Open letter to those who write "CrossFit" on their door without owning the methodology
- Matthieu Vanderkelen
- Jan 7
- 7 min read
By Matthieu Vanderkelen, MSc, CF-L3
There is a confusion I keep seeing, seminar after seminar, gym after gym, Instagram post after Instagram post. People appropriate a name, a style, an aesthetic. And then they quietly strip out what forms the spine of the method, under the pretext that “it’s better,” “more modern,” “more intelligent,” “safer,” “more suited to the public.”
The result is almost always the same: the label stays, the architecture goes. They keep the name “CrossFit,” and remove what makes it CrossFit. And they end up selling something else. Sometimes a good product. Often a muddled one. But in all cases, a different product.
CrossFit is not a collection of “good ideas” you can cherry-pick based on whatever you feel like right now. It is not a buffet. It is not a playlist. It is a system. And a system, by definition, does not survive being pulled apart.
This point is essential: the methodology was not built to stroke the coach’s ego, nor to project sophistication. It was built for a very specific target: “normal” people, with normal lives, who do not have four hours a day to train, and who need a method that is both effective (it works) and efficient (it works with limited time, and over the long haul). In the Level 1 guide, the choice of training rhythms is explicitly discussed in light of work, family, school constraints, and the classic “week plus weekend” framework. In other words, it is built for real life, not for lab rats.. (1) (2)
And it is precisely because the target is everyday people that the integrity of the system is non-negotiable. A robust method is a method that still holds up when sleep is imperfect, stress is high, the schedule is tight, and motivation comes and goes. CrossFit, in its intent, aims to produce generalists: athletes who increase their capacity to handle the widest variety of demands possible, across different durations and modalities. This is not a specialist philosophy. It is not a religion of “always the same.” It is the opposite: a strategy for broad adaptation.
This is where the drift begins.
People often believe they are “improving” CrossFit by adding a layer of structure, while in reality they are removing its logic. They replace variance (central to the methodology) with periodization (specializing). They replace a clear intention with an accumulation of blocks. They replace training at high relative intensity with stacked Part A, Part B, Part C, Part D, where what matters gets diluted and “fatigue” is confused with “stimulus.” They remove heavy days because “it scares people.” They remove long monostructural days because “people will get bored.” They remove gymnastics-only days because “we’ll do pull-ups in the metcon.” And almost inevitably, they remove the most mature idea in the entire system: training must remain in service of a stimulus, not in service of the programmer’s ego.
And yet, the theory supporting the method is no secret to anyone. It has been written in black and white for a long time, and it is accessible online for free.
Let’s revisit one piece of the architecture: the programming model (2). This is not some historical quirk. It is a simple and robust way to guarantee exposure to the modalities that build a complete athlete: monostructural (M), gymnastics (G), weightlifting/strength (W).
And there is a detail many “pseudo CrossFit” gyms carefully avoid: single-element days. These days exist precisely to train what cannot be trained properly if you constantly drown it inside a metcon.
An “M” day is typically a long, slow, continuous effort (real monostructural work, not a small finisher).
A “G” day is skill practice, often too technical to be timed properly until mastery exists.
A “W” day is heavy work, low reps, the basics.
And if you read carefully, the text insists: this is not sprint day, not pull-up day, not high-rep clean and jerk day. The goal is the development of the element, not the production of sweat.
When a gym removes these days, it does not “personalize.” It amputates. And it almost always does it while claiming to protect people, when in fact it deprives them of the bricks that make the system coherent: “real” aerobic development, pure technique, and brute strength.
Same logic on the gymnastics side. You often see “weightlifting-only” days or “running-only” days, but rarely “gymnastics-only” days, even though they should be just as frequent, with deliberate rest and an intention of progress, not a search for metabolic effect (3) Replacing that with “we’ll throw a few kipping pull-ups into a WOD” is not adaptation. It is a category error.
Second piece of the architecture: the progression Mechanics → Consistency → Intensity. This is not a slogan. It is a charter. And it is presented as the optimal balance between safety, effectiveness, and efficiency: mechanics first, consistency second, and only then intensity. Ignoring this order increases injury risk and can slow progress long-term (1)
And yet, what do we see in too many gyms that claim CrossFit? A systematic inversion. People want to “add intensity” before building competence. They want to “make people sweat” before they can move well. They want to “move hard” before they can “move well.”
And the worst part is that this inversion often comes with a moral coating: “we’re safer, we do it cleaner.” When in reality, they often do the opposite. They knowingly forget relative intensity (the intensity that respects the athlete’s capacity), and replace it with confused volume, slow fatigue, degraded mechanics, and a culture of “pushing through.” No, that is not prudence. It is another form of negligence: negligence of the stimulus.
That is why the method insists on a simple, mature adaptation principle: preserve the stimulus. Stimulus is not “finishing the WOD” nor “suffering together.” It is the intended effect of a precise combination of movements, time, and load (and we adjust those variables so the effects are similar from one athlete to another) (1)
This principle alone disqualifies a huge amount of “CrossFit-like” programming. Because it forces the coach to do what many avoid: think. Define the intention, the workout’s stimulus. Identify the time domain. Choose a load that allows real intensity without breaking mechanics. Accept that sometimes, the right choice is to lighten, simplify, reduce, slow down (and then, once technique is mastered, speed up or load heavier).
Third piece, and probably the most forgotten because it is less sexy: nutrition. It is not “an extra.” It is not a “premium service.” It is the base. The theoretical hierarchy of development places nutrition at the foundation: nutrition, then metabolic conditioning, then gymnastics, then weightlifting, then sport. And the text is unambiguous: if you have a deficiency at any level, the levels above it suffer (1)
Many gyms that “distort” CrossFit do it in two ways simultaneously: they drift away from the training methodology and they carefully avoid addressing nutrition. Because it is uncomfortable. Because it requires follow-up. Because it forces you to deal with adherence, sleep, alcohol, habits, emotions. They prefer to buy more equipment, add more volume, add more apparent variety, because that is sexy and easier to sell. But the pyramid reminds us of a brutal reality: if the foundation is unstable, you can stack whatever you want on top, you are building on quicksand.
Fourth piece: variance as anti-routine. The Level 1 guide does not say “be creative for fun.” It says, in substance, that for the desired fitness, parameters must be manipulated to broaden the stimulus; the body responds to an unusual stressor; and routine is the enemy of progress and broad adaptation. It recommends not becoming a slave to a format (high/low reps, long/short rest) but introducing variation (1)
And here we hit the core of the problem: periodization, when it becomes a substitute for variance, is not refinement. It is a change of objective. It is choosing to become good at what you repeat, at the cost of losing competence in the functions and patterns you decide to practice less. It is not immoral. It is simply something else. And if you do something else, call it something else.
Finally, there is a topic that crystallizes many misunderstandings: “endurance.” People often caricature CrossFit as “only short and violent,” then try to correct it by adding aerobic blocks “because you need a base.” But when you actually understand adaptations, you stop opposing “short intense” and “long easy” in a simplistic way. The article “The Paradox of the Aerobic Fitness Prescription” by Prof. Lon Kilgore, PhD, reminds us that one type of endurance work can improve one pathway while degrading other qualities if the whole is not managed intelligently. In other words, aerobic training matters, but it must not be built by betraying the overall logic of the program. It must be integrated, dosed, and articulated with the rest (4)
What shocks me is not that a coach makes choices. It is that they make choices that change the object, and then they keep the name. Writing “CrossFit” on the door is not a decorative act. It is a claim. It is saying: “I align with a method that has internal logic, that has been tested, written, taught, and that I honestly represent.”
If you remove heavy days.
If you remove monostructural-only days.
If you remove true skill work days.
If you replace stimulus with stacked A/B/C/D.
If you replace progression with urgency and survival.
If you treat nutrition as an accessory.
Then you have every right to do that. But you no longer have the intellectual right to pretend it is “CrossFit, but better.” It is something else. And that “something else” deserves its own name, because it deserves its own responsibility.
The good news is that this letter is not a condemnation. It is an invitation to reflection and professional humility.
Because if you are a coach and you genuinely want to be good, you do not need to invent “your version of CrossFit” to prove your worth. Your worth is not proven by dismantling the system. It is proven by your ability to apply it with accuracy: defining the stimulus, adapting without betraying it, respecting progression, putting nutrition in its place, protecting mechanics before demanding intensity, and accepting that sophistication is not in the number of blocks, but in the precision of intent.
You are chasing excellence ? Start by stopping the need to be original.
You want to be excellent? Start by stopping the need to be original.
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