25 CrossFit goals for skills, lifts and benchmark workouts

CrossFit goals for beginners

Beginner goals are about coming to class and learning to move well before moving fast.

• Go to 3 classes a week for 8 weeks.
• Finish every workout for a month, scaled as much as you need.
• Learn the squat, the deadlift and the press with a coach.
• Jump rope for 2 minutes without tripping.
• Write down your score after every class for a month.

CrossFit gymnastics goals

Gymnastics goals are firsts: the first time a move works without a band or a box.

• Do your first pull-up without a band.
• Do your first toes-to-bar.
• Do 50 double-unders without a miss.
• Do your first handstand push-up.
• Do your first muscle-up, on the bar or the rings.

CrossFit lifting goals

Lifting goals are weights set against your own body weight. The snatch and the clean and jerk get a full list of their own in Olympic weightlifting goals.

• Back squat 1.5 times your body weight.
• Deadlift 2 times your body weight.
• Clean and jerk your own body weight.
• Snatch 0.75 times your body weight.
• Overhead squat your own body weight.

Benchmark workout goals

Benchmarks are workouts you repeat to see change. The rower shows up in many of them, so rowing goals carry over directly.

• Finish Murph: a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and a 1 mile run.
• Finish Murph in under 60 minutes.
• Repeat one benchmark every 3 months and beat your score.
• Row 2,000 m in under 8 minutes.
• Do one workout exactly as written for the first time.

Attendance and competition goals

Attendance goals are the ones you fully control, and they sit under every other goal on this page.

• Go to 150 classes in a year.
• Train on 20 days out of 30.
• Do 10 minutes of mobility a day for 30 days.
• Enter the CrossFit Open and finish every workout.
• Do a first local competition with a team.

What is a good CrossFit goal?

A good CrossFit goal picks one thing out of the mix. A review of 35 years of goal research found that specific, hard goals lead to higher performance than being told to do your best. "Get better at CrossFit" is ten goals in a coat. "First pull-up without a band by June" is one.

Benchmarks make good goals because they are fixed. Murph, posted by CrossFit on 18 August 2005, is always the same: a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and another 1 mile run, for time. Your first finish is a goal. Your second is a comparison.

Pick the goal from your weakest area, and keep a record. The research on goal tracking found that monitoring progress is what raises the odds of reaching a goal.

How to track CrossFit goals

Write down the score before you leave the gym. A review of 138 studies found that people who monitored their progress reached their goals more often, and that recording it beat keeping it in your head. The whiteboard gets wiped. Your log does not.

Classes attended are a day count. Reps, metres and kilos are amounts. A strict daily plan is a different thing, and it is worth reading what doctors say about 75 Hard before you copy its all or nothing rule.

Skills take months, and most classes will not feel like progress. A picture that fills up one class at a time shows that they were.

Frequently asked questions

What are good CrossFit goals for beginners?

Three classes a week for 8 weeks, every workout finished at a scale that suits you, and every score written down. Skills and weights come after the habit.

What is Murph?

A benchmark workout posted by CrossFit on 18 August 2005: a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and a 1 mile run, for time. It is named after Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy.

How many CrossFit goals should I have at once?

One skill, one lift and one attendance count is plenty. With more than that, the class of the day decides what you train, and none of your goals gets steady work.