CrossFit Coaching Tip: How Do I Manage Large Classes When I'm Overwhelmed?

By

Eric O'Connor CF-L4

August 10, 2025

Situation: You have more than 20 athletes in class, making individual attention and safety monitoring nearly impossible. What do you do?

Solution: This is a situation that is not ideal, but we will find ourselves in from time to time. You may need to deviate from your originally intended lesson plan to best serve your class. For example, you will benefit from simplifying and condensing your general warm-up or include workout movements during this time to allow for adequate time to assess athletes’ mechanics and to allow for the slightly longer transition times that come with a group class. 

Lay out the class to ensure safety and adequate spacing between equipment. Position yourself in the manner that gives the broadest view possible of your athletes. This may mean you stay stationary in this position during your skill progression and use short verbal cues for corrections. Use this vantage point during the workout to give the best visuals to assess athletes who need correcting.

You may organize athletes in different starting areas of the workout to make best use of the available equipment, and in rare instances, you can modify the workout to partner variation or modify it to a variation that is easy to manage the flow. 

Regardless of the solution, each athlete should still receive a touchpoint during the workout and prior to the workout while still being able to connect with those who need more attention.

What would you do?

Let us know in the comments.

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About the Author

Eric O'Connor (CF-L4)

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.