Strive for the Standard - Thursday, June 18th, 2026

Strive for the Standard

One of the core pieces of CrossFit has always been movement standards.

Not competition standards.
Not judging standards.
Movement standards.

In fact, the standards existed long before the sport of CrossFit. Competition has simply evolved some of those standards over time because athletes are incredibly good at finding ways to shorten range of motion, move faster, and gain an advantage. As new shortcuts are discovered, standards evolve to protect the integrity of the movement.

At its core, though, the purpose of movement standards has always been much simpler.

Standards help keep athletes safe.
They also give us a way to measure progress over time.

As a newer athlete, you might not know every movement standard yet. That's completely normal. Learning proper movement takes time. It's one of the reasons we coach so much. It's one of the reasons we spend time discussing mechanics, positions, range of motion, and movement quality.

If you've been around for a while, however, you've heard us talk about standards over and over again. That's because they matter.

One of the challenges we see from time to time is athletes becoming more focused on the outcome than the movement itself. The clock becomes more important than the standard. The score becomes more important than the quality of the rep. The number on the bar becomes more important than how the movement is performed.

The problem is that when standards disappear, measurement becomes meaningless.

Imagine an athlete back squatting 200 pounds but never reaching depth. They count every rep and leave feeling great about the number on the bar. Two months later, they back squat 170 pounds, but this time they squat well below parallel and move beautifully.

Many athletes would look at those numbers and think they've gotten weaker. In reality, they may have gotten stronger. The difference is that now they're actually performing the movement to the standard. The first score wasn't measuring a back squat. It was measuring a partial squat.

When standards change, measuring your progress becomes impossible.

This applies to far more than back squats. It applies to pull ups, wall balls, burpees, push ups, deadlifts, thrusters, cleans, and almost every movement we perform.

The standard is what makes the movement measurable.
Without it, the data doesn't track.

As coaches, we want athletes to understand that standards are not a punishment. They are not obstacles standing between you and a better score. They are the very thing that gives the “score” value in the first place. An ability to be able to measure progress.

A workout completed with excellent movement standards is always more impressive than a faster workout completed by cutting corners.

A lift performed to full range of motion is always more valuable than a heavier lift performed through half the movement.

A properly executed rep will always matter more than a rep that only exists on the whiteboard.

The hard truth is that coaches can only care so much on your behalf.

We can explain the standards.
We can demonstrate them.
We can coach them.
We can remind you of them.
We can hold you accountable to them.
But we can't make you care about them.

At some point, the responsibility shifts to the athlete.

You have to decide whether you're chasing fitness or simply chasing numbers.
You have to decide whether you're pursuing long term progress or short term validation.
You have to decide the standard matters.

Because the athletes who make the most progress over months, years, and decades are rarely the ones who are most concerned with the clock or the leaderboard. They're the ones who understand that movement quality comes first.

The irony is that when you consistently strive for the standard, the scores usually take care of themselves.

So the next time you're faced with a choice between a faster time and a better rep, choose the better rep.

Strive for the standard, not the time.
Strive for the standard, not the score.

Because in the long run, the standard is what makes the score worth chasing in the first place. The standard is what allows us to measure progress.

Thursday, June 18th, 2026

Focus:

Strict Ring MU and HSPU progressions

WOD:

Nate (strict)
20 min AMRAP
2 Ring MU's (strict)
4 HSPU (strict)
8 KB Swings 32/24

Check back each night at 8pm for the next days WOD .
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