You know about the weightlifting totals of strength specialists such as:

The Olympic Lifter total = Max snatch + max clean and jerk

The Power Lifter Total = Max squat + max deadlift + max bench

The great thing about these numbers is that it allows you to determine the level of athlete someone is just by this number.

It works the same way in most other sports, if a football player has a 40 inch vertical you can guess that he’s probably pretty fast. If a baseball pitcher can throw an 100mph fastball he’s probably capable of being a pro.

These are specialist sports however, where a measure of one test can determine a lot about the person, but what about in a completely rounded sport like Crossfit?

True there already exists the Crossfit Total created by Mark Rippetoe and Greg Glassman which = max squat + max strict press + max deadlift.

That still is only just a measure of strength and not an accurate representation of how competitive a Crossfit athlete may be. Strength is extremely important in Crossfit but it is only one part of the sport.

Every year some of the strongest athletes in the sport never even make it past the Open and that is because they became too much of a specialist.

In order to create a test to truly determine what level of athlete a Crossfitter may be we need to measure the 3 Headed Monster:

Strength + Skills + Conditioning

Athletes at the Crossfit Games must not be a specialist in any one area but to be extremely proficient in every area. I call this test the Crossfit Triple.

The Crossfit Triple will test how strong someone is, how proficient their gymnastics are, and how good their aerobic capacity is.

THE CROSSFIT TRIPLE

Max back squat + Fastest mile time + Max unbroken ring muscle ups 

This triple is the perfect test for competitive Crossfitters as it doesn’t favor any one type of athlete and in order to get a good score you have to be very well rounded.

If you’re ever curious about how you can compare yourself to the pros this may be one of the quickest ways to do it.

Complete the Crossfit Triple in one day and compare it to the scores below. 

*Scores are collected from Crossfit Games athletes’ athlete profiles and averaged for elite results.

So what does it take to be elite?

Some people may be capable of one or two of the elite standards  but to compete amongst the best in the world you have to have all 3.

Use the Crossfit Triple as a resource to show you where you need to improve for the upcoming season. In the Open it doesn’t matter how good you are at anything it only matters how bad you are at something.

If one of your weaknesses shows up during the Open and you do poorly thats another year of waiting before you can make it to regionals.

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