History of CrossFit's Specialty Courses

In 2004, Mike Burgener got a call from Greg Glassman.

Burgener, now a Level 5 Senior International Weightlifting Coach for USA Weightlifting and creator of the CrossFit Weightlifting course, was working at the time as a strength coach at Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista, California. Glassman had contacted USA Weightlifting looking for an expert coach to train a group of his athletes. They sent him to one of their best: Burgener. So Glassman and his group of athletes — which included Annie Sakamoto, Greg Amundson, and Eva Twardorkins — traveled to Southern California to refine their Olympic weightlifting skills and learn how to better teach this complex skill.

Burgener put on a two-day seminar for Glassman and his group, and two weeks later, Burgener got another call from the CrossFit founder.

“He called me up and he said, ‘Hey, this guy from Golden, Colorado, wants me to come over and do a seminar for him at the police academy. I can’t pay you for your time, but I’ll cover your travel costs if you’d come and give a three-hour presentation,’” Burgener said.

Burgener agreed because it would give him a chance to visit his son at the nearby Olympic training center. He had no idea the weekend would change his life.

Over the course of the weekend, Burgener said Glassman realized he had the knowledge and talent to run this type of seminar on his own.

After they’d returned home, Burgener got a third call from Glassman.

“He says, ‘We’re going to do seminars once a month. We’re going to call them CrossFit Level 1 seminars and we want you to be part of it. So will you be part of it?’” Burgener remembers Glassman asking.

Coach B working with an athlete on foot position in the jerk.

Burgener said yes and began driving his Harley Davidson from San Diego to Santa Cruz every month for a sold-out CrossFit Level 1 Seminar, which at that time was three days long. Along with Burgener teaching weightlifting, Glassman brought in other experts to teach their specialties, including kettlebells and gymnastics.

After a year of these monthly three-day seminars, Glassman told all the experts he was going to reduce the Level 1 Course to two days and offer the specialty courses as separate seminars.

“The first year, I think it was 2006, I did five courses on my own. In 2007, I did 10 courses on my own … by 2009 I did 40 courses by myself. I did them all over the world, but I did them (by) myself,” Burgener said.

It was at that point Burgener realized he couldn’t run the courses by himself, so he turned to his trusted coaches, including Josh Everett and Stephane Rochet, to help him keep the courses going.

“You find out you’ve got great people that are surrounding you. It was a blessing,” Burgener said.

How the Specialty Courses Make Better Coaches

Rochet, now a Senior Content Developer at CrossFit, remembers one of those early courses without Burgener.

“Josh Everett and myself and a guy named Shane Hamman — who’s not really in the CrossFit community, but he’s one of America’s all-time greatest weightlifters — we went out to CrossFit Colosseum in Toronto,” Rochet said.

Rochet remembers Burgener checking in with him frequently.

“I probably had 1,000 texts from him,” Rochet said, laughing.

The course started off well. The affiliate was divided into different rooms, and Rochet and Everett were in one room with their group, using a PVC pipe to warm up and review stance and positioning.

“We’re doing the Burgener warm-up and we hear this loud crash — like heavy weights dropped — and then we hear heavy weights drop again, and there’s a loud crash and it keeps going on,” Rochet said.

Rochet and Everett wrapped up their warm-up and headed into the other room to see what Hamman was doing.

“We see he’s got people with 220-lb on the bar, you know, going one at a time. They’re maxing out,” Rochet said.

“This room was different. You guys are having a different experience,” Rochet said he remembers thinking.

Once they let Hamman know the way they wanted the course to run, Rochet said it went smoothly and became a source for CrossFit athletes and trainers to refine their coaching skills and their own technique.

Rochet said these specialty courses occupy an important place within CrossFit.

Participants in a CrossFit Specialty Course practice an overhead position.

“They help athletes get better, coaches get better, and it pushes the overall level of fitness that we provide at CrossFit,” he said.

The specialists, Rochet said, have worked for years to hone their skills in their specific areas of expertise, and they are able to present that material for people who want to improve within a CrossFit context. They understand the CrossFit audience, he said.

“As trainers, these courses help us address weaknesses and bring up our ability to either help ourselves or help other people,” Rochet said.

Nicole Carroll, CrossFit’s General Manager of Training and Education, said the goal of the specialty courses is to create a robust continuing education platform of digital and in-person courses, either run by CrossFit or with partners.

“We want to create a platform so when people are trying to maintain their credentials with CEUs, they have a lot of cool options,” Carroll said.

Carroll said she thinks it’s important for CrossFit to offer specialty courses because they add depth to the education CrossFit provides. The core credential — the Level 1 and the Level 2 courses — teach the movements and their foundations, starting from the nine foundational movements. Then, Carroll said, the specialty courses get into specific skills and movements that use what’s taught in the Level 1 and Level 2 courses as a reference.

“I like this idea that you can go super deep into the areas that make up the totality of CrossFit,” Carroll said, “and I think the more that you dive deep, you actually get better at those general overarching principles that we’re trying to teach in those other courses. That’s where you bring the best to your clients and where you as a coach start to really broaden the level of client you can work with,” she said.

Nicole Christensen, Senior Content Writer at CrossFit, said there are very few of these types of courses where you can get actual hands-on experience; where you are physically doing the movements and you are being coached.

“This contained course environment is where a lot of coaches do their best work and make these big leaps forward. Focusing on one thing in a deep dive translates to all the different elements of a coach’s practice, not just Olympic lifting. It always carries over to other stuff,” Christensen said.

Specialty courses are especially useful to coaches who work with more advanced athletes, Carroll said. She said coaching a more competitive athlete forces CrossFit coaches to step up their game and refine their skills.

“I think that’s what these specialty course offerings really unlock for coaches,” Carroll said. “The level of expertise that allows them to work with and have confidence working with better athletes.”

You can find CrossFit’s Specialty Courses around the world.