The 11th CrossFit Skill

The 10 general physical skills that all CrossFitters aim to master (or, at least, suck less at) are as follows: 

1. Speed
2. Endurance
3. Stamina
4. Power
5. Strength
6. Coordination
7. Agility
8. Accuracy
9. Balance
10. Flexibility

If you can check off everything on this list, you are a bad-ass athlete; there will be little you can't do.

Some have posited that there's more to it than that.  I agree.  But, while I am a huge fan of Amrap Style, in my opinion, the 11th CrossFit skill is not fashion, but basic math.  Hear me out.

We score every workout we do, and that's critical to efficient improvement.  For any given WOD, your score is either 1) the weight you used, 2) how long it took you or 3) how many whatevers you did.  

Knowing your time is just a question of looking at the clock; most people are pretty good at that.  The other two...

To know what weight you've used, you've got to add up the weight of the plates and the bar.  It shouldn't be hard.  It's addition, not calculus, but sometimes when you're tired/dizzy/anxious or just haven't had your coffee yet, getting from "OK, I've got a 35, a 10, a five and two-and-a-halfs on each side" to "I am deadlifting 150 lbs" can be... challenging.  Or at least excessively time-consuming.  And I know it's not just me because 1) I've seen lots of people starring blankly at their barbells as they load them, and 2) there is an app for that.  (No, I do not own the app.)  

What really throws newbies off, however, is counting.  While you're hanging from the bar, gassed from your run, lifting your knees to your elbows, you actually have to count how many times you're doing it.  Multitasking is hard work.  The good news is that counting eventually becomes second-nature.  For example, I now count my steps as I'm walking down stairs without even realizing that I'm doing it.  I can't say I never lose track of reps during a workout, but it's a rarer occurrence than it used to be.

To get better at CrossFit, you need to keep track of your scores.  To know your score, you must be able to tell time, add and count.  Math, people.  The 11th CrossFit skill.  Bam.

-Gym Belle-

PS - I'm not even touching the days when we're told to put, say, 85% of our five rep max on the bar.