Ten General Physical Skills: CrossFit's First Fitness Standard

Serial Posting
   As I try and finish Lights Out, as well as write a brief review of the book and what to take away from it, I want to go back to basics when it comes to our actual fitness. Why is it that we here in "CrossFit Land" do what we do? From the way the workouts are programmed, to the range of motion that we teach, is there a method to all this madness?

   Over the next few weeks I am going to be breaking down the standards of fitness that CrossFit uses to measure an athletes ability, and discussing WHY they are utilized as well as how we can improve our performance in these regimes. From the physical, to the physiological, to the psychological aspects, We are going to take a look at it all.

Back to Basics
   Cardiovascular / Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, Accuracy. These are the 10 general physical skills that have been adopted by CrossFit. Although they were originally laid out by Jim Crawley and Bruce Evans of Dynamax ( awesome medicine balls ), they have since become a cornerstone of the CrossFit model. The saying goes "You are as fit as you are competent in each of these ten skills." Any little bit of stamina or flexibility that you lack is just another chink in your armor of fitness, and it is my goal to break these 10 skills down and analyze how we can improve upon each of them individually, as well as a whole.

Where to Start?
   You can start by spending some time meditating about where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Write down a list of the exercises or combination of exercises that you really struggle with. Try and separate your list into two categories. 1) Training, and 2) Practice. Can you completely separate your problem areas into these categories? Cardiovascular / Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, and Flexibility must all be trained. You cannot "Practice" your stamina, instead you must "Train" it. Where as the latter six skills in the group ( Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy ) must be practiced...  Really spend some time thinking about these skills as well as where you really feel you could use improvement. Because as much as we would all love to just be Elite Athletes, we must know where we are, before we can figure out where to go.

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