A guide to CrossFit lingo

Picture this: it’s your first day of group CrossFit classes. You’ve already been through a series of specially tailored one-on-one sessions with a coach who understands your athletic background and your goals. You feel well versed in the fundamentals of squats and presses, pull-ups and box jumps, cleans and snatches. You’re confident you’re ready to crush this first class.

And then you see the whiteboard.

It’s a jumble of abbreviations, acronyms, and numbers — it might as well be hieroglyphics.

But fear not! Sooner than later, interpreting that jumble of letters and numbers will be second nature to you. And this guide will give you a head start on understanding it all.

The whiteboard is the focal point of a CrossFit class. It’s where athletes gather at the start of class. It’s where scores are recorded at the end of class and where PRs and other milestones are noted and celebrated. And it’s a roadmap for everything that will happen in that day’s class. 

Name Game

Every class starts at the whiteboard, where the coach will greet everyone and give an overview of the class to come. Part of that introduction will be a special CFN tradition: the name game! At the top of the whiteboard each day will be an icebreaker question — sometimes related to fitness or daily life, sometimes random and ridiculous, like “would you rather have a pet dinosaur or pet dragon?” Each person in class will give their name and their answer. No pressure, though; if you don’t have a good answer, feel free to pass on the question. This is simply a way for everyone to learn each other’s names and, potentially, some fun facts about their classmates. 

Warm-up

Before any strength, skill, or conditioning work, there will be a warm-up. Sometimes the coach will lead the whole thing, for example progressing through drills before doing some Olympic lifting work. Other times the coach will explain and demonstrate each movement in the warm-up, then let athletes move through them at their own pace for 3-5 minutes. All warm-ups will include some element to get your heart rate elevated along with dynamic stretches and movements that will help prime your muscles for the skills coming up in the workout.

A typical warm-up looks like this:
For 4 minutes, complete rounds of:
20 jumping jacks
10 PVC pass-throughs
5 inchworms

 

WOD

“WOD” stands for “Workout of the Day.” In nearly every class, the WOD is the main focus. The WOD will be different every day, with varied formats, lengths, and combinations of weightlifting, gymnastics, and monostructural (cardio) movements.

If there is no strength or skill work to be completed before the WOD, the coach will spend some time after the warm-up reviewing the movements in the WOD and ways to modify them to your ability, and athletes will have time to practice each movement and work up to the version of it they plan to do in the workout.

On the whiteboard, the WOD might look like this:
For time:
500m row
20 push-ups
30 sit-ups
40 air squats

Your score for most workouts will be either the time it took you to finish, or the amount of work you were able to finish in a fixed amount of time. Workout descriptions come with a lot of abbreviations. On the whiteboard, you might see:

RFT: RFT is short for “Rounds for Time.” This type of workout is usually a list of 2-4 movements in a circuit you’ll go through a set number of times. For example, you might see:

3 RFT:
400m run
21 kettlebell swings
12 pull-ups

This means you will do 3 rounds, as fast as you can, each consisting of a 400m run, followed by 21 kettlebell swings, followed by 12 pull-ups.

Sometimes, each round of a workout will have a different rep scheme. “Fran,” one of the most famous workouts in CrossFit, is an example of this. The workout is:

For time:
21-15-9
thrusters 95/65
pull-ups

When workouts are written like this, you follow the numbers in order: do 21 thrusters and 21 pull-ups, then 15 thrusters and 15 pull-ups, then 9 thrusters and 9 pull-ups. So this workout is also three rounds, but the reps change each round.

By the way: When there are two numbers written after a weightlifting movement, those are the “prescribed” weights for men/women. They’re just a suggestion! You should use whatever weight is appropriate and safe for you.

AMRAP: AMRAP stands for “As Many Rounds (and Reps) As Possible.” In this type of workout, you’ll move through a series of movements as many times as you can within a set amount of time. Your score is recorded as the number of full rounds you completed plus any additional reps you finished. For example:

20 minute AMRAP (or AMRAP 20)
10 box jumps
10 burpees
10 toes to bar

Someone who finishes 6 full rounds, then 10 additional box jumps and 4 burpees would have a score of 6+14.

AMREP: AMREPs are similar to AMRAPs, but rather than counting your score in rounds, you’ll count in reps. Examples of workouts like this might be:

AMREPs in 5 minutes: clean & jerks 135/95, where your score is the total number of repetitions you complete within the 5 minutes.

Or, it could look like this:
AMREPs in 7 minutes:
1, 2, 3 etc.
deadlifts
handstand push-ups

In this example, you’d complete 1 deadlift, then 1 handstand push-up, then 2 deadlifts, then 2 handstand push-ups, continuing in this pattern until time is up. Again, your score is the total repetitions you complete in those 7 minutes.

Tabata: A tabata is a special form of interval workout. It typically consists of eight rounds where you spend 20 seconds working and 10 seconds resting. For example, if the WOD is “tabata double unders,” you would do as many double unders as you can in 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds, then repeat that pattern for 7 more rounds. 

Modifications

While a single WOD will be presented for the whole class to do, the actual workout completed may look very different from one athlete to the next. This is because all workouts can be adjusted to suit each athlete’s abilities and ensure that everyone gets the same stimulus from the workout.

For this reason, the whiteboard will often list “Lifestyle” options alongside the WOD. These are suggestions for ways you can modify the movements, weights, or reps to make them more accessible. Again, these are just suggestions, and the coach will likely offer additional options beyond what’s listed on the board. If you’re ever unsure if or how you should be modifying a skill, just ask!

Strength & Skill

On some days, the WOD will be on the shorter side, or it might consist of simpler skills that require less time to review. On those days, the WOD might be preceded by some strength or skill work.

Here are a few samples of how strength or skill work might appear:

Back squat 5×3

15 minutes to establish a 3RM push press

8 minute EMOM: 3-5 strict pull-ups

10 minute EMOM: 1 power snatch

Let’s unpack these.

Sets: In the first example, back squat day, the first number indicates the number of sets you’ll be doing, while the second number is the total number of reps in each set. So the assignment that day is to complete 5 sets of 3 back squats. The coach will indicate whether you’re expected to use the same weight for all sets or if you’re expected to build in weight each set.

RM: The second example asks you to find a “3RM” push press. “RM” is short for “rep max” — in other words, your goal is to find the heaviest set of 3 push presses you can successfully complete with good technique.

EMOM: EMOM stands for “every minute on the minute,” and it is a common format for both strength and skill work. In these cases, you’re being asked to do a set of strict pull-ups at the top of each minute for 8 minutes or 1 snatch at the top of each minute for 10 minutes.

Note that this acronym can be used to describe other time intervals: E2MOM, for example, would mean “every 2 minutes on the minute.”

Scores

At the end of the class, when the workout is done and you’ve wiped down and put away any equipment, the coach may recommend some stretches or cooldown work to do while they collect everyone’s scores and write them up on the board. If you had any special accomplishments that day — a PR (personal record) on a lift or your first pull-up, for example — let the coach know so they can write it up with your score.

Some athletes might also indicate that they performed the workout “Rx,” which is short for “as prescribed.” This simply means that they did the workout exactly as written, without changing any of the weights or movements. The majority of athletes aren’t able to do the WOD “Rx” every day or even most days, and that’s ok! Working toward your first “Rx” is a great goal to have.

At the end of each day, the coach will take a photo of the whiteboard and add it to the CFN Whiteboard Results page on Facebook. This serves as a record for the next time a lift or benchmark workout comes up and also lets other members see and celebrate their friends’ accomplishments.

 

Now picture this: It’s your first day of group class, and you know that your personal training sessions have left you well prepared. You walk up to the whiteboard, take it all in, and you understand exactly what you have to do for the workout: Crush it.

 

For a head start on understanding each day’s workout, you can also check the CFN website, where the full upcoming week of programming is posted every Sunday, and read the WOD Guide linked in the email newsletter every week.