Ask a Coach: How Can I Get Our Athletes to Care and Commit to the Community Cup?

The 2025 CrossFit Community Cup is fast approaching, and as a coach, you’re likely considering how to best inspire your members to participate. (Or maybe you’re on the fence about it as well.) While there’s no universal approach that will work for every affiliate, emphasizing aspects similar to the CrossFit Open will likely drive engagement. Showcasing the event as a celebration of community that balances inclusivity with friendly competition often resonates with members across experience levels. By highlighting these key elements and tailoring your approach to your specific community’s values, you can create excitement that motivates members to register and go all in.

What To Do If You’re Still on the Fence

If your gym isn’t sure if it’s even going to participate in the Community Cup, here are a few things to consider as a coach:

If you aren’t tracking workouts and results, you aren’t coaching CrossFit. If you don’t test your athletes often, you’re missing one of the core tenets of our methodology: Improvements should not be based on opinion; they should be based on measurable means of evaluating if our fitness (work capacity across broad time and modal domains) is improving. The Community Cup is going to serve up ideal tests on a silver platter that can be repeated in the future. Why would you not take advantage of it?

Your athletes will take your lead. Maybe this isn’t something you think about often, but chances are, many of your athletes admire you and may even envy your role as a coach. They look to you for leadership, encouragement that they’re improving, and confirmation that they are in the right place and doing the right things. If you’re all in on another chance to test yourself and your athletes, chances are, they will be too.

Remember why you coach this and not that. You could have decided to coach in any number of fitness environments. You could have chosen a globo gym, F45, or Orange Theory, but you chose to step into a CrossFit gym all those years ago and stick around because you know how special it is. You know it works because it worked for you and for the many athletes you’ve coached over the years. And you also know there’s no mystery about why it works. It works because its definition of fitness can be measured and IS measured every day on the gym floor. Use the Community Cup as a way to be all in on CrossFit and all in for the transformation you know is possible when your athletes are, too.  

What To Do If You’re All In and Want All Your Athletes to Be, Too

#1 – Emphasize Community

Some may thrive on the competitive aspect of the Community Cup, while the majority will thrive on highlighting the fun community nature of the event. Start promoting your planned community-related activities and challenges weeks before the Community Cup. There are a few strategies we’ve seen CrossFit affiliates use for the Open that may apply for the Community Cup as well.

#2 – Create Teams

Set up small teams throughout the community that are ready to motivate and encourage each other. Coaches can act as team leaders and answer questions, provide tips, and check in with athletes individually. 

If you want to add some fun to the experience, add competitive team challenges that may or may not be based on performance. For example, have an outfit competition for a day where the best outfits earn points for their team, a dance-off, etc. 

#3 – Host a Saturday Event

Being that the Community Cup will encompass three workouts, hosting a “Friday Night Lights” event may be difficult, but putting together a fun throwdown that takes place over several hours on Saturday could be great. If utilizing this option, ensure there are plenty of time slots available throughout the week to perform the workouts for those who cannot attend the Saturday event.

#4 – Make it Fun and Engaging

People are more willing to participate in a difficult challenge if they know there will be some fun and other elements beyond just performing the workouts. 

Games and Challenges

To keep it lighthearted and engaging throughout the week of the competition, create individual or team challenges or incorporate some fun activities that coincide with the Community Cup.

Awards and Recognition

Publicly acknowledging positive moments from events like the Community Cup can boost morale and provide more motivation for those individuals in the future. Offer prizes or awards for categories, such as most improved, best effort, community spirit, etc.

Incentives

If you want more members to sign up, consider offering incentives or prizes that will be handed out via a random drawing or for winners of events being held throughout the week. Start promoting these incentives before the week of the Community Cup.

Prizes

Consider affiliate-related prizes such as discounted memberships, free merchandise, free access to specialty classes, free entry to a CrossFit Course, free one-on-one sessions, etc. 

The prizes do not need to be solely from the affiliate. Members or businesses may be willing to donate services, products, or discounts that can be used as prizes throughout the week. 

Results and Rankings

The leaderboard often provides motivation and some friendly competition. Display the results and rankings on a leaderboard to create a sense of competition throughout the week.  

Daily Encouragement

When meeting at the whiteboard at the start of class or when stretching together at the end of class, trainers can encourage members to sign up and discuss the event and what will take place throughout the week. The more often you do this, the more likely you will have members get on board. Start doing this now and be consistent until the week of the event.

Target Programming

Use data from the Open to target some of your affiliate’s programming toward weak areas you noticed, or provide context on how a workout could help them for the Community Cup. Notes like this can easily be added when talking about the intended stimulus of the workout or during the cool-down timeframe. 

You may even plan a couple of lesson plans to allow athletes to target specific skills or gymnastics-related weaknesses they want to improve for the Community Cup. 

Due to this event being new, many members may struggle with the uncertainty of what to expect. Throughout the week, make sure you take plenty of pictures, capture some great footage, and get sound bites from your members to use as promotion for next year’s Community Cup. 

Registration for the Community Cup begins May 12!

Have a question for a coach? Please submit that here.

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About the Author

Eric O’Connor is a Content Developer and Seminar Staff Flowmaster for CrossFit’s Education Department and the co-creator of the former CrossFit Competitor’s Course. He has led over 400 seminars and has more than a decade of experience coaching at a CrossFit affiliate. He is a Certified CrossFit Coach (CF-L4), a former Division 1 collegiate wrestler, and a former CrossFit Games athlete.