CrossFit Scaling for Beginners or Deconditioned Athletes: We make it easy for CrossFit beginners by scaling workouts to develop their technique and fitness.
We’ve all been a CrossFit beginner. Stepping foot into a CrossFit gym can be terrifying. We make this easy with CrossFit scaling for beginners or deconditioned athletes.
People watch the CrossFit documentaries on Netflix, see videos of absolute animals like Tom Slegg training with his top off, or look at the written workouts including loads of advanced exercises & think they can’t do it.
Our job is to help transition a beginner with that mind-set & grow their confidence, fitness & ability.
CrossFit Scaling For Beginners
A CrossFit beginner is typically someone who
- Typically has less than 6 months CrossFit experience.
- Minimal athletic background.
- has been inactive for a considerable amount of time.
- Lacks self confidence.
How do I start CrossFit?
The most crucial elements to focus on for Scaling for beginners are:
- Reducing repetitions
- Reducing loading or mechanical disadvantage in a movement
- Reducing the duration of effort
It is important to give a beginner or deconditioned athlete exposure to as much variety as other members.
CrossFit is constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity.
The high intensity is the last part & relative, for an advanced person overhead squatting 100kg may be high intensity, for a complete beginner overhead squatting a PVC pipe might be high intensity, both need that exposure to constantly varied functional movement.
All movements should be practised by beginners & deconditioned athletes, if too advanced like maybe a bar muscle up then we scale the movement to a regression that will help progress them to that advanced movement.
Strength wise for a muscle up, the person needs to build strength in pull ups & dips, upper body pull & push strength. After that transition work needs to be worked on. For most beginners, it would be developing the strength which is needed first.
Even complex movements shouldn’t be avoided.
There’s not many movements more complex or difficult to master than the snatch.
This Olympic lifting movement utilises all 10 general physical skills & for most, it’s coordination & explosive power that people struggle with.
A good option for Scaling this movement for a complete beginner could be:
- Snatch Deadlift
- High Hang Power Snatch
- Overhead Squat
The beginner can still go through the full range of motion of the exercise without struggling to do it all in a split second & becoming overwhelmed. As they build confidence & mechanics doing these lifts separately, we can then start to increase & progress. That is just one example.
The main focus when scaling for a beginner or deconditioned athlete is to reduce the intensity to a level relative to their physical & mental capabilities & to build that at their personal rate. It always builds someone’s confidence & get them winning little battles each session before I start increasing the intensity. Try this for yourself, with a CrossFit Free Trial.
