9x CrossFit Games Finalist Says CrossFit Needs to Improve or Hyrox Will Take Over
'In every major sport, there's an athlete's association or union to look out for the interests of the athletes', says Brent Fikowski, nine-times CrossFit Games finalist.
Currently, the CrossFit semifinals are underway, taking place in seven in-person locations around the world (one per region). The top 40 men and 40 women will advance to the final round, the Games, which this year will be held at Fort Worth, Texas in August. Fikowski, who finished second behind the GOAT Mat Fraser in 2017 and third in 2021, has just qualified for the 2024 Games. It will be his ninth consecutive appearance.
In this Men's Health Squad conversation, Fitness Director Andrew Tracey chats with Fikowski, famously known as 'The Professor.' Fikowski is at the forefront of efforts to professionalise CrossFit and elevate its standards. As a key member of the Professional Fitness Athletes Association, he is working alongside other athletes and coaches to establish 'guidelines for fair and equitable competition' within the sport.
A Fair Fight
'We’re trying to create standards of safety, fairness and consistency. So, when you go to a competition and they have a movement like a sandbag clean, you know that these are the standards that work’, Fikowski explains.
Fikowski argues that professionalism is crucial for ensuring athletes have confidence in what to expect during competitions. This includes understanding how to perform and execute movements precisely, knowing the processes judges use for penalties, and identifying what counts as a 'no rep'.
Fikowski believes this will be a change to the current status quo: ‘A lot of times it’ll be a fresh set of rules that might not be easy to enforce. From a judging perspective, maybe you’ve never practised them before. That leaves room for issues and [unnecessary] drama.’
Having that certainty removes any bitterness from athletes who may feel as though event organisers are simply making up the rules as they go along. Fikowski was sick of that cycle of post-competition backlash and complaining repeating.
'It's so rudimentary,' says Fikowski. 'You could define it as professionalising the sport, quite frankly, it's organising the sport.'
After the quarterfinals this year, 348 penalties were imposed for a single workout, which pushed a large number of athletes down the leaderboard and jeopardised their chances for semifinal qualification.
The PFAA collaborated with the Association of Fitness Judges (AFJ) to propose improvements for online competitions. Their objectives include increasing the number of scored events from four to a minimum of five to reduce the impact of a single event on the leaderboard. Additionally, they aim to provide comprehensive guidelines on scoring and associated penalties.
Poor Progress
Enforcing consistency is crucial for maintaining the sport's high standards. Without it, progress is jeopardised. ‘It hinders growth, it may even cause athletes to divert to another competition, says Fikowski. ‘Three athletes [of a coach I’m friends with] within the last few months have said, “I’m training for Hyrox now.” They’re structured events that make sense and are clear.’
Competing in fixed tests is arguably more motivating. They’re easier to prepare for. ‘When I train hard, I will see an improvement in my time,' says Fikowski. 'I’ll go from 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 8 minutes, and that’s an accomplishment. It’s the same with a triathlon or a marathon. It'd be a shame to lose athletes to other events just because there's a clearer win.'
Fikowski is also worried that people may get so demoralised that they stop participating altogether. ‘They made it to an event, [where] there were issues that were very avoidable, that ruined the experience for them. They thought, “What am I doing? I’m training [and getting nowhere], but I could train half as hard and compete every third weekend in a beach volleyball event, have a lot of fun and see progress.”’
The Short Straw
But it isn’t necessarily elite athletes who are most impeded by these shortcomings. Even if certain workouts favour a particular mover – 'this event was heavier, with more barbells’, or ‘this event had longer workouts and featured more gymnastics’, Fikowski believes it’s going to level out more or less, and the best athletes are going to shuffle their way to the top fairly consistently.
But if you’re not world-class, say you’re at an intermediate level and you’re just hoping you make semis, or through a qualifier to some other event, then you're potentially hampered both by the lack of standardisation and the small number of competitions you can take part in. Perhaps the answer is in increasing the number of events to even out your odds.
Fresh Meat
Setting out such guidelines also makes sense given that CrossFit is relatively young. Greg Glassman founded the method in 2000, with the Games’ inception in 2007. It hasn’t had a huge amount of time to undergo regulatory review – add to this that CrossFit often thrives on its reputation for being unconventional. 'Our sport and this way of training are very contrarian, very anti-establishment,' says Fikowski. 'It's hard to write rules for a method that often prides itself on being unorthodox, and where there isn't an established blueprint.
Is there was a way to preserve that innovation while still having it operate within a framework that smoothes out avoidable hiccups? After all, an element of unpredictability is what actually tests your resourcefulness and adaptability when it comes to fitness. This is what CrossFit, at least originally, was all about. Fikowski agrees, ‘There still should be a reasonable amount of variance.’
‘What makes CrossFit exciting is the randomness of the tests’, says Fikowski. ‘I’m not a proponent of every competition being "Ok, you just do one of these 10 workouts". We all want new events, But that can only be pushed so far before it becomes "a circus".'
Catch the rest of the CrossFit semifinals (May 17 - June 2) at games.crossfit.com.
For more conversations, download the Men's Health app, available on Google Play and the App Store, and become a member of the Squad today.
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