.
• Triaging faults — when multiple faults stack up (they usually do), you can't fix them all at once, so you rank them most-to-least important. Highest priority goes to the faults with the highest injury risk (which also limit performance the most).
• Triage depends on context. Loss of a neutral spine, usually into flexion, is often the first thing to fix under load — BUT a flexed lumbar at the bottom of an air squat is far less concerning than the same position in a loaded back squat. There that athlete should keep air squatting to full depth, fighting for a neutral midline, because practicing the full range of motion is what eventually earns back loadable positions. There's no single fault ordering that works for every athlete in every situation.
• Once you pick the fault to fix, make it your focus and selectively ignore the others. Once it's fixed or knocked down enough that it's no longer the top issue, move to the next.
• Know how faults relate, because you may cue a different body part than the one you're actually trying to fix. With an air squat showing weight forward, knees caving, and back rounding — caving knees may be causing the rounded back; you might fix the back by cueing 'push the knees out' because making room for the pelvis creates a neutral spine.
• Stay and assess after every cue — give it at least one more rep and tell the athlete what happened: same, better, or worse. Better? Acknowledge it ('that's better,' 'good correction') to build their kinesthetic awareness. Improved but not enough? Ask for more in the same direction ('better, but even lower!'). No change? 'Not there yet' or 'I'll come back to you' — and don't repeat a failed cue, find a new one. Worse? Catch it instantly and reverse it ('other way').
• Cueing and walking away before you see the result is almost the same as not cueing at all — you'll miss a no-change or a change for the worse, and the athlete has no idea if their effort worked. Be precise with words: save 'good' and 'better' for actually sound or improved movement, never as filler.
• Know when to praise effort regardless of change. Some sessions show little or no movement change — celebrating the hard work keeps the client willing to keep grinding. Just be clear the praise is for effort, not for movement that still needs fixing.
• GROUP MANAGEMENT — organizing and managing at the micro level (inside each class) and the macro level (the gym as a whole): managing time, organizing space/equipment/people for flow and experience, planning ahead.
• Group management isn't just logistics — it's managing those variables to support the best possible instruction. Poor planning of any piece (time spent, equipment setup, attention per athlete) drags down the whole experience.
• Adhere to the schedule — at its most basic, start AND end on time. Running over is as unacceptable as starting late; running late usually means you didn't plan the class. This also covers the schedule WITHIN class — follow a simple template (introduction, warm-up, workout, post-workout) so each piece gets its time, and weight the pieces by the class's experience level.
• Space and equipment layout — leave buffer zones around equipment in use, account for athletes moving between areas during a workout. Class size often dictates which workouts are realistic for your space and gear. Even when space and gear aren't limited, have pre-determined alternatives ready in case a bigger crowd shows up unexpectedly.
• Cut your logistical setup and prep time during class to maximize teaching and movement time. Plan ahead, prearrange complicated multi-piece workouts. Minutes spent sorting equipment are minutes stolen from coaching.
• Plan how and what to teach so you maximize the client's moving time. Over-instructing eats their practice time, and mechanics only change through continual cueing across many reps — so protect that practice time.
• Manage attention per athlete — every student should feel they got enough. Even good movers with subtle inefficiencies need coaching, a push for more speed/load, or praise. A great tool: keep the group on YOUR cadence for warm-up and skill reps — everyone gets the same number of reps and you can systematically watch individuals and specific parts of their movement.
• Class size shouldn't exceed your capacity. Big classes turn coaches into crowd-herders, timekeepers, and cheerleaders with no time to cue individuals. Newer trainers (under two years) rarely succeed with 10-plus people. Glassman's 'Scaling Professional Training': his one-on-one work grew to twos, then threes, and kept growing until growth caused a 'perceived reduction in attention' per paying member.
• Self-audit after every session: Did I assess each athlete's weaknesses? Did I make real movement change? If either answer is no, the class was probably too big for you. The goal is to maximize your effectiveness and reach.
• PRESENCE AND ATTITUDE — creating a positive, engaging learning environment, showing empathy, and building rapport with each client. More subjective than the other five, but equally if not more important.
• Know your clients — recognize that each person has different abilities, insecurities, needs, and goals, and respond accordingly. People take instruction and critique differently; it's your job to figure out how to relate to and motivate each one. Track what's going on with most of the group most of the time, beyond mechanics — who's stressed today, who's high-energy, who's aloof, who's new — because all of it affects how they perform. You know these things because you actually interact with your clients and are invested in them.
• Genuinely caring about your clients' success means more to them than your knowledge. Most clients don't care about the technical side — they're there to improve their lives. They feel whether they're welcomed, respected, inspired, and whether you have their best interests at heart.
• Be authentic — a positive presence can't be faked; it comes from sincere passion for service. It's NOT one personality type (loud, funny, bubbly). Any personality can succeed if you couple genuine caring with awareness of your limits. Set personal goals to cover perceived shortcomings — a reserved coach might arrive early to greet every member. Small mechanical changes — eye contact, open body language, smiling, asking simple questions and really listening — go a long way, especially for shy or nervous newer coaches.
• DEMONSTRATION — giving athletes an accurate visual example of the movement, using yourself or another athlete, which requires strong awareness of your own mechanics. It also means leading by example — following your own advice and being an inspiration.
• Demonstration is a powerful visual aid. You don't have to move perfectly — you have to use demonstration to enhance your coaching: show points of performance, range-of-motion standards, or corrections. Adjust the demo to the group; like teaching, it may need to be simpler and more obvious than realistic. If your own mechanics are limited, use another athlete — coaches who can spot good movement quickly have no trouble finding a substitute.
• Demonstrate credibility — show clients you actually live the program and hold yourself to the same standards you expect of them. Leading by example shapes your gym's culture. Want clients to care about technique, push harder, hit ROM standards, count reps honestly, respect each other? Look at your own attitude and actions first — work on your technique, use high intensity, follow the same program and standards, support others.
• Use your own firsthand experience — diet strategies, programs, competition — to answer clients' questions. Advice lands best when it comes from experience, and it makes you a source of motivation. You're in a leadership position, and leading by example trickles down to the whole community; you become the model members want to emulate.
• Bottom line: these six areas are the lens you use to evaluate and develop yourself and any trainers who work for you. A professional builds capacity in every one across an entire career — that's chasing virtuosity in coaching. 'Doing the common uncommonly well' applies to coaching, not just movement.
• Heads-up on the format: about half the L2 course is small-group coaching drills (practicals). They hand you questions to organize your notes and self-evaluate. Instructor feedback targets the main factor limiting your coaching and your biggest strength — it is NOT a full evaluation of every area. Write down the instructor's feedback and anything useful given to or by other participants, and take time after each practical to self-assess.

Words to know (plain English)

Teaching

Articulating and instructing the mechanics of a movement — hitting the major points of performance before the subtle ones — and adapting your instruction to the athlete's needs and capacity.

Seeing

Telling sound mechanics from unsound and spotting both gross and subtle faults, whether the athlete is holding still or moving.

Correcting

Getting an athlete to better mechanics with visual, verbal, and/or tactile cues, including triaging faults by importance based on how they're related.

Group management

Organizing and managing a class (and the gym as a whole) — time, space, equipment, and people — to support the best possible instruction.

Presence and attitude

Creating a positive, engaging learning environment, showing empathy, and building genuine rapport with each client.

Demonstration

Providing an accurate visual example of a movement (using yourself or another athlete) and leading by example by living the program you prescribe.

Points of performance

The key checkpoints that define correct mechanics for a movement; you teach the major ones before the subtle ones.

Static fault

A fault at a point where the athlete isn't moving — the end ranges (start, receiving, finish) or a pause/slowdown, like the deadlift setup or the bottom of a squat. Easier to catch because there's more time.

Dynamic fault

A fault while the athlete is moving between static positions, often at speed — e.g., no full hip extension in a clean. Harder to catch because there's less time and you must know when and where to look.

Cue

Any prompt — verbal, visual, or tactile — that improves the movement. It's judged only by the result, not by how accurately it describes the mechanics. Best when short, specific, and actionable.

Verbal cue

A spoken instruction telling the athlete a specific task, e.g., 'push your knees out.'

Visual cue

Showing the athlete a contrast between their current position and the preferred one.

Tactile cue

Using touch or a physical target to guide the athlete into proper mechanics.

Triaging faults

Borrowed from medicine — ranking the multiple faults present from most to least important, giving top priority to the ones with the highest injury risk, and fixing the riskiest first.

Kinesthetic awareness

The athlete's internal sense of where their body is and what proper positioning feels like — built up by precise, honest feedback after each cue.

Virtuosity in coaching

'Doing the common uncommonly well' applied to the craft of coaching — the lifelong pursuit of excellence in all six areas.

Work capacity across broad time and modal domains

CrossFit's definition of fitness, used here as the yardstick for effective coaching — are your clients getting as fit and healthy as possible across many workout durations and types.

Key ideas to understand

• The point of this drill: practice teaching and seeing by themselves, stripped of the other demands of coaching (like group management), so you can sharpen each skill cleanly.
• Big caveat: these drills are NOT a stand-alone coaching style. Once you're proficient at the drill, the goal is to fold that skill back into a complete coaching method -- the drill is a sharpening tool, not how you'd actually run a class.
• The sample teaching plan uses the air squat and lists its Points of Performance: neutral spine, weight on the heels, depth below parallel, correct line of action (hips move back and down), and knees tracking in line with the feet.
• A clean teaching plan has a structure: Set-Up (stance and body position), then Execution with the points of performance built into the cues, and a demo at each step.
• Model cues to learn from -- Stance: 'Place your heels under your shoulders and slightly turn your toes out.' Body Position (the brace): 'When I say set, squeeze your belly like you're bracing for a punch.'
• Execution cue: 'When I say down, push your butt back and down until your hip crease is below your knees' -- one cue that covers BOTH line of action and depth.
• Reinforcing cues throughout: Neutral Spine -- 'Keep your chest up and belly squeezed through the entire squat.' Weight on Heels -- 'Keep your weight towards your heels.' Knees Track Toes -- 'Push your knees away from each other, positioned over the top of your foot.'
• The SELF-ASSESSMENT splits into two abilities. Ability to Teach: was the information clear, accurate, and relevant? Were the progressions effective? Which movements did you struggle with most, and what inhibited your success?
• Ability to See: could you catch STATIC faults (setup, finish) and DYNAMIC faults (hip extension, forward inclination)? Which static and dynamic faults were you inconsistent at spotting, and for which movements did you miss the most?
• The honest answers to those self-assessment questions ARE the drill's value -- they point you straight at the specific teaching and seeing gaps to work on next.

Words to know (plain English)

Teaching (the skill)

Communicating a movement clearly, accurately, and relevantly -- using a structured plan, cues, and demos so the athlete can perform it.

Seeing (the skill)

Identifying movement faults as they happen -- catching both static and dynamic errors in an athlete's movement.

Points of performance

The key checkpoints that define correct execution of a movement -- for the air squat: neutral spine, weight on heels, depth below parallel, correct line of action, knees track feet.

Line of action

The path the movement should follow -- for the squat, hips move back and down. A correct line of action is one of the points of performance.

Static fault

A fault in a position, such as the setup or finish, that exists apart from the dynamic action.

Dynamic fault

A fault that occurs during the movement itself, such as losing hip extension or excessive forward inclination.

Forward inclination

Leaning the torso too far forward during a movement -- a common dynamic fault in the squat.

Teaching plan

A structured sequence for teaching a movement: set-up (stance, body position), then execution with the points of performance built into the cues, demoing each step.

Progressions

The step-by-step build-up used to teach a movement; the self-assessment asks whether the ones you used were effective.

Key ideas to understand

• These eight themes are not a movement list — they're a lens. They show up across all the foundational movements plus others like the snatch, kipping pull-up, and handstand push-up, and they let you judge any movement you see, static or dynamic.
• A movement done correctly (hitting its points of performance) naturally shows these themes. Sound mechanics buy you safety, efficacy, and efficiency all at once — you don't trade one for another.
• The list is a classification tool, not a rulebook. Some positions don't fit neatly, and some movements won't show every theme. Use it to sharpen your eye, not to force every movement into eight boxes.
• Midline stabilization = core strength. The 'midline' is the relationship of the spine and pelvis; stabilizing it means keeping that neutral S-curve from moving when the body is loaded or dynamic. You hold it with the abs, obliques, and spinal erectors working together like a belt around the vertebrae.
• Move the torso as one rigid block. A stiff midline transmits force from the legs and hips through the trunk into the bar; a soft midline leaks that force. Picture a push jerk — a soft trunk means the leg drive never fully reaches the weight.
• Vertical midline is ideal (like a squat) because the alignment distributes force best. As the torso tips forward (like a deadlift), the demand on the muscles to hold neutral goes up — but leaning forward is NOT dangerous if midline stabilization is intact.
• The danger is shear, not compression. The spine handles compression far better than shear (one vertebra trying to slide past another). You only get that dangerous shear when stabilization is LOST — muscles and ligaments then have to fight to hold position, and if they can't, you get injury.
• The spinal-position risk ladder, safest to riskiest: (1) neutral and stable = safest; (2) a non-neutral spine held STATIC (flexed or extended but not moving) = riskier, but no single vertebra eats all the load; (3) losing neutral DURING movement — going from neutral into significant flexion under load = most injurious, because segments move and one or two vertebrae bear the brunt.
• Flexion and extension by themselves aren't evil. The abs naturally flex the spine (getting out of bed, a hollow gymnastics hold), and the erectors extend it. Whether a deviation is risky depends on how far it goes and how much load is on the body.
• The classic blown midline: the lumbar spine (L1–L5) rounds under load — the lower back's normal concave curve goes convex. You usually see it with deep hip flexion or when the trunk resists a front-loaded object, like a deadlift.
• Overextension is the opposite failure and just as real. Cranking the spine backward past its natural S-curve into an injurious range can cause the same disc and facet-joint damage as too much flexion. It's common in more flexible (or advanced) athletes, usually overhead, and usually means the abs aren't engaged — cue 'tighten the abs.'
• Core-to-extremity movement = power flows from big slow muscles outward to small fast ones. It starts with a stable midline, then the large force producers (abs, erectors, hips) fire, and the movement finishes with the small high-velocity muscles (biceps, calves, wrist flexors). Big muscles generate force first, so the greatest forces develop and the most work gets done.
• Core-to-extremity is also a safety pattern. The big muscles are built to handle big loads; small muscles, tendons, and ligaments tear when you ask them to do a big mover's job. Violating the sequence — arms pulling or pushing before the hips and legs have extended — is the classic 'early arms' dynamic fault, and it can show up even in a press or deadlift if the midline isn't set.
• Balance about the frontal plane: the frontal plane splits you front-to-back and runs through mid-foot — it's the plane you balance over. Reference the athlete AND the object against it. Big deviations forward of the plane kill task completion as load climbs and drag other faults along (lost neutral spine, weight off the heels).
• Move the object in straight lines through the frontal plane (shortest distance), but the athlete's body accommodates the object and may NOT travel in straight lines. In a squat the hips sit back and down as the knees bend — that keeps weight on the heels, keeps a loaded bar on the shortest path, and cuts excess force at the kneecap that shows up if the knees shoot forward and the heels lift.
• The frontal plane applies to gymnastics too. In a kipping pull-up the plane runs from the hands to the floor; the athlete is most efficient when the center of mass oscillates around it. Drift too far off and you lose timing and have to reset the swing. By itself, a frontal-plane violation isn't terribly risky — but it invites other errors (chest drops, spine flexes).
• Posterior-chain engagement = the backside muscles (hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors) contribute to the movement. It is NOT about shutting off the front side — you want balanced pressure between balls of the feet and heels, with the line of action at the frontal plane.
• Why the posterior chain matters for performance: more power, so faster times or heavier loads. Rooted heels bring the load close to the frontal plane so you drive it UP, not forward. The erectors keep the midline stable, and engaging the chain keeps the knees tracking over the toes — the best leverage between upper and lower leg.
• Knees-in (medial collapse) is the common knee fault and it often traces back to underdeveloped external rotators of the hip. The deviation grows with more hip/knee flexion and wider stances, and an athlete who collapses in a squat usually collapses (less obviously) in running, box jumps, and push presses too.
• Knee tracking is a long-game safety issue. One rep rarely wrecks a knee, but thousands of reps with the knee caving inward grind on tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and menisci in a hinge joint that hates lateral and rotational force.
• Read the feet to catch a weak posterior chain: watch the center of pressure shift forward of the frontal plane on any hip or knee flexion — and note the heel can stay DOWN while pressure still shifts to the toes. An athlete jumping forward in a lift is shifting weight to the toes too early.
• 'Triple extension' is earned, not forced. It is NOT a deliberate calf raise tacked onto knee and hip extension — the heels leave the ground BECAUSE of, and AFTER, a violent extension of hip, knee, and ankle. Elite lifters who stay in contact with the ground longer during the second pull put MORE acceleration on the bar, because more ground contact transfers more force.
• Sound hip function = the ability to flex and extend the hip to feed the movement. Powerful, complete hip extension is non-negotiable for elite capacity because it (1) applies the most force to the object and (2) creates the most elevation, buying the athlete the most time to receive it.
• Three flavors of poor hip function: muted hip (the hip never closes/flexes — a permanently open hip, so the quads do the work without hamstrings and glutes), lack of hip extension (doesn't fully express glute/ham power — even small shortfalls cut power), and slow hip extension (too slow to accelerate the object, especially rack-to-overhead). Good news: there are no major SAFETY issues with slow or incomplete extension — it's a performance problem.
• Active shoulders = scapular position and stabilization, holding the shoulder neutral against a load without yielding while creating clearance so the shoulder structures pass without impingement. The action differs by movement — usually push back against the load (push up on a bar overhead, push down into the floor in a push-up, pull back in a row), though some movements (bench press) don't fit the push-into-the-load rule.
• Active shoulders are about the right amount, not the maximum. Don't crank retraction/elevation to an end-range, contrived position — e.g., full retraction in a deadlift can cost you the midline. An active shoulder lines up the skeleton so the big torso muscles (like the traps) help stabilize and produce force, and it slides the acromion off the humerus to spare the biceps tendon and rotator cuff. Impingement risk rises as the grip narrows — a wider grip needs less elevation to clear.
• When the shoulder goes passive, the direction it caves (forward, down) depends on the movement. Read where the force is coming from and check whether the shoulder is yielding in that same direction.
• Full range of motion = the joint's natural anatomical start and end positions. Going full range pulls in more musculature (full-depth squat, active shoulders) and sometimes better leverage (bar resting on the body in the front rack), and it builds the neuromuscular coordination seen in compound movements and sport.
• More range is NOT always better. Hyperextending or manufacturing range past a joint's natural function is bad for joint health. But training to your natural end range preserves joint health, flexibility, and strength and prevents deficiencies for when life demands the full range. Unless a more urgent safety issue is present, protect full range of motion above almost everything else — before adding load or speed.
• Effective stance and grip = foot and hand positions that let the athlete hit all the points of performance. Two common stances: narrow (hip width) for deadlifts, presses, and Olympic lifts — most direct force transfer through the heels; wide (shoulder width) for squats — more depth and posterior-chain contribution, trading a little force-transfer efficiency for function and range.
• Grip usually sits outside the shoulders or hips so it doesn't interfere, but it widens when the movement demands it — deadlift grip clears the legs, snatch grip goes much wider to shorten how far the bar must travel. Stance and grip can shift to handle odd objects, and athletes must learn to keep the OTHER points of performance no matter what stance or grip an object forces on them — critical for the real world.
• Stance and grip carry no major safety concern of their own — they only matter when a bad choice damages the OTHER points of performance. Judge any stance/grip tweak by its effect on everything else in the movement.
• You cannot judge safety or performance from a snapshot. A position is only good or bad in the context of the athlete's capacity, the load, the positioning, and the speed. A rounded back picking up a grocery bag is nearly risk-free for most athletes; the same shape on a beginner pulling 135 lb. or an advanced athlete pulling 500 lb. is a different story.
• Train the best positions regardless of load, because that builds the default motor pattern that protects you when load and speed climb — and the margin for error SHRINKS as load and speed increase, so mechanics matter MORE as athletes advance, not less.
• Use the themes as a critical-thinking filter for new methods too. If a proposed technique change (say, a dynamic start for the snatch) doesn't show a clear mechanism for safer or more effective movement — measurable performance gain or reduced injury risk — it's usually just unnecessary complexity. Change mechanics only for obvious performance gains or reduced injury risk.

Words to know (plain English)

Common movement themes

Eight recurring patterns (positions and movements) that show up across functional movements; a classification tool for evaluating any movement's safety and performance — not an exhaustive list or a rulebook.

Midline / midline stabilization

The 'midline' is the neutral relationship of the spine and pelvis; stabilizing it means preventing that neutral S-curve from moving under load or motion. It's synonymous with core strength.

Shear force (vs. compression)

Force that tries to slide one vertebra past another. The spine tolerates compression far better than shear, and dangerous shear appears when midline stabilization is lost.

Flexion / extension / hyperextension

Flexion = bending forward from neutral (the abs' natural job); extension = bending backward from neutral (the erectors' job). Hyperextension = bending backward past the natural S-curve into an injurious range.

Core-to-extremity movement

A contraction sequence that starts with the large, low-velocity core and hip muscles and finishes with the small, high-velocity muscles of the extremities — power radiating from a stable base outward.

Frontal plane

The plane that divides the body into front (anterior) and back (posterior) halves, passing through mid-foot; the plane you balance over. Movement and load are referenced against it.

Posterior chain

The backside muscles, tendons, and ligaments — hamstrings (biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus), glutes, and spinal erectors. Engagement means they contribute to the movement, not that the front side is shut off.

Triple extension

Simultaneous extension of the hip, knee, and ankle. It is earned — the heels leave the ground because of, and after, a violent extension; it is NOT a deliberate calf raise added to knee and hip extension.

Muted hip

A hip that never closes (flexes) — a permanently open hip — so the movement is driven by the quads extending the knee without the hamstrings and glutes.

Active shoulder

A stable scapular position that keeps the shoulder neutral against a load without yielding while creating clearance to avoid impingement; usually achieved by applying force in the direction opposite the load (with exceptions like the bench press).

Acromion / impingement

The acromion is the bony tip of the shoulder blade; impingement is the pinching of soft tissue (biceps tendon, rotator-cuff muscles) beneath it. An active shoulder moves the acromion clear of the humerus to reduce that risk — a risk that rises as the grip narrows.

Full range of motion about a joint

The joint's natural anatomical start and end positions. Training to it recruits more musculature and builds coordination; manufacturing range past natural function harms joint health.

Line of action

The path of the athlete's movement and of the object being moved, referenced against the frontal plane to gauge efficiency.

Center of pressure

Where weight is concentrated in the feet. Watching it shift forward of the frontal plane reveals a weak posterior chain — and it can shift to the toes even while the heel stays on the ground.

Key ideas to understand

• This exercise builds directly on Practical Exercise 1 — you start by practicing the basic skill of fault identification, then push further.
• On top of spotting faults, you work the harder skills: prioritizing which fault to attack first, assessing faults in one specific athlete, and coaching while keeping your attention spread across a small group.
• You get to practice three cueing strategies — verbal cues (what you say), visual cues (what you show), and tactile cues (touch / hands-on guidance).
• Critically, you practice acknowledging whether improvement actually happens after you give a cue — a cue that doesn't change the movement didn't work.
• These drills are NOT a complete coaching style on their own. The point is to fold these isolated skills into one complete coaching method.
• The self-assessment asks you to rate your ability to identify static faults and dynamic faults (needs improvement vs. satisfactory).
• It also asks you to rate your ability to prioritize faults, make corrections, and acknowledge improvement.
• Then it prompts honest reflection: which static and dynamic faults you were inconsistent at catching, which movements were hardest to correct, which cueing strategy was most challenging, which cue you found most effective, and your primary takeaways and how to improve.

Words to know (plain English)

Fault identification

The basic coaching skill of seeing where a movement deviates from the points of performance — the foundation this exercise builds on.

Static fault

A positioning error you can see when the athlete is still or in a held position (e.g., a rounded back at the bottom of a setup).

Dynamic fault

An error that shows up while the athlete is moving through the rep (e.g., knees caving in as they stand up).

Prioritization

Choosing which fault to correct first — usually the one most tied to safety or that, once fixed, clears up others.

Verbal cue

A correction delivered with words — a short instruction telling the athlete what to change.

Visual cue

A correction delivered by showing — a demonstration or visual reference of the right position or movement.

Tactile cue

A correction delivered by touch — a hands-on guide to put or move the athlete into the correct position.

Acknowledging improvement

Checking whether the athlete's movement actually changed after your cue — the proof that your correction worked.

Key ideas to understand

• CrossFit is a strength AND conditioning program, not just metcons. Days devoted to strength are essential, not optional. If you only ever program workouts-for-time, you're coaching half the methodology.
• Why top-end strength matters: power output drops as time goes on, so your short-duration power sets the ceiling for your whole work-capacity curve. You can be strong-but-not-conditioned (a powerlifter), but you cannot be weak-and-still-have-high-endurance-power. Build the top of the curve and everything below it gets a higher ceiling.
• How often: program a heavy day at least once a week, or once every two cycles (a cycle being three days on, one off).
• Strength isn't built only on heavy days. Inside a metcon, the right load for that athlete also builds strength: push-ups build pressing strength for a novice like a bench press would; a 95-lb thruster builds squatting strength for a new athlete. As they get stronger, those same loads shift to building stamina instead, and you need heavier loads to keep driving top-end power.
• What to load: almost any weightlifting or gymnastics movement works (weighted dips, weighted pull-ups, odd objects like sandbags and axles), but a barbell is usually best because nothing else matches how easily and across what range you can load it. Barbell variations count too (hang, power, from a deficit, pulling from pins or bumpers).
• Rep scheme math: small sets, usually 1 to 5 reps, with total WORKING reps around 7 to 25. Too few (one rep at near-max) doesn't stress the muscle enough to drive adaptation; too many (30+ near-max reps) creates more stress than the athlete can recover from in reasonable time.
• Loading: working sets generally sit at or above 80-85% of a 1-rep max. It's not an exact percentage; the set just has to be heavy enough to demand concentrated effort. Warm-up sets do NOT count toward working reps, and working sets don't produce a big cardio response.
• The rep-load tradeoff: higher reps means lower load, which builds muscular stamina and technique. Lower reps means higher load, which builds top-end strength. Use both.
• Common rep patterns: standard schemes (7x1, 5x3, 5x5), pyramids (1-2-3-2-1), descending/ascending (5-4-3-2-1), no set specificity (work up to a max push press), and on-the-minute (1-3 reps every minute for 10 minutes). Failed attempts count toward working sets, but the goal is to complete the majority of lifts.
• Heavy days are for everyone: young, old, fit, unfit. Use relative intensity, meaning each athlete lifts a load that's heavy for THEM. Even beginners participate, you just progress their load more cautiously, and you can give them more reps (within sets or more total sets) to build to a challenging weight while drilling good mechanics.
• PR reality: new athletes often set a personal record every single time they lift heavy. As they get experienced, sessions without a PR happen. Setting a PR is NOT required to get the benefit of lifting heavy.
• Risk rises with load, so a heavy day needs a thorough warm-up first to raise core temperature and open range of motion. The warm-up also gives you a window to correct and refine mechanics across the warm-up sets before the load gets dangerous.
• Warm-up structure: usually at least 3 to 5 warm-up sets, starting lighter/higher-rep and progressing to heavier/lower-rep. Rest between warm-up sets is shorter than between working sets. The hard rule: never fatigue the athlete for the work sets. Warm-up primes the body and sharpens mechanics, it doesn't burn the athlete out.
• You must teach bailing and/or spotting before any significant weight goes up. Practice it with PVC or a dowel. Never assume athletes will bail or spot correctly without specific instruction.
• Set up the floor for safety: walkable distance between working athletes, no extra equipment lying around. Sharing racks can reduce equipment and space needs, lets athletes help each other load/unload/spot, and builds in rest, but it requires extra instruction so athletes keep safe distance from the rack while lifting.
• State the intent clearly. For a 5x5 front squat, the athletes need to know: increase load every set? hold a percentage across all sets? or find a new 5-rep max (where the exact number of sets matters less)? All are valid, but you have to tell them which one for that day or you'll get confusion.
• Apply threshold training during working sets just like any other workout. When mechanics significantly break from the points of performance, reduce the load, especially when repeated verbal and visual cues aren't fixing it. Fix it light, then let them build back up. Sometimes you change the movement for a few reps first (e.g., snatch pulls to fix an early pull in the full snatch).
• After the workout: equipment clean-up and workout logging are part of the cool-down.
• Cueing under heavy load must be very direct. The athlete's attention is almost entirely on the effort of the lift, so you have little chance to change movement DURING a set. Cues need to be short, easy to act on, and delivered with intensity that matches the lift. Save detailed technical talk for between sets, and send them back into the next set with one clear focus. More than one or two things to think about usually produces no change at all.

Words to know (plain English)

Heavy day

A training day built around strength: small sets at near-maximal load (often 1-5 reps, total working volume ~7-25) rather than a workout for time.

Work-capacity curve

A graph of how much power you can sustain over different durations. Because power drops with time, your short, hardest efforts set the ceiling for the whole curve.

Top-end strength / power

Your maximal short-duration output, the high end of the curve that heavy days are designed to build.

1-repetition maximum (1RM)

The most weight you can lift one time for a given movement. Working sets on a heavy day usually sit at or above 80-85% of this.

Working sets / working reps

The heavy sets that count toward the session's total volume (~7-25 reps). Warm-up sets used to get there don't count.

Relative intensity

Loading each athlete to a weight that's heavy for THEM, so a beginner and a veteran can both train heavy in the same class.

Threshold training

Pushing intensity right up to the point where mechanics start to break, then backing off load when form deviates from the points of performance.

Bail

Safely ditching a failed lift so the barbell goes somewhere harmless instead of crushing the athlete; a skill taught with PVC before heavy loads.

Spot

A partner assisting or catching the lifter on a heavy attempt; must be taught and rehearsed before significant weight goes up.

Personal record (PR)

A new best lift. New athletes often hit one every heavy day, but a PR isn't required to get the strength benefit.

On-the-minute training

A rep pattern where the athlete does 1, 2, or 3 reps at the top of every minute for a set number of minutes (e.g., 10).

Cycle (three on, one off)

A training rhythm of three days of work followed by one rest day, used as the unit when prescribing heavy days 'once every two cycles.'

Key ideas to understand

• Teach Back 1 is your first graded teach-back, coaching one-on-one. Instructors only give feedback on a couple of areas — do NOT expect a complete evaluation of every section.
• Because their feedback is partial, you have to do the rest yourself: reflect on your own coaching and watch the feedback given to others to critically evaluate the areas the instructors didn't address for you.
• You note the movement you taught, then work through the same six coaching areas twice — once for what you did well, once for what you need to work on.
• The six coaching areas are Demonstration, Teaching, Seeing, Correcting, Group Management, and Presence and Attitude — the full coaching skill set this course is built around.
• After the strengths/weaknesses pass, you set a concrete goal for what you want to improve in tomorrow's group coaching session — turning today's reflection into a target for Day 2.
• This worksheet feeds directly into Day 2's learning objectives, which include communicating points of performance to individuals and groups, exhibiting appropriate presence/attitude/group management, designing and assessing a program, assessing fitness and applying scaling, implementing the key components of an effective class, and identifying effective nutrition strategies.

Words to know (plain English)

Teach Back

A graded segment of the L2 where you actually coach (here, one-on-one) while instructors evaluate your coaching.

Six coaching areas

Demonstration, Teaching, Seeing, Correcting, Group Management, and Presence and Attitude — the full set of capacities every effective trainer is evaluated on.

Demonstration

Showing the movement well enough that athletes can copy it — one of the six coaching areas.

Group Management

Organizing and controlling a class — logistics, attention, and flow — one of the six coaching areas (here practiced as a goal for Day 2).

Presence and Attitude

How you carry yourself as a coach — energy, confidence, and the tone you set — one of the six coaching areas.

Self-reflection

Honestly evaluating your own coaching, especially the areas instructors didn't cover, since their feedback is intentionally partial.

Key ideas to understand

• Teach Back 2 is the Day 2 teach-back, and this time you're coaching a group instead of one person.
• Especially on Day 2, instructors are looking to give feedback on a specific area that was a weakness on Day 1 — so the gap you identified in Teach Back 1 is exactly what gets watched now.
• Just like Teach Back 1, instructor feedback is partial — reflect on your own coaching and consider the feedback given to others to evaluate the areas they didn't address for you.
• You record the movement you taught, then work the same six coaching areas twice: what you did well, and what you needed to work on.
• The six coaching areas are Demonstration, Teaching, Seeing, Correcting, Group Management, and Presence and Attitude — with Group Management carrying extra weight here because you're now running a group.
• The key closing questions are about transfer: were you able to effectively apply yesterday's feedback in today's session, and what did you do differently?
• This is where the two-day arc pays off — the whole point is to show measurable change from Day 1 to Day 2, not to coach in a vacuum.

Words to know (plain English)

Teach Back 2

The Day 2 graded teach-back where you coach a small group and demonstrate progress on your Day 1 weakness.

Group coaching

Coaching several athletes at once — the Day 2 demand — which stresses group management on top of the other coaching skills.

Six coaching areas

Demonstration, Teaching, Seeing, Correcting, Group Management, and Presence and Attitude — the full set you're graded on in every teach-back.

Applying feedback

Taking the specific correction you got on Day 1 and visibly changing your coaching on Day 2 — the main thing this teach-back tests.

Self-reflection

Honestly grading your own coaching across all six areas, since instructors only address a couple.

Key ideas to understand

• Knowing WHAT to eat (meats, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar) and how to weigh and measure macronutrients is only half the job. The real struggle is getting athletes to actually DO it and keep doing it — implementation and compliance.
• A tsunami of chronic disease is sweeping the world and CrossFit affiliates are the lifeboats. Every gym already has, inside its walls, the ingredients to make profound changes to a person's health — your job is to deploy them.
• The single most important driver of behavior change is self-efficacy: a person's belief that he or she is capable of making a specific change. If the athlete doesn't believe they can, they probably won't.
• You can raise self-efficacy on purpose. Bandura names four levers, and you should stack them together: mastery experiences, adjusting to the athlete's emotional/physiological state, vicarious experiences, and verbal/social persuasion.
• Mastery experiences are small, achievable wins (e.g., add vegetables to each meal). Stacking small successes builds self-belief — this is the same logic as scaling a workout so an athlete can succeed.
• Adjusting to emotional and physiological state means reading where the athlete actually is — someone who's always eaten a certain way and has three young kids needs a different approach than a confident former athlete.
• Vicarious experiences are other people's success stories. Showing an athlete that someone like them succeeded ('if she can do it, so can I') convinces them it's possible.
• Verbal/social persuasion is genuine support and belief voiced by the coach, role models, or a small group — accountability buddies, reminders, motivating articles and videos.
• Inside the gym, treat behavior change as three stages: CONTEMPLATION (wants to change, recognizes the behavior may be a problem), ACTION (has started, is building healthier habits), and MAINTENANCE (sustains the behavior and can handle relapse). Self-efficacy carries the athlete through all three.
• In CONTEMPLATION you first EDUCATE — teaching nutrition is no different than teaching a movement and needs real depth: what quality vs. unhealthy foods are, how to swap them, how to quantify macros and what tools to use, why it matters and what to expect, and what skills are needed to make and keep the change.
• Deliver that education simply, actionably, and realistically. Successful gyms do it through small nutrition talks (built up step by step, often with food logs, shopping lists, and recipes) or large nutrition lectures (everything at once to a big group, often kicking off a challenge).
• Don't assume the basics are easy — many fail because something like building a shopping list was treated as obvious. The coach has to guide even that.
• Perception is reality: how the athlete perceives the journey shapes the result. An athlete who is depressed, anxious, or scared will likely see the barriers as bigger than they are, so the coach must adjust and relieve that stress — this matters most in group challenges, where being the least fit is intimidating and a positive, relatable, reliable mentor (sometimes the coach) helps.
• In ACTION, keep the change going. Vicarious experiences are powerful here — use real, varied, close-to-home member success stories (starting point, where they struggled, how they got through, how they stay on target) shared everywhere: website, social media, gym walls.
• This is exactly why YOU, the coach, should be eating quality foods and weighing and measuring yourself — you become the credible role model providing observational learning. Gym owners must get coaches to buy in: coaches are the foot soldiers clients model their behavior on, so they must lead from the front and practice what they preach.
• In ACTION, mastery experiences continue. Some athletes are ready to commit fully and respond to monthly checkpoints with real metrics (circumference, body-fat analysis, benchmark workout performance); others are overwhelmed and need it broken into one step at a time — one healthy meal, then two — celebrating each small victory.
• Some gyms run step-by-step elimination challenges: first cut soda and juice, then categories of processed food, until the group eats only high-quality food — then layer in weighing and measuring, starting with one meal and progressing to all meals and snacks. Each step is a checked box that builds confidence for the next.
• Verbal and social persuasion runs through every stage. Athletes must KNOW you believe in them; goals must be attainable (too far-fetched is debilitating). Feedback is a form of verbal persuasion — when an athlete slips, give constructive, simple, actionable feedback so mistakes stay a normal part of growth, not a reason to quit.
• A common slip is relapse to old habits — an unplanned cheat meal (or several). Find the trigger (stress? not wanting to look like an outcast socially?) and give the athlete productive alternatives and ways to make healthy choices while out.
• Social persuasion works in small groups: some gyms build teams with a designated team leader who becomes a role model reinforcing the benefits and keeping others on track.
• MAINTENANCE — not termination — is realistically the end point for nutrition; willpower will be tested and athletes will slip, so equip them with tools to get back on the wagon.
• Social support is the key principle in maintenance, and it comes in types: emotional/esteem support (genuinely caring, celebrating wins, checking in regularly after a challenge ends — where many fall off) and informational/instrumental support (ongoing education and tools matched to the athlete's skill level, knowing how to evaluate and adjust a diet that's stalled).
• Adjusting a stalled diet might mean reducing carbohydrate further for health goals, eating more for performance, or experimenting with intermittent fasting — and knowing more specialized protocols and when it's appropriate to recommend them.
• There is no single way to get every athlete to change — but the PRINCIPLES of behavior change apply to everyone. Always ask: where is this athlete on the contemplation-action-maintenance continuum, and how can I best convince them they're capable of making or keeping the change?

Words to know (plain English)

Self-efficacy

A person's belief that they are capable of making a specific change. It's the strongest predictor of whether behavior change sticks, and the coach can deliberately raise it.

Mastery experience

A small, achievable accomplishment (like adding vegetables to each meal or building one healthy meal). Stacked-up wins build the confidence to take on the next, bigger step.

Vicarious experience

Learning that change is possible by seeing someone else succeed — relatable, real-life success stories used as proof and motivation ('if she can do it, so can I').

Verbal / social persuasion

Genuine support and belief expressed out loud — by the coach, by role models, or by a small group — to convince an athlete they have the skills to start and maintain the change.

Stages of change (contemplation, action, maintenance)

The gym-adapted arc of behavior change. Contemplation: wants to change and sees the problem. Action: has started building healthier habits. Maintenance: sustains the behavior and can handle relapse. (Adapted from the transtheoretical model.)

Compliance

Whether the athlete actually follows the nutrition change over time. High compliance — not just knowing the plan — is the real goal of nutrition coaching.

Social support

The relationships (coach, peers, mentors) that keep an athlete accountable in maintenance. Includes emotional/esteem support (caring, celebrating) and informational/instrumental support (ongoing education and tools).

Observational learning

Athletes learning behavior by watching a credible model. It's why the coach should personally eat quality food and weigh and measure — you provide the example clients copy.

Termination vs. maintenance

In general behavior-change theory the final stage is termination (the behavior is fully locked in). For nutrition, maintenance — ongoing effort with relapse skills — is the realistic end point instead.

Key ideas to understand

• Programming matters, but it's a small lever next to the big ones. A coach with a good eye for mechanics and real rapport with members will improve people's fitness for years even with less-than-perfect programming. Don't chase the 'perfect' template at the expense of your coaching skill and member relationships.
• Functional movements at high intensity are powerful enough to drive dramatic change no matter how well they're combined, especially for people who aren't used to training. So spend your energy on coaching and rapport, not on overthinking the cycle.
• 'Good' programming is judged by results, full stop. Effectiveness is measured by real improvement in performance markers, and the more it optimizes fitness, the better it is.
• For a CrossFit athlete, results look like heavier loads on heavy days, faster times on task-priority workouts, and more reps or rounds on time-priority workouts. The ideal program produces the biggest possible gains across any test of fitness.
• Performance markers track with health markers: faster Fran, more rounds of Cindy, a heavier 1RM clean and jerk correlate with lower blood pressure, triglycerides, and resting heart rate.
• Clients also report 'anecdotal' wins, better quality of life, confidence, energy, mood. They're not measurable, but many people value them over the numbers, and they're real side benefits.
• Ineffective programming just doesn't produce results, or not the results you could get otherwise: decreased benchmark performance, only modest gains, or even a higher injury rate that better programming would have avoided.
• For a group or whole affiliate, use the same yardstick across everyone. Pick a handful of benchmarks you trust to represent fitness, track them over time, and look for long-term trends. If the majority of members are improving their scores, the programming is working.
• This is a long-term view. You cannot expect everyone to PR every single benchmark, mood, sleep, stress, the athlete's own physiology and commitment are outside your control. Intermediate and advanced athletes especially won't PR every repeat because adaptations shrink as proficiency grows (the learning curve flattens).
• Variance is the intended variation of movements, loads, rep schemes, and time durations, both within one workout and across a series of workouts, to maximize fitness. Things like environment and gear can be varied too, but they're not your primary variables.
• It's the variation across months and years that determines how ready you are for anything. A narrow-focus program (say, powerlifting) can crush one area while leaving another flat or even getting worse, like a heavy-lifting bias that tanks the snatch or long-duration work.
• There are very few absolutes here. A programming error in variance is only a real problem when it becomes routine. One workout doesn't change your fitness; the series does. Too many heavy days in a row builds a narrow capacity, but a few heavy days back-to-back now and then can be exactly the right stimulus.
• Effective programming is never random. It requires intentional, careful planning, knowing CrossFit methodology well enough to understand which stimuli are similar, which are different, and which are most potent, reviewing what you've done recently to provide fresh variance, and building in routine assessment.
• To a lesser degree, know each athlete's current capacity and weaknesses. A well-varied program already covers many aspects of fitness; more advanced athletes (e.g., Games competitors) may need extra weakness work on top of regular programming.
• CrossFit can LOOK random because it's non-linear and non-formulaic, but its variety is a planned attempt to address every test of fitness, not luck of the draw.
• CrossFit.com is a strong expression of variance for general physical preparedness, someone who can do all main-site workouts as Rx'd has a robust capacity. Broad trends across those workouts show some combinations beat others.
• The most potent combinations tend to be whole-body, natural, high-power movements in short, intense workouts, usually task-priority couplets and triplets of 15 minutes or less, pairing complementary functions (e.g., pulling vs. pressing). This simple, elegant approach is what drives CrossFit's potency.
• Don't be fooled into thinking simple movements and combinations equal simple results. Complexity does not automatically buy you more efficiency or efficacy, and it can actually cost you both.
• Classic benchmarks (Fran, Helen, Diane, Elizabeth, Fight Gone Bad) are the model. Fran is the example: two full-body movements that complement each other (lower-body push, upper-body pull) so intensity stays high while expressing real-life functions, squatting, putting something overhead, pulling your body up.
• 'World-Class Fitness in 100 Words' is the best summary of the whole approach: train the major lifts and gymnastics basics, run/bike/swim/row hard and fast, mix elements in as many combinations as creativity allows 5-6 days a week, keep it short and intense, and remember routine is the enemy.
• Not every workout should follow the elegant pairing trend. Less often, athletes need unorthodox work: a load too heavy to cycle continuously is a strength stimulus, a high-rep scheme that forces stops is a stamina stimulus, and a lower-power movement like a Turkish get-up builds coordination, balance, and shoulder strength under cardiorespiratory stress. The bulk of workouts, though, should be simple, bold pairings.
• Most clients improve without individualized programming. Two small adjustments inside regular group programming, working weaknesses and scaling appropriately, accelerate results.
• A weakness is a skill that lags behind your other abilities. Improving your weak areas raises overall fitness. Well-varied, unbiased programming already attacks weaknesses by itself; just repeatedly doing the stuff you struggle with improves it over time.
• An athlete can add extra weakness work to speed progress, and it usually improves strengths too. This matters most for athletes who've plateaued. Glassman's point: there's more opportunity in chasing the thing you DON'T want to see come out of the hopper, that chink in the armor, than in piling more time onto what you're already good at.
• You rarely need to change programming drastically to address weaknesses, especially for a large group, and you can't tailor to every individual weakness anyway. The best move is to watch general trends in the gym and deliver well-varied programming consistently.
• Constant assessment keeps you from losing too much in your strong areas. Once a weak area reaches an acceptable level, find the next weakness and make small adjustments. A radical swing usually wipes out the gains you built elsewhere by skewing the program toward one goal.
• Biasing is programming certain elements more often regardless of current capacity. It builds a specific capacity, not necessarily overall fitness. It's fine if it serves the athlete's preference or goal, it's only a problem when someone wants general fitness but keeps following a biased program. Even addressing weaknesses becomes a bias if you stop assessing.
• The warm-up is the natural home for weakness work, focusing on the technique of a challenging movement. It buys extra practice time and makes the program feel more personalized. But warm-ups and skill sessions skew toward newer athletes, so give your advanced people challenging options too (e.g., everyone working pistols, beginners with a band or to a box, advanced doing weighted pistols).
• Never pre-fatigue clients in the warm-up, the warm-up is not another workout. Doing three rounds of 15 pull-ups/push-ups/sit-ups/squats/hip extensions before Cindy is a poor choice. Pre-fatigue is an especially big concern before a long skill session ahead of a workout (e.g., handstand push-up work before Diane). Skill work is fine, but monitor volume; each athlete tolerates pre-workout volume differently, and that tolerance builds over time.
• Templates can keep a coach or athlete committed to skill development, but use judgment, change or break the template whenever it makes sense.
• Scaling appropriately is essential, and it's NOT just for beginners. An effective trainer progresses most athletes toward Rx'd over months and years.
• To scale effectively, review the original workout for its intended stimulus: movement functions, loading parameters, time frame, and volume of repetitions. It doesn't need to be a formal process, but it surfaces the right scaling options.
• Worked example, Amanda (9-7-5 muscle-ups and 135-lb. snatches): a high-skill gymnastics movement (upper-body pull and push), a high-skill weightlifting movement (mostly lower-body pull and squat), moderate intended loading, short intended time (~5 minutes), and low volume. The goal when scaling is to keep as many of those variables intact as the individual's capacity allows, while still giving a significant challenge. There's no single strategy that works every time, and scaling is a moving target as capacities change.
• Four populations get common scaling strategies: beginners/deconditioned, intermediate, advanced, and injured.
• Beginners/deconditioned (generally six months of CrossFit or less): your primary concern is proper points of performance through full range of motion. Increasing difficulty (movement or volume) or pushing intensity (speed or load) is secondary to building movement proficiency and new skills. This group often includes the elderly, where extra safety steps may be needed (e.g., keeping feet on the floor). Beginners need a lot of guidance, be proactive about approaching and modifying.
• When scaling, modify loads, distances, and reps first, before you change the movement. If a movement is beyond the athlete, substitute one with similar function and range of motion (sometimes it takes several movements to get a similar effect). And it's not standard to inflate the volume of the substituted, easier movement, beginners usually need reduced volume, even with a substitution (e.g., you don't have to double or triple single-unders for double-unders).
• Amanda for beginners: drop the squat snatch load to whatever lets them practice with full range of motion (training bar, empty barbell, even PVC); if they have to go very light, consider doubling the rep scheme for more practice reps; you can reduce range of motion under load if mechanics can't otherwise be preserved, but keep some challenge across the reps. Replace the muscle-up with a simple upper-body pull and push, likely jumping pull-ups or ring rows plus squat-assisted dips, bench dips, or push-ups, picking an option that challenges upper-body strength across the total reps.
• Intermediate (roughly six months to three years): can do some workouts Rx'd but still struggles with complex movements or hard rep schemes and loads. Scale the reps on some gymnastics movements and the loads on some weightlifting movements. Use DIFFERENT scaling options each time a movement or load shows up, not just to avoid boredom but to keep developing fitness and shorten the time to the adaptation you want. Most of your members will be intermediate with a wide range of abilities, don't neglect them just because they need less hand-holding, and keep pushing them.
• Over time, intermediate athletes should learn to scale their own workouts as they better understand workout goals and their own strengths and weaknesses.
• Amanda for intermediates: many should stay at the prescribed snatch weight and just take longer, keeping the load builds exactly the strength and stamina needed for a more competitive time; only reduce load if it wouldn't be completed in any realistic time frame (more than ~20 minutes). The muscle-up scale should target the specific weakness: strong on pull-ups/dips but weak transition, work a transition drill; weak on pull-ups/dips, use those movements (maybe increased reps) to build pushing/pulling stamina and strength; has muscle-ups but inconsistent or low-volume, reduce the reps (e.g., 5-4-3) to train the skill in a mixed-modal setting.
• Advanced: can do all workouts and movements as prescribed, either came from years of high-intensity functional movement (e.g., collegiate gymnast) or have done CrossFit consistently for years. You'll still scale them at times, sickness, injury, personal problems, or a string of demanding workouts, and occasionally a lower-load/lower-rep variation benefits them physically and mentally.
• You can also 'scale up' an athlete who isn't challenged or needs a different skill stimulus, increase load or reps, change equipment (dumbbells vs. barbell), or make a movement harder (parallette vs. regular handstand push-ups). But be wary: more often than not the advanced athlete needs better mechanics and/or more intensity BEFORE you make a workout harder. Fix inefficiencies and push for faster speeds before adding weight and reps, those corrections translate to real seconds of performance.
• Don't confuse advanced with elite. Elite is reserved for people actually going to the Games. Competitive programming is outside this course's scope and outside most affiliates' needs. At minimum, an athlete should be advanced before they need more volume.
• Amanda for advanced: there are infinite tweaks based on strengths and weaknesses, good options especially when they already have a competitive time. The snatch can go heavier, become a power variation, or switch to heavy dumbbells; the muscle-up can become bar muscle-ups, strict muscle-ups, weighted muscle-ups, or muscle-ups to forward rolls.
• Injured athletes: encourage them to participate, there's benefit to training even at reduced capacity, including a positive hormonal response that affects body weight, recovery, and mental state. The injury determines what's possible, but the goal is unchanged: replicate the workout variables as closely as you can.
• Pain-free range of motion is the main guideline. Where a movement can't be done exactly, substitute one that best replicates basic function and/or range of motion, but use any movement that still relies primarily on the injured joint cautiously, if at all. Get creative to avoid boredom and keep them acquiring new skills.
• Single-limb work is useful, exercising the non-injured side can actually reduce atrophy on the injured side rather than cause a problematic imbalance, and dumbbells are perfect for one-sided work (you can raise reps when loading is limited). It shouldn't be the only option. If a movement has two functions, the athlete may still do one with both sides (injured upper body, still squat or front squat a thruster; injured lower body, still press or push press). If there's no reasonable similar option, omit or substitute the movement, that's the last resort.
• Amanda for injured: it takes many forms. Injured shoulder that can't support load with one arm, the snatch may become a heavy single-arm dumbbell snatch on the good side or even a 135-lb back squat (load can be increased for challenge in the 9-7-5), and the muscle-up may become a single-arm ring row and push-up or dumbbell press. Injured knee with limited flexion, the snatch may become a power/muscle/hang variation depending on range of motion, and the muscle-up wouldn't need scaling.
• When the injured side is cleared, increase intensity very gradually with heavy emphasis on optimal mechanics to prevent re-injury.
• Implementing scaling in class: after you've analyzed the workout and know what's likely to need scaling (especially movement substitutions), give direction to the WHOLE class. Introduce the workout by naming the intended stimulus/goal and discussing loading, reps, time, and movement considerations, that alone prevents a lot of scaling confusion.
• Presenting several scaling options up front keeps the class moving. Set scaling options keep big groups organized and that's fine, but recognize the best choice for some athletes may be a totally different option; an experienced trainer can create unique scales without disrupting instruction or group cohesion.
• Watch clients as they warm up and build loads, you can quickly tell from warm-up sets whether the loading and rep scheme fit. Sometimes you assessed scaling wrong and have to scale mid-workout: if an athlete is struggling too early to hit the desired outcome, adjust a variable (load, reps); this is mandatory the moment they can't maintain safe mechanics. Be firm about it, good rapport means they'll accept the change.
• Sport-specific athletes: CrossFit can't replace their sport practice, but fixing deficiencies in their general physical preparedness has immediate carry-over, sometimes without obvious mechanical or metabolic explanation. For advanced specialists, there's often more room to improve by raising GPP than by adding more sport-specific S&C, because sport training and physiology aren't understood well enough for highly specialized routines to be optimally effective.
• Coach CrossFit, not the sport. Don't try to mimic the sport inside CrossFit workouts, you're not their swim/soccer/tennis coach, and coaching beyond your knowledge gives both poor CrossFit AND poor sport-specific training. Program CrossFit for them just like any other client; let the sport coaches handle sport skills.
• Mind their competition seasons. CrossFit is secondary to sport training, especially in season, and there's usually a natural volume trade-off depending on time of year, dial CrossFit volume back near important events. Add CrossFit volume cautiously while constantly assessing sport performance.
• Common pitfall 1, no regular assessment. Measurable results in performance markers are how you know whether past programming worked and what to program next. Lack of assessment comes from not repeating benchmarks and/or not recording results, encourage members to log results (they like the record of progress).
• Common pitfall 2, misapplying variance, in one of three ways: randomizing variables, biasing certain variables, or emphasizing non-essential elements. Optimal variance takes intentional planning, not spinning the hopper for random tasks (a hopper is a good TEST of fitness but a poor way to PREPARE for everything). Biasing means repeating certain elements too often while avoiding others, fine if intended, a problem if the goal is GPP. Emphasizing non-essentials looks like never repeating workouts, stuffing actual workouts with accessory/skill movements (Sots presses, single-leg work, sport drills), or fixating on environment (gas mask, middle of the night), newer programmers often mistake 'complicated' and 'unique' for superior.
• Common pitfall 3, lack of higher-skill development. Happens when hard movements get avoided or warm-ups aren't used for weaknesses. A current community trend is to dodge the harder gymnastics, athletes will tackle the snatch and clean and jerk but won't put the same time into levers, planches, presses to handstand, or pirouettes.
• Common pitfall 4, excessive volume, mostly double days (and sometimes more), driven by trying to emulate Games athletes. That training isn't representative of what CrossFit programming should be: multiple sessions a day aren't appropriate for 99% of athletes, and even multiple workouts in one extended session should generally be avoided. Extra volume may help short-term but leads to overtraining, injury risk, and burnout long-term, intensity usually drops across sessions ('Be impressed by intensity, not volume'). If a client wants to be competitive, add volume very gradually, starting with extra skill sessions in weak areas, not extra workouts.
• Common pitfall 5, treating the 'CrossFit standard' as whatever is done at the Games. Competition standards exist for ease of judging and set the MINIMUM requirements for a rep so range of motion is equal across competitors, they don't represent the best expression of a movement (hand-release push-ups aren't better for development or mechanics, just easier to judge). Don't let competition standards stop you from teaching many mechanics, CrossFit wants athletes to learn ALL techniques (strict, chest-to-bar, kipping, butterfly), which is another face of variance that prepares you to accomplish a task multiple ways.
• Bottom line: effective programming comes from applying basic tenets to choose elements and combinations; optimize long-term design by watching objective, measurable results and applying focused weakness work or appropriate scaling. The daily workout elements are just ONE factor, also assess your coaching and the intensity being brought to know where to make meaningful changes.

Words to know (plain English)

Effective ("good") programming

Programming that produces real, measurable results, the more it optimizes fitness across tests, the more effective it is. Judged by improvement in performance markers, not by how clever the template looks.

Performance markers

The measurable outputs you track to see if programming works: heavier loads on heavy days, faster times on task-priority workouts, more reps/rounds on time-priority workouts.

Health markers

Measurable health outputs (blood pressure, triglycerides, resting heart rate) that improve alongside performance gains like faster Fran or a heavier clean and jerk.

Variance

The intended variation of functional movements, loads, rep schemes, and time durations, both within one workout and across a series, planned to best prepare an athlete for any test of fitness. Environment and gear are secondary variables.

General physical preparedness (GPP)

Broad, inclusive fitness across all domains, the goal of standard CrossFit programming, as opposed to specializing in one narrow capacity.

Rx'd (as prescribed)

Performing a workout exactly as written, full load, reps, and movements. An athlete who can do all CrossFit.com workouts Rx'd has a robust fitness capacity.

Task-priority workout

A workout with a fixed amount of work scored by time (e.g., Fran). Effective programming leans on short task-priority couplets and triplets of 15 minutes or less.

Time-priority workout

A workout with a fixed time scored by reps or rounds completed (e.g., an AMRAP like Cindy).

Couplet / triplet

A workout pairing two (couplet) or three (triplet) movements, ideally complementary in function, the elegant combinations that drive much of CrossFit's potency.

Weakness

A skill that lags relative to an athlete's proficiency in other areas, the 'chink in the armor.' Improving it raises overall fitness more than padding a strength.

Weakness work

Targeted extra practice on a lagging skill, often built into the warm-up, to accelerate progress and break plateaus without overhauling the whole program.

Biasing

Programming certain elements or combinations more frequently regardless of current capacity. It builds a specific capacity, not necessarily overall fitness, fine for a stated goal, a problem when the goal is GPP.

Scaling

Adjusting a workout's variables (load, distance, reps, or movement) to fit an athlete's capacity while preserving the workout's intended stimulus and keeping it a real challenge.

Intended stimulus

What a workout is designed to do, read through four variables, movement functions, loading parameters, time frame, and volume of reps. You preserve as much of it as possible when scaling.

Scaling up

Making a workout harder (more load/reps, different equipment, or a harder movement variation) for an athlete who isn't challenged, used cautiously, and only after mechanics and intensity are dialed in.

Points of performance

The defining mechanical checkpoints of a movement performed through full range of motion, the top priority when scaling beginners and deconditioned athletes.

Pre-fatigue

Tiring an athlete out before the actual workout (usually with an over-heavy warm-up or long skill session), which compromises the workout. The warm-up is not another workout.

The hopper

The model of pulling random tasks (as if from a hopper) to test readiness for anything. A good TEST of fitness, but a poor way to PROGRAM, because relying on chance won't reliably build broad, inclusive adaptations.

Advanced vs. elite

Advanced = can do all workouts and movements Rx'd. Elite = athletes actually going to the Games. Competitive (elite) programming is outside this course's scope; athletes should be advanced before they need more volume.

Double days

More than one training session in a day. Appropriate for Games athletes preparing for high-volume competition, but not for the 99% of CrossFit athletes, extra volume tends to cut intensity and breed overtraining and burnout.

Sport-specific preparation

Using CrossFit to improve a sport athlete's general physical preparedness, which carries over to their sport. The CrossFit coach programs GPP, not the sport itself, and respects the athlete's competition season.

World-Class Fitness in 100 Words

Coach Glassman's 100-word summary of CrossFit programming: train the major lifts and gymnastics basics, go hard and fast across monostructural work, mix elements in endless combinations 5-6 days a week, keep workouts short and intense, and remember routine is the enemy.

Key ideas to understand

• Two tools here, one purpose: get more variance and more weakness work into your programming. First, modality-based warm-up complexes (weightlifting, gymnastics, monostructural). Second, the Programming Analysis Worksheet for auditing what you've actually been programming.
• Mindset on warm-ups: a warm-up is NOT a separate workout. It's an opportunity to touch skills that may or may not show up in the day's main workout, which is exactly where you can build in weakness work.
• Warm-ups here are progressive: run 2-3 rounds of a complex, with each round slightly more complicated than the one before. Each movement gets 5-15 reps, chosen to give enough practice WITHOUT fatiguing the athlete for the workout.
• Weightlifting complexes (choose one). Barbell: Round 1 = deadlift, hang power clean, front squat, press, thruster; Round 2 = deadlift, hang power snatch, overhead squat, snatch. Dumbbell (one or two): same as barbell plus a Turkish get-up in Round 2. Kettlebell (one, both, or hand-to-hand): swing, clean, clean and press, snatch, Turkish get-up.
• Gymnastics complexes (choose one), built as mini routines where you omit the harder variations until skilled enough. Rings: tuck/pike to inverted hang then skin the cat, strict muscle-up to support to L-sit, shoulder stand to L-support or straddle, forward rolls, lever attempts, ring swings, fly-away dismount. Parallettes: push-up/dive-bomber, shoot-through to push-up to frog stand, L-sit pass-throughs to tuck planche or shoulder stand, tuck-up/press to handstand, handstand pirouette walk.
• Basic Body Weight (BBW) is its own progressive complex in four rounds: Round 1 = squat, push-up, sit-up, strict pull-up, hip extension; Round 2 = lunge, strict dip, V-up, kipping pull-up, back extension; Round 3 = pistol, handstand push-up, toes-to-bar (straight leg and strict), strict muscle-up, hip and back extension; Round 4 = pose running drill.
• There's a sample Warm-Up Programming Template that rotates warm-up modality across a 7-day week to guarantee variation and consistency: Day 1 W(Barbell), Day 2 G(Rings), Day 3 BBW, Day 4 W(Dumbbell), Day 5 G(Parallettes), Day 6 BBW, Day 7 OFF, with the day's workout modalities (M/G/W) deliberately mixed alongside.
• The Programming Analysis Worksheet is a tool to help analyze THEMES, not a perfect system for writing programming. It's a spreadsheet that lets you categorize a block of workouts so patterns jump out.
• The worksheet categories: Modality/Load (mark all, as many times as represented), Time, Repetitions (total across the workout), Scheme (number of movements represented), Priority, and Movements.
• Reps aren't normally counted for monostructural work, but the sheet gives a rule of thumb for estimating 'reps' on running and rowing: Low = under 800 m total, Moderate = 800-3,200 m, High = more than 3,200 m.
• Modality/Load buckets: Gymnastics; Weightlifting split into Light, Medium, Heavy; and Monostructural. You tally how many of the block's workouts hit each one.
• Time buckets: Heavy Day, under 5 min, 5-10 min, 11-20 min, over 20 min. Total Repetitions buckets: Low (under 50 reps), Medium (50-200), High (over 200).
• Scheme buckets count how many movements are in a workout: Single, Couplet (2), Triplet (3), and 4-or-more-moves & chippers. Priority is either Task Priority (finish the work, clock is open) or Time Priority (race the clock for a fixed time, like an AMRAP).
• The Movements section is an itemized checklist split into Gymnastics, Weightlifting, and Monostructural lists, so you can literally count how often each specific movement (back squat, muscle-up, rowing, etc.) showed up over the block.
• The section ships with a 9-WOD sample program already filled into the worksheet, so you can see how a real block gets categorized and where the totals reveal gaps (e.g., a movement showing 0) or over-emphasis.

Words to know (plain English)

Progressive warm-up

A warm-up of 2-3 rounds where each round gets slightly more complex, used to build skill toward the day's movements without fatiguing the athlete.

Modality

A category of training: weightlifting (W), gymnastics (G), or monostructural/metabolic (M). Warm-ups and the worksheet are organized by these.

Monostructural

Single-structure cardio movements like running, rowing, biking; reps aren't normally counted, so distance estimates stand in.

Complex

A chain of movements done back to back as one warm-up routine (e.g., deadlift, hang power clean, front squat, press, thruster).

Basic Body Weight (BBW)

A four-round progressive bodyweight warm-up complex used to build gymnastics skill and weakness work with no equipment.

Programming Analysis Worksheet

A spreadsheet for categorizing a block of workouts by modality, time, reps, scheme, priority, and movements so you can see what you've over- or under-programmed.

Scheme

How many movements a workout contains: single, couplet (2), triplet (3), or four-plus / chipper.

Task priority

A workout scored by completing a fixed amount of work as fast as possible, with the clock open (e.g., 'for time').

Time priority

A workout scored by how much work you complete in a fixed time, racing the clock (e.g., an AMRAP).

Chipper

A long workout with four or more movements done in sequence, one big list to 'chip away' at.

Key ideas to understand

• Real training isn't showing up, scribbling a last-minute workout on the whiteboard, and hitting play on the music. It's improving each client's fitness in small, incremental, motivating steps — and that takes a plan, both day-to-day and long-term.
• Beyond the six areas of effective coaching (presence, attitude, demonstration, etc.), running a single class well requires a lesson plan to manage time.
• The four-part lesson plan is: INTRODUCTION, WARM-UP, WORKOUT, POST-WORKOUT. The workout's total time drives how much time the warm-up and cool-down get — a longer workout sacrifices time in one or both.
• Logistics shape both the workout you pick and the time each part gets: gear availability, class size, gym space, and the experience level of the class. Plan alternatives, because you may have to modify on the fly depending on who (and how many) show up.
• Safety is a layout problem too: there must be walkable space between every moving athlete and their equipment. Dumbbells are great space-savers and barbell substitutes; sandbags, the outdoors, and staggered heats also help. You're limited only by your knowledge and creativity.
• INTRODUCTION (the time 'at the whiteboard') is the shortest part but is very important. The coach briefs the workout, sets expectations by explaining the intended stimulus, offers several scaling options, and takes questions — usually 2-4 minutes, longer with more participants (more people, more questions). It should clear up confusion and reduce pre-workout anxiety.
• WARM-UP does just that — warms the body for intense work — and usually has two parts. The GENERAL warm-up stimulates physiology: raises core temperature and blood flow, primes the cardiorespiratory system, increases mobility, moves joints through full range of motion (often calisthenics or dynamic ranges of motion).
• The SPECIFIC warm-up builds, practices, and refines the exact mechanics the workout's movements need and prepares the athlete mentally and physically. It may use different ranges of motion or variations (power vs. squat variations, medicine balls vs. barbells) where useful, and it's a prime chance for movement assessment and appropriate scaling.
• Movements NOT in the workout can be used in the warm-up to fix deficiencies (e.g., practicing handstands even when handstands aren't in the workout). This is usually reserved for shorter, lower-skill workouts that don't need much prep — the 'Program Design and Scaling' article covers using this time as focused weakness work.
• The warm-up benefits both: the athlete prepares for the workout's demands and improves deficiencies (subtle inefficiencies in experienced athletes, bigger faults in newer ones), and the coach gets to assess each athlete's capacity relative to the intended stimulus before assigning scaling.
• You may have scaling ideas before class, but you can't choose the most effective options until you've actually assessed the athletes' needs in the warm-up. Scaling should PROGRESS with the athlete — they shouldn't keep doing the same scale forever; they should be constantly challenged.
• A PRE-WORKOUT BREAK isn't one of the four main elements but is needed and useful: safety and equipment checks, room layout, workout flow, additional scaling, athlete questions, a bathroom opportunity, and the workout re-brief.
• The workout RE-BRIEF reminds athletes of the workout (movement order, rep scheme, rounds or time) and the required range-of-motion standards. You must clearly demonstrate and emphasize ROM and mechanics for every movement before every single workout — it makes holding standards during the workout easier and builds a culture of virtuosity. Abbreviations and acronyms on the whiteboard are NOT self-evident, especially to newer athletes.
• WORKOUT is where the demands on the coach increase. Coaching isn't rep-counting, cheering, or picking music — it's applying threshold training: pushing the athlete's intensity while maintaining sound mechanics. That balance minimizes injury risk while keeping intensity high to drive progress.
• Deviations in mechanics are inevitable as athletes move fast. The coach attends to each client, uses as many cueing strategies as needed, and encourages/reinforces sound mechanics throughout. The coach may have to slow an athlete down, lower the load, or even stop them if mechanics don't improve across multiple reps. Movement change is NOT reserved for the warm-up — you're expected to make athletes better DURING the workout.
• The workout benefits both: the athlete gets fitness adaptations from appropriately increasing speed and load plus real-time feedback, and the coach develops seeing-and-correcting skills in a faster, more dynamic, less-controlled environment — practical, real-time learning in effective coaching.
• POST-WORKOUT's main purpose is to cool down: aid recovery, regain mental acuity, slow heart rate and breathing, and restore full range of motion about the joints (regaining homeostasis). A well-run post-workout must include a proper cool-down that leaves clients ready for the rest of their day and eager to return.
• Cool-down ideas: start by just letting athletes recover a few minutes, then — while warm and pliable — stretch or foam roll the heavily-taxed areas (aids recovery, reduces soreness, can gain new ROM). A coach-led session beats an open period because everyone gets direction, attention, motivation, and togetherness.
• Optional post-workout add-ons: skill work (review the workout's movements at reduced speed/load to correct errors, or even video playback if you filmed an athlete; new unrelated skills can be valuable here because muscular fatigue heightens neurological adaptation), and a FINISHER — an impromptu fitness test (max pull-ups, handstand walking, rope climbs) used for records, competition, or motivation. Be careful: finishers must NOT become a second workout, and not every class needs one.
• Use the post-workout to make sure athletes RECORD their workouts — especially on benchmark and strength days (times, reps, loads, scaling) — and be able to tell them the last date the workout was completed for comparison. It's also a chance to educate (nutrition, programming, scaling, 'What Is Fitness?', 'What is CrossFit?') to create smarter athletes.
• The post-workout is also when you survey athletes for mental faculties and visible signs of injury or physical distress, watching verbal and nonverbal cues of duress. Conversations here give feedback on your programming and lay the groundwork for community and relationships — it's an often rushed but valuable section.
• To be effective in every class, a coach needs capacity in all six areas from 'Foundations of Effective Training' AND a plan covering all aspects of the class to improve athletes while keeping them safe and excited to return. After each session, an informal self-review and critique sharpens the next one — self-awareness and critique are critical to development.
• The Sample Coaching Evaluation Sheet scores a class across the same domains, each marked 'Needs Improvement' or 'Effective': TEACHING (info correct/complete, demonstration, organized/succinct/clear, progression), SEEING (enough time to see reps, acknowledging good movement, static and dynamic), CORRECTING (static and dynamic, cues that work, prioritized communication/triage, follows up with lasting cues, relentless), CLASS MANAGEMENT (pacing/command, time allotment, attention to all, organization/layout/safety), PRESENCE AND ATTITUDE (engagement/rapport, empathy/respect), and APPLICATION (optimizes seeing, develops virtuosity, threshold training, appropriate scaling, appropriate warm-up/cool-down).

Words to know (plain English)

Four-part lesson plan

The basic class template: Introduction, Warm-Up, Workout, Post-Workout. The workout's total time determines how much time the warm-up and cool-down get.

Introduction (the whiteboard)

The short opening (2-4 min) where the coach briefs the workout, explains the intended stimulus, offers scaling options, and takes questions — clearing confusion and reducing pre-workout anxiety.

General warm-up

The first part of the warm-up: calisthenic or dynamic movement that raises core temperature and blood flow, primes the cardiorespiratory system, and moves joints through full range of motion.

Specific warm-up

The second part of the warm-up: building, practicing, and refining the exact mechanics of the workout's movements (using variations or different ranges of motion as needed), and the prime window for movement assessment and scaling.

Intended stimulus

What the workout is designed to feel like and accomplish — its time domain, loading, and challenge. Scaling exists to preserve it, and the coach explains it at the whiteboard.

Pre-workout break

A short buffer (not one of the four main elements) for safety and equipment checks, layout, flow, last-minute scaling, questions, a bathroom opportunity, and the workout re-brief.

Workout re-brief

Reminding athletes of the workout (movement order, rep scheme, rounds or time) and demonstrating the required range-of-motion standards before they start.

Threshold training

The core of coaching the workout: pushing the athlete's intensity right to the edge while maintaining sound mechanics — high intensity on good technique, which minimizes injury risk and drives progress.

Virtuosity

Doing the common uncommonly well — the standard a coach cultivates by demonstrating and holding range-of-motion and mechanics on every movement, every workout.

Finisher

An optional impromptu fitness test at the end of class (e.g., max pull-ups, handstand walking, rope climbs) used for records, competition, or motivation — bounded so it never becomes a second workout.

Homeostasis

The body's return to baseline — slowed heart rate and breathing, regained mental acuity, restored range of motion — which the post-workout cool-down is designed to bring about.

Sample Coaching Evaluation Sheet

A scoring tool that rates a class across six domains (Teaching, Seeing, Correcting, Class Management, Presence and Attitude, Application), each marked 'Needs Improvement' or 'Effective' — useful for structured self-critique.

Key ideas to understand

• These are worked examples of a full lesson plan, the same template applied to two very different sessions: a single-modality heavy weightlifting day (Clean and Jerk) and a gymnastics-triplet benchmark (Mary). Study them to see how intended stimulus, warm-up, workout, and scaling fit together on the clock.
• Clean and Jerk workout: 3-3-3-3-3, score is the maximum load for a set of 3 reps. The sets are ascending, athletes add weight after every set.
• Clean and Jerk intended stimulus: this is a single-modality weightlifting heavy day. At 3 reps per set it's biased toward strength-stamina rather than maximum power. The goal is the heaviest load possible for 3 reps with sound technique, and adequate rest (3-5 minutes) between sets is required to maximize loading.
• Clean and Jerk breakdown (coaching notes): the goal is strength, though at 3 reps the loads won't approach 1-rep maxes; athletes are limited by their weaker of the two lifts (clean vs. jerk) and may bias technique on one half and strength on the other; athletes add load after each successful set chasing a new 3-rep max; new PRs should be attempted in the third or fourth set; scaling is modulated by load; coaches must ask if anyone is injured, demonstrate the movement and movement standards, reduce load when 3 reps aren't achieved or form degrades significantly, and explain that the score is the max load for a set of 3.
• Clean and Jerk class flow (the clock): :00-:03 whiteboard (explain workout, stimulus, breakdown); :03-:08 general warm-up (assess wrist/shoulder/hip/knee/ankle mobility, double-unders, inchworm-push-up-squats); :08-:28 specific warm-up (20 min building the clean and the split jerk piece by piece with 'look-fors'); :28-:31 break and logistics; :31-:53 the workout (22 min, cue positions, reduce load as needed, safe loading and collars); :53-:60 cool-down (clean up, hip-flexor stretch, collect scores, celebrate PRs).
• Clean and Jerk specific-warm-up 'look-fors' are a model of teaching by progression: front squats (depth below parallel), hang cleans (sound front-rack), deadlift-shrugs (timing of shrug after hip extension), cleans (full hip extension); then split-jerk jumps to the receiving position teaching recovery from the split, feet at least hip width on landing, punch timing after hip extension, and jerks looking for a vertical torso in the dip-drive; then full clean and jerks pausing after standing (reset hands and feet) and on the athlete's own cadence (hip extension in both lifts).
• Clean and Jerk safety points appear repeatedly: ensure clear space to drop the barbell, use collars on every lift, keep unused plates far from the working area so a dropped bar isn't a hazard, and warm athletes up to a first working set around 80% of current max in small same-strength groups.
• Clean and Jerk WOD scaling: regardless of experience, everyone should find a heavy set of 3 relative to their own capacity. Beginners/intermediates may do MORE than 5 working sets if they haven't established a 3-rep max; true beginners may do 5 reps per set to practice mechanics, but coaches must keep total volume appropriate and keep the focus on strength, not cardiovascular stamina. Generally use the full clean from the floor to build proficiency; reserve hang-clean variations for those with severe limitations pulling from the floor.
• Mary workout: complete as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) in 20 minutes of 5 handstand push-ups, 10 alternating pistols, 15 pull-ups. Score is completed rounds and reps.
• Mary intended stimulus: a classic benchmark for assessing progress. It's a triplet of push-squat-pull gymnastics movements; elite athletes can exceed 15 rounds, but many are slowed by the two harder elements, handstand push-ups and especially pistols. It taxes athletes both metabolically and technically: the complementary push-squat-pull pattern lets you keep moving while accumulating fatigue makes the HSPU and pistols harder.
• Mary breakdown (coaching notes): consider the combined metabolic challenge, the load and reps of each movement should be well within capacity when looked at independently; scaling reduces volume and load on all three; coaches demonstrate each movement and standards, explain the score (rounds and reps), and ask if anyone is injured; athletes should aim for at least 8 rounds, with rough max per-round estimates of ~30 sec HSPU, ~1 min pistols, ~1 min pull-ups; for elite athletes the limiter is often grip fatigue from accumulated pull-up volume.
• Mary class flow (the clock): :00-:03 whiteboard; :03-:08 general warm-up (3 rounds: bear crawl, narrowing-stance air squats, progressively higher pike push-ups, strict pull-ups banded if needed); :08-:16 HSPU-specific warm-up; :16-:23 pistol-specific warm-up; :23-:27 pull-up-specific warm-up; :27-:30 break and logistics; :30-:50 the workout (20-min AMRAP); :50-:60 cool-down (slow 400 m jog, accumulate 1 min hanging, collect scores, celebrate PRs).
• Mary's specific warm-ups teach how to scale by difficulty: for HSPU, scaled athletes pike from a box (more perpendicular torso and hands farther from the box = harder), with handstand holds, negative reps (tripod head/hands position), strict reps (neutral spine), and kipping reps (timing of press with the kip). For pistols, scale by squatting on one leg to a box at a height that allows control with no momentum, and add a PVC/light bar overhead for proficient athletes to increase difficulty, looking for the heel down through full range. For pull-ups, hangs (neutral spine), kipping swings, and pull-ups banded if needed.
• Mary's workout focus is maintaining full range of motion in every movement regardless of scaling: HSPU shoulders open at top and elbows locked out, pistol crease of hips below the top of the knee on the working side (for those not scaling ROM), control through each rep for box users above parallel, and pull-up chin clearly over the bar at the top with elbows locked at the bottom. Safety: enough space between stations and boxes not left under athletes during pull-ups.
• Mary WOD scaling philosophy: any one, two, or all three elements may be modified in volume or load, using coach judgment for a challenging but manageable substitution. Two concrete scaled versions are given. Beginner: 10-sec handstand hold (instead of HSPU, to develop upper-body strength and expose the inverted position), 10 alternating pistols to a box (height that allows control, shortened ROM acceptable if at the limit of strength), 10 banded strict pull-ups (band should allow a few unbroken rounds). Intermediate: 5 piked HSPU from a box (find a position allowing 5 'perfect' reps before starting; hands farther/torso more perpendicular = harder), 10 banded pistols (band at ~hip height in a rack; lowering it or thinning the band increases difficulty), 10 pull-ups (reduced from 15 because accumulated volume is usually too much to keep moving; ideally broken only once per round).
• Across both plans the same coaching constants show up: every part of class is coach-led, demonstrate each new piece before athletes perform it, cue better positions throughout, ask about injuries up front, rebrief the workout and safety before the clock starts, and close by collecting scores and celebrating PRs.

Words to know (plain English)

Intended stimulus

The specific training effect a workout is meant to produce; it drives every scaling and loading decision so the athlete gets the same stimulus regardless of level.

Heavy day / single-modality weightlifting day

A session built around one modality (here, weightlifting) at heavy loads and low reps to develop strength.

Strength-stamina

The ability to express near-maximal strength repeatedly; a 3-rep scheme biases toward this rather than pure single-rep power.

Ascending sets

Sets in which the athlete adds load after each successful set, working toward a top set (here, a 3-rep max).

Clean and jerk

An Olympic lift in two parts, pulling the bar to the shoulders (clean) and driving it overhead (jerk); the athlete is limited by the weaker half.

Split jerk

A jerk received in a split stance; warmed up by jumping to the receiving position to teach recovery, foot width, and punch timing.

Dip-drive

The brief dip and explosive leg drive that launches the bar overhead in a jerk; the torso should stay vertical through it.

AMRAP

'As many rounds as possible' in a set time; Mary is a 20-minute AMRAP scored by completed rounds and reps.

Triplet

A workout combining three movements; Mary pairs a push (HSPU), a squat (pistol), and a pull (pull-up).

Pistol

A single-leg squat; scaled by squatting to a box of a height that allows control with no momentum, or loaded with a light bar to increase difficulty.

Handstand push-up (HSPU)

An inverted press; scaled by piking from a box (more perpendicular torso and hands farther from the box = harder) or to a handstand hold.

Benchmark workout

A named, repeatable workout (like Mary) used to measure and compare an athlete's progress over time.

Movement standards

The required range-of-motion and position checkpoints for a rep to count (e.g., HSPU elbows locked, pull-up chin over the bar).

Collars

Clamps that secure plates on the barbell; the plans require collars on every lift as a safety check.

Key ideas to understand

• The L2 course is an intermediate course built to develop your coaching skill set — you leave with individualized feedback you can use Monday morning, plus a clearer sense of where to keep growing long term.
• The real learning happens after the course, on the floor. Keep coaching real people — that live, real-time reps are the best classroom you've got.
• Keep stacking learning: take other CrossFit online and continuing-education courses, and study anything that overlaps with fitness.
• Come back to this material periodically and film yourself coaching so you can honestly reassess what you're good at and what still needs work.
• You earn the CF-L2 designation only after you finish both the in-person course AND the online assessment that comes afterward (details are in the Level 2 Participant Handbook). The CF-L2 and the certificate are good for five years from the date you finished the course.
• To keep the credential alive you either retake the two-day course and meet whatever the current requirements are, or you move up to a higher credential.
• CF-L3 (Certified CrossFit Level 3 Trainer) and CF-L4 (Certified CrossFit Level 4 Coach) are for experienced trainers. They have NO course — they're pass/fail assessments only, a way to prove a high level of competency and stand out in the community.
• CF-L3 requires that you've completed both the Level 1 and Level 2 courses plus a minimum of 750 hours of CrossFit coaching experience.
• CF-L4 can only be attempted after you've earned the L3. It's a performance-based assessment of your group coaching, aimed at the most experienced coaches with several years of group coaching behind them.

Words to know (plain English)

CF-L2 (CrossFit Level 2 Trainer)

The designation you earn after finishing the in-person L2 course and the post-course online assessment. Valid for five years and usable on a resume or bio.

CF-L3 (Certified CrossFit Level 3 Trainer)

A pass/fail credential (no course) for experienced trainers. Requires completed L1 and L2 courses plus at least 750 hours of coaching experience.

CF-L4 (Certified CrossFit Level 4 Coach)

The highest credential — a performance-based, pass/fail assessment of your group coaching, attemptable only after earning the L3.

Recertification

Keeping a credential current. For CF-L2 it means retaking the two-day course and meeting current requirements, or moving up to a higher credential, before the five-year window closes.

Continuing education

Additional CrossFit online and specialty courses, plus study of anything overlapping fitness, used to keep developing as a coach after the L2.