The 2026 survival (read: thrival? Is that a word? It should be!) of a CrossFit affiliate does not hinge on its community, its equipment, or its social media presence. In an increasingly crowded fitness market, the “secret sauce” is — and always has been — the quality of the results we deliver on the coaching floor. This is what sets us as CrossFit affiliates and coaches apart from the rest. In business, they call it your USP: Unique Selling Proposition. Those results are driven by a single, uncompromising framework rooted in the CrossFit training ethos: Mechanics, Consistency, and then Intensity.
But let’s be totally honest with each other here, there is a silent crisis in our affiliates. Over time, “good enough” coaching becomes the standard. We become timekeepers rather than teachers. We then start looking at different programs to solve the problem, but they’re merely band-aids. When the coaching becomes a commodity, the business becomes a commodity. To save the affiliate, we have to save the coaching. One great way to do that is to invite an outside eye to hold us to the standard we claim to represent.
In December 2023, I was confronted with the reality of my own “coaching drift.” I traveled from Ontario, Canada, to Seattle, Washington, for the Level 4 evaluation. I had been an owner since 2019 and a Certified Level 3 Trainer for five years. I believed I was the expert — and I failed by 1 point.
The evaluation showed me where my own weaknesses lay as a coach. It revealed that while I could manage a group and keep a clock, I wasn’t effectively teaching. My feedback was that I should develop a plan to teach the wall-ball shot. As someone who has been lesson planning since 2019, I found this tough to hear. This failure wasn’t a problem with the test; it was a symptom of being an owner who had become unaware of his own blind spots. I feel like I have always been a “student of the game,” but there was still a lot of room for growth. But how would I find it?
The Taboo of Mentorship
I reached out to Joe Masley, a veteran of the CrossFit Seminar Staff. We all know mentors like Joe exist, but the process is often treated as a little taboo. Again, we know there is no shortage of mentor programs available, including the CrossFit Mentor Program, but what’s not talked about enough is what that process is actually like and how valuable it can be. And often, as affiliate owners, we may feel that seeking help is an admission of incompetence. We’re the owners. We eat, sleep, and breathe this thing called CrossFit. We should know it inside and out. In reality, it is the highest form of professional responsibility. Additionally, working with a mentor really helps you bridge the gap between the methodology and its application, much like strength is the productive application of force, and technique is the bridge that gets you there.
Let’s Talk Mentorship Process
The process Joe led me through stripped away the “theater” of coaching and focused on the nuts and bolts. We set a weekly cadence in which Joe and I would connect, and we first looked at my planning process. We planned for a heavy day, and it was my turn to record the class. Joe receives the video and forms the feedback we would review together on the next call and discuss.
In our first session, I used an empty barbell for the specific warm-up. He pointed out things I missed, such as loss of midline. Stuff that was honestly very uncomfortable to hear because it was so simple. “Why a barbell?” he asked. “A PVC pipe allows you to hold them in position longer. It allows you to demand neurological change.” He saw the blind spots I had walked past for years. The things I knew were true, but honestly just became bad habits over time. Let’s be honest for a moment: the process was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Once we found a rhythm, he found a way to make it uncomfortable again. But that’s where the real growth lies. Do you want to be told how great you are? That’s what got us here in the first place. Hearing the hard truths that I wasn’t teaching range of motion and I wasn’t assessing for midline stability was what I needed to hear.
I realized he wasn’t there to fix me; he was there to recalibrate me to the CrossFit charter — the thing that has proven to work for years.
Threshold Training for the Coach
What I didn’t realize was that Joe was applying CrossFit’s own principles to my development. He was using threshold training in my coaching.
He found what I did well — group management, presence, and attitude — and used those as a foundation. Then, he layered in “intensity” by focusing me to reward good movement rather than just hunting for faults. He taught me that if a coach is constantly seeking what’s wrong, they aren’t helping the athlete progress. But if we seek out and reward the “mechanics” and “consistency,” we earn the right to apply the “intensity.”
Again, it sounds simple, and even as you’re reading this, it may sound like something you already know, but the paradigm shift for me personally was profound. I thought my job was to give as many cues as possible. But our role as coaches is to help our athletes get better. To do this, it can be more effective to help the member realize what they are doing right, reward them, and then reward the consistency. That leads to the neurological adaptation we’re looking for. That’s the teaching I was missing in my L4 evaluation.
The Ripple Effect: ‘I’ve Learned So Much Lately’
The true hero of this story isn’t the coach who passed a test; it’s the member who now receives a better product.
After a year of working with Joe, the feedback from my community shifted. One member told one of my coaches that they have seen a “real difference” in my coaching lately, and that they’ve all learned so much. Now, this isn’t to toot my horn. That is the sound of an affiliate becoming “reprofessionalized.” This is what opens the door to the progress that keeps members committed. Real threshold training helps us provide value to members. Joe helped me realize that teaching was not simply teaching the movements that were part of that class. But in fact, it has me rethinking the word “teaching” altogether. We’re setting the expectation (the threshold) we would like to see in that movement. Then our role as coaches is to guide them to the correct intensity.
When members feel they are learning a skill — mastering their own mechanics — they don’t leave. They become students. This “rising tide” doesn’t just lift us as owners/coaches; it provides a formula for staff development. By receiving consistent, effective feedback for over a year now, I have a formula to provide feedback to my own coaches. I have them record classes, and rather than go in-depth, I just point out one or two things. They now find it exciting instead of scary. We move away from subjectivity and into objectivity. I now help them identify their blind spots and give them space to let their individual styles shine, while still “singing from the same hymn sheet” and being consistent as a team. We have moved from a top-down “policing” culture to a lateral “learning” culture.
Conclusion: Invest in the Standard
If we want to see the global CrossFit community thrive, we must move past the taboo of the “expert owner.” We must realize the answers we are looking for — better retention, better staff, better results — are found in the relentless application of the methodology. The thing we claim to know inside and out, but is worth repeating: the application of it.
Don’t wait for a failed evaluation to realize you’ve drifted. Invest in a mentor. Put your coaching under the microscope. When you raise the standard of your coaching, you raise the value of your business. To lead a professional affiliate, you must first be a professional student.
