Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast · Caffeine and Kilos | Fitness and Coaching Culture w/ Danny Lehr

Should You Even Do Local Competitions?

·40 min·2 clips

The first debate is whether ring handstand pushups are a legit CrossFit movement or a circus act.

1. Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast centers this episode on whether local CrossFit competitions are worth doing at all. 2. Danny Lear hosts with Seth Page, head programmer for Jump Ship Training and a CrossFit Athlete Council member, and Blair Morrison, a CrossFit OG, affiliate owner, and three-time CrossFit Games athlete. 3. The episode asks whether local comps build community and buy-in or simply create injuries, bad judging, and empty Monday classes. 4. Seth and Blair start with a quick legitimacy test for competition movements, including ring handstand pushups, burpee broad jumps, softball toss, butterfly muscle-ups, bear crawls, and baby crawls. 5. Danny keeps pushing the line between “legit” testing and what he calls a “circus act,” especially when standards are unclear. 6. Seth argues that a small in-gym competition can be worthwhile if it uses a manageable number of workouts over 90 minutes to two hours. 7. Blair says the biggest value is getting people into the gym to watch friends, and he compares that visibility to a year of internet drop-ins. 8. Seth gives the example of a partner competition with 80 teams, four events, finals for the top 10, and scale and masters divisions. 9. Blair says local events can also be profitable, even if the revenue is only “a couple thousand bucks.” 10. The hosts spend time on programming choices and say one-day local competitions should be done before 4 o’clock. 11. Seth prefers higher-skill movements in a final, but says simpler workouts are easier to run on time and easier to sign up for. 12. He mentions an in-house competition with an “egg on a spoon” style sabotage concept and says that kind of idea fits some events but not all. 13. Blair says the space available, the number of heat lanes, and the judging burden should shape the programming more than novelty. 14. Danny adds his own Turkey Day Throwdown example, where the entry fee is a frozen turkey and the gym donates more than 100 turkeys to a food bank each year. 15. Blair says the judging standard has to be crystal clear because scaled athletes can be just as intense about violations as higher-level athletes. 16. Seth says post-competition judging complaints usually come from people who did not judge, then notes that a local judge is often just “Cheryl from 9:30 AM mom’s class.” 17. The tone is conversational and argumentative, with fast interruptions, joking, and repeated checks on what is “fair” versus what is practical. 18. The format mixes sports debate, programming advice, and CrossFit business talk instead of staying on one narrow subject. 19. CrossFit gym owners, coaches, and members who like local throwdowns. 20. Listeners wanting polished storytelling or pure training science.

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