According to the national weather service, short distinctive given names, both written and spoken are quicker and less subject to error than more cumbersome identification methods. Since 1953, we’ve been giving these types of names to our storms, CrossFit, uses that very same idea in naming some of its more notorious workouts. You may have heard of them before, Fran, Cindy, Grace, Elizabeth and Karen are a few. You may even have a friend so into CrossFit that they named their dog after one of these workouts. I remember when I was installing the leaderboard here at Thermal, and one of my friends who hadn’t started CrossFit yet stopped in He said, “Man, you’re not even open and you already have a bunch of members” While it was a nice thought, if he would have read the rest of our leaderboard, he would have thought I had a member named “Jerk”. I quickly explained the benefit of naming these universal workouts and he was totally on board.

The benchmark workouts (including the ladies) are meant to be completed, tracked and repeated. This is one of the ways that we measure progress at CrossFit. The workouts are carefully designed to challenge everyone from the novice to the elite. No matter how proficient you become at the movements and skills required to do these workouts, there is always room for improvement. Personally the workouts tell me where I am from a competitive standpoint. Since the workouts are standardized, I can compare my results to the guy next to me, or to my friend in Portland, Oregon. Maybe you aren’t competitive about CrossFit, maybe you couldn’t care less about getting a sub 3:00 Fran time. If your goal is to look better naked or be healthier longer, the workouts are just as important to track. As your performance improves so do your bio-metrics, your body fat percentage, and your lean muscle mass. I know one thing for sure; if you pull a 5 minute Elizabeth time, you will absolutely look the part. Measurable progress all the way!