Having coached CrossFit and been involved in athletics my whole life, I have noticed that one of the most important things in any athletic endeavor is improvement. Sure we join sports for fun but what is more fun than watching ourselves improve at that sport? That’s right, nothing. I have observed that the first step in improving is setting a goal. In setting that goal you not only are making a commitment to yourself, it helps you organize your effort so you have something to show for it.

With the sport of CrossFit, it is difficult to notice improvement at times because there are some many different things to work on, it gets easy to see and significant improvement because the work we put in is so spread out over so many different disciplines. However, that is the beauty of CrossFit at the same time, we become capable of performing tasks that range from strength dominated lifts all the way to balance and coordination dominated gymnastics and skills. If you ask me, that is what we all desire is to be capable of proficiently performing any given task thrown our way. That it is what is so addicting about competitions, we sign up having no clue what the workouts will be, allowing for a completely even playing field and the inability to cherry pick competitions based upon whether or not the workouts are up our alley. Sometimes competitions go well and sometimes they don’t because we all have our strengths and weaknesses, but when it comes to the off-season, we want to try and better yourself as a whole for the next competition.

I have tried just doing months of lifting and just doing months of conditioning, and both have yielded the same result of success in one realm while all other realms of fitness suffer. That is something I have never enjoyed because I do not enjoy the feeling of not being able to do something that I was able to 6 months ago, it feels like a step backwards. After years of writing programs and trying stuff on my own, I have found that you need to both condition and lift year round, but each month should have an emphasis in which we put in additional work. Whether it be squats, snatch, handstand push ups, or muscle up, have one movement or skill that gets additional focus so we can really see some improvement in one single area. At the same time, the other areas will stay proficient. One year down the road, we will be significantly better at 12 different movements while retaining and possibly gaining in all other parts of fitness.

For this very specific reason, the upcoming Outlier Halloween Throwdown will have a different twist than most other competitions, the two floater workouts that will be more skill based will be released upon opening of registration months before the actual competition. The reason I am choosing to do this is to encourage those of you athletes who may or may not have mastered the particular skill or movement to learn it or improve it because that is what really matters. I am encouraging you all to sign up and make a goal to yourself to improve the particular skill because I know a lot can be accomplished in a few months time when we focus on something. Take a video of yourself now and see where you are at, and then come competition time, take a video of yourself competing so you can see the improvement for yourself being applied to something.

Why wait and keep the movements as a surprise when we can make goals to improve and start as soon as possible. I signed up for the LCI in 2013 without having ever walked a single foot on my hands, and after one month, I found myself walking 20 feet at a time on my hands because I set a goal for myself and worked on it for a whole month, that is the kind of improvement we want to foster and see first hand at our competition on Halloween.

We will be announcing more details soon (including the floater WODs). Stay tuned via facebook and our website for important announcements and registration info!