Beyond the Whiteboard has been a huge tool in my CrossFit training since it was created by my little brother Jonathan Kinnick and his crew in 2009.  The site itself has grown so much over the years and has become more than just a way to keep track of your “Fran” times and max lifts. The site now has an amazing feature called “Fitness Level” which puts an actual number to where your fitness stacks up against the CrossFit community.

*Your Overall Fitness Level number can range from 0-100.  It is a relative measure of Fitness, meaning it compares your performance to the rest of the community.  A Fitness Level of 77 means you are more Fit than roughly 77% of the community*

Fitness Level includes 8 categories that gauges your overall fitness. The categories include, “…Power Lifts and Olympic Lifts, which are determined by your average levels of those respective lifts.  The Speed category looks at your average levels for Shorter Runs and Rows (100m to 1000m), while the Endurance category looks at Longer Runs and Rows (1000m to 1okm).  There are also four Conditioning/MetCon Categories.   We have divided Benchmark workouts and other popular workouts into four different categories.  The first three include Bodyweight, Light, and Heavy workouts, all 20 minutes and under.  The Long category includes workouts where the average time to completion is greater than 20 minutes.  By combining your levels in these 8 categories, we get a very broad measure of your overall Fitness.”

The feature has made it so simple and easy for me to address my weaknesses and focus my programming. I’m going to do a series of blogs talking about each of these categories and my progress in them throughout my CrossFit journey!

POWER LIFTS

The power lifts (back squat, bench press, deadlift, shoulder press) have always been great lifts for me and my Fitness Level numbers reflect that well, even my earliest numbers earn me an 85 in the category and from there I invested a serious amount of time building a solid strength base with these lifts. I have fully trained through a number of different powerlifting programs that focus a ton on posterior chain development and creating raw power output that is extremely useful in CrossFit. I’ve explored so many of the accessory lifts to these movements and really enjoyed working towards increasing my max numbers alongside my ability to handle heavier workouts. Overall my numbers have jumped up enough to now bring me to a 98 in the Power Lift category. A recent strength cycle I went through helped me hit:

Back squat: 415# x 5 reps

Bench Press: 280# x 5 reps

Deadlift: 485# x 5 reps

Shoulder Press: 195# x 5 reps

I definitely enjoy training the Power Lifts and they have been a huge part in giving me the strength base that I am now using to further my Olympic Lifts and overall capacity in CrossFit. Do yourself a favor and start using Beyond the Whiteboard right away, it is so crucial to see the progress we work for in CrossFit and the Fitness Level takes it to new heights. Stay tuned for more looks into this feature and my numbers!