THE PROFESSIONAL COACH

Effective coaching begins long before your class starts. Learn how a simple pre-class risk assessment — reviewing athlete injuries, experience levels, and equipment demands — can help you minimize safety risks and create a more efficient, well-organized training environment.

Your coaching culture isn't determined by what your affiliate owner does or doesn't provide; it's shaped by whether you and your fellow coaches choose to operate as a team. Here's how to create consistency, build trust, and deliver a better member experience without always waiting for permission from above.

Discover how to tap into the flow state as a CrossFit coach — that feeling of complete immersion where time disappears and performance peaks — by mastering the fundamentals of your craft. Learn the daily, weekly, and monthly practices that transform good coaching into virtuosity, creating a ripple effect that elevates not only your athletes' performance, but also their entire approach to excellence.

Discover how to leverage both in-house and outsourced programming to elevate your coaching skills beyond basic certification. This article provides a systematic framework for using programming challenges — from single workouts to complete training cycles — to develop your ability to create personalized athlete experiences, explain the "why" behind every element, and respond dynamically to your athletes' needs in real-time.

You can perfect your facility layout and nail your programming, but if the wrong person is leading your CrossFit Kids class, it all crumbles. Learn why coaching youth isn't a side gig for new trainers, how social media presence matters as much as credentials, and why the person at the front of the room is either building your program's future—or quietly destroying it.

Nutrition conversations with young athletes can either empower them to feel strong and capable or create confusion, shame, and even legal trouble if you cross the line. Discover how to teach performance-based eating without prescribing diets, why "food is fuel" beats calorie counting every time, and how to turn parents into allies rather than obstacles in building lifelong healthy habits.

Shoes flying, rings spinning, and a parent trying to correct their kid's squat depth from the sidelines — welcome to CrossFit Kids. Learn how smart gym layout, strategic parent management, and intentional space design transform chaos into a structured environment where young athletes feel safe, focused, and ready to move.

Kids aren't mini adults, and your CrossFit programming shouldn't treat them that way. From time-based workouts that prevent inflated rep counts to bodyweight progressions that honor constantly shifting growth spurts, discover why thoughtful modifications, not just lighter barbells, are the key to building confident, capable young athletes for life.

For at-risk youth facing adverse circumstances most of us can't imagine, one CrossFit program has been proving since 2007 that barbells, benchmarks, and a coach who shows up consistently can fundamentally change the trajectory of a life. Discover how Forging Youth Resilience uses CrossFit, coaching, and the power of measurable progress to build the kind of resilience that takes kids from barely surviving high school to thriving as college graduates and beyond.

Every gym starts with fire and passion, but some thrive for decades while others fade — and the difference isn't luck or marketing, it's culture. CrossFit Roots founder Nicole Christensen (CF-L4) shares the unglamorous, disciplined work behind building a gym culture with 300+ members — 98 of whom have been there for over 10 years — which generates over $1 million in revenue through unwavering standards, consistent leadership, and a commitment to the methodology.