Strength has always been an important part of the Crossfit Games and it has often been the primary separator between the elite and the average Crossfit athlete.
If you can not move the weight that is required of you in a Crossfit competition you simply can’t participate, it’s as easy as that.
Even Ben Bergeron, head coach of many Crossfit Games athletes and past champions says that because strength is so important and because it takes so long to develop, many athletes would benefit from following a dedicated weightlifting-only program to improve their numbers before returning to Crossfit. Video source here.
Related: Results Show How Physically Strong Elite Female Athletes Are Compared To Males
But with the recent conclusion of the 2019 Crossfit Games we saw some other trends.
Is strength still all that important?
Out of 12 events at the 2019 Crossfit Games only one included a barbell heavier than 185 pounds for the men and 130 pounds for the women.
That event was the “Clean” event
Yes, these are very heavy weights and many athletes can not lift these weights, even some of the people in the top 10.
This is where the interesting part comes in.
That event above was not tested until after the last round of cuts at this year’s Games.
This meant that absolute strength was not tested until your top 10 finishers were already determined.
These top 10 athletes could have performed horrible in this strength test and still be awarded a top 10 overall finish as well as looking at it as a “damage control” event and making up for it in the other workouts.
If the clean event had been programmed before the last round of cuts there would have most likely been a different group of men and women in the top 10.
This contradicts the Crossfit Hierarchy of Development (Crossfit Pyramid) shown below:
This programming definitely worked in favor of slightly smaller athletes that perform well in metabolic conditioning and gymnastics workouts.
Related: How Much Running Has Been Programmed At The Crossfit Games
Masters of Bodyweight
Along with this one test of strength there were also 4 events programmed that were entirely bodyweight only with 2 of them coming with cuts.
True to Crossfit’s methodology 33% of the events were completely conditioning based. “MARY” gave a huge advantage to smaller, lighter athletes while taller athletes actually had an advantage in both “SPRINT” and “SWIM PADDLE”.
“RINGER 1” could have been favorable to a taller, heavier athlete due to their success on the Air bike, however all athletes over 6’0 were already eliminated at that time.
Barbell Cardio
Aside from the “CLEAN” event only 3 other events included a barbell in which all of them could be considered light, especially for athletes capable of making it to the Crossfit Games.
These events were:
None of these weights would require much effort from a top athlete and thus instead of being a strength-focused event results are determined from an athletes level of conditioning.
An argument can potentially be made that absolute strength should no longer be a large emphasis in training and should take a back seat to conditioning and gymnastics even more so than it already is.
If you can make the top 10 of the Crossfit Games before you are required to display significant strength then many people will gladly overlook strength training.
Related: Running VS Stationary Biking VS Rowing
Many online qualifiers for Sanctionals also do not require you to have much strength.
The only competition where you will not be able to recover from a lack of absolute strength is during the Crossfit Open where there are only 5 to 6 events and you are comparing your scores to thousands of other competitors.
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