Most people who have been CrossFitting for a while are familiar with the “ten domains of fitness” that CrossFit seeks to provide competence in and for which we train. As a review, they are-

- Speed
- Strength
- Cardiorespiratory endurance
- Power
- Flexibility
- Balance
- Coordination
- Accuracy
- Stamina
- Agility

Speed- the ability to do something quickly. Obviously important for sports and life.

Strength- the productive application of force.

Cardiorespiratory endurance- the ability of one’s body to gather and use oxygen. This is the domain that most people associate with “being fit”.

Power- the ability to generate force quickly. Perhaps the most critical element in sports.

Flexibility- the ability to take the body through its full range of motion. Implies resistance to injury.

Balance- being able to control one’s mass and center of gravity.

Coordination- the ability to control one’s movements.

Accuracy- the ability to generate a result close to the intended outcome; i.e. “can you hit a target?” Can you do it repeatedly? Closely related to coordination.

Stamina- the ability to continue to do work. Closely related to cardiorespiratory endurance but not the same thing. CE is about supplying oxygen to the body. Stamina is about the ability to use it and convert it to energy. If you start a workout with a barbell and can’t continue because you are gasping for air, that’s a CE issue. If you can “keep going” but can no longer lift it because it’s too heavy, that’s a muscular stamina issue.

Agility- related to coordination. How fluidly can you use your coordination? Can you do it at speed?

At this point the question becomes- to what extent should one focus on each of these individual areas? Or, is there a “perfect ratio” across each of the domains that you want as an athlete?

Let’s recognize that it is impossible to have complete mastery of all domains without giving something up. I like to think of human ability and performance as a gas tank. You only have so much energy and so much in the tank that you can devote to a task. If you spend energy on one thing it means you have less to spend on another endeavor. This just makes sense logically and practically, and is also supported by exercise physiology. Pure devotion to strength with no focus on speed will almost guarantee you produce a stronger, yet slower person. Singular focus on cardiorespiratory endurance (think marathon runner) produces results in that domain, but to the detriment of almost all the others. So, how should you split up your focus? Is there a “perfect ratio” as a CrossFitter?

Let me say right now I don’t think there’s a right answer. As with most things in life, “it depends”. In fact, a lot of it depends on each person’s current state and their weaknesses. Take as an example the person who wants to be truly well-rounded, but is lacking in strength. Well, that person is going to have to devote more focus to getting stronger simply to become “balanced”. Let’s throw out all the aspects that may call for more selective focus and just deal with the situation of wanting to be “balanced across the board”. Is there a correct ratio we can come up with?

The fact that there are 10 domains implies the correct balance is 10% focus or devotion to each domain, for a total of 100%. If you believe this that means you should be spending as much effort maintaining flexibility and accuracy as you would devote to stamina or strength. NO ONE I KNOW DOES THIS, and I don’t think that’s the right ratio.

If I were trying to create the “perfect” CrossFitter, I’d weight the domains like so-

Strength, cardioresp endurance, power, stamina, speed- 15% each or more

Flexibility, balance, coordination, accuracy, agility- 5% each or less

Here’s my reasoning:

Strength is necessary for power. Increased strength means you can do more work. You can see this from the physics definition of work, which is force (f) x distance (d). The only way to do more work is to increase your force (strength) or increase the distance you apply the force through (range of motion, more reps). Power is simply work (W) / time (t). If you do more work in the same amount of time, your power goes up. Power is directly related to intensity which as we all know is where we get most of the benefits from training. Thus, it makes sense to spend a lot of time working on these two domains. In addition, most people are WEAK when they start CrossFitting, whether from avoiding weights, a lifetime spent jogging, etc. and they need to spend more time gaining strength and power.

Cardiorespiratory endurance and stamina are no-brainers. Since 90% of what is asked of you in CrossFit has to be done repeatedly and for several minutes (or longer), you have to be proficient in both these domains. Similarly, the other component of power is speed. To increase your power output (W/t), you need to either do more work or do it faster, and speed is the main way you’d accomplish this. Of course, from a practical aspect since so much of what we do is timed (purposefully to force everyone to try and maintain a high power output), you’d want to accomplish tasks in as quick a manner as possible anyways.

So why have I “devalued” the other five domains? In regards to flexibility, there is such a thing as being “too flexible”. See my post on injuries for a more detailed analysis, but the gist is beyond the point of normal, healthy flexibility the potential for injury due to hyperflexibility/joint + ligament laxity goes up. One wants to be neither inflexible nor too flexible. Typically, most people’s flexibility improves simply by doing compound movements with correct form through a full range of motion as we emphasize at CrossFit Elysium. A certain amount of maintenance work is needed but it just doesn’t require the singular focus that one might need to put into strength.

As far as balance, coordination, accuracy and agility- those are all important, no doubt. It just doesn’t take much ability in any of those domains to be a competent CrossFitter. While you need a certain amount of each skill to be able to do a movement correctly, the fact remains that nothing we do in CrossFit is that complex. One does not need to have the accuracy of a championship marksman to be able to repeatedly lock a barbell out in the midline, or to know when one is squatting deep enough. The most challenging movements that we do that demand balance and coordination are probably the handstand walk, advanced movements on the rings, pistols, and overhead squats. I will be the first to admit I am no master of agility or balance, yet I have been able to master most of these movements with minimal effort (as have most of you). That alone speaks to the relative lack of demand CrossFit places on these domains.

Grinding out a thruster is typically mostly dependent on strength and stamina/CE endurance if you’ve been going for a while. True, balance and coordination may make it easier or harder to keep the barbell in proper position, but they generally won’t be the “make or break” factors the previous domains are.

The Olympic lifts- these are obviously highly technical movements that demand many of the ten domains. However, for CROSSFIT’S PURPOSES they are less dependent on coordination, agility, technique etc. then might first appear. The end goal of CrossFit, right or wrong, is often “get the work done”. We don’t care how ugly that clean and jerk looked, if you lock it out overhead it counts. Would you be able to lift more if your technique was dialed in? Of course! It’s just that the vast majority of times the Olympic lifts come up in CrossFit, technique is not going to be the rate- limiting step. Think about the workout “Randy”- 75 75lb power snatches for time. The guy who can get the workout done the fastest wins, regardless of technique. One could even argue suboptimal technique may produce a faster time on that workout. Or how about every time 95lb, 135lb or 155lb movements come up in a workout? Most people can gorilla that weight around, even with craptastic technique. Lack of strength/stamina/power will prevent someone from doing those movements at that weight much more so than lack of agility/balance/coordination. 

Hopefully this has been food for thought for a lot of you, and helped give you insight as to why Coach Paul and I program the way we do (i.e., heavy strength bias, lots of emphasis on power output/high intensity, relative “lack” of mobility work, etc.). Of course, these are all just my opinions, and I’d love to hear yours. Post feedback to comments. Thanks!

Coach L