Breaking Down Three Years of Quarterfinals Programming
The third year of Individual Quarterfinals have wrapped up and the Worldwide Rankings have been updated for the both male and female divisions. As we get ready to move into the Semifinals stage of the season, we’re looking back and breaking down the movements and formats that have been programmed in the past three years of Individual Quarterfinals.
- Most popular movements: Five movements have appeared in all three years of the individual quarterfinals.
- GHD sit-ups
Rope climbs
Rowing
Burpee box jump overs
Handstand push-up variations
- Weightlifting: Looking at the big picture, a barbell has been programmed in seven of the 15 total Quarterfinals workouts. Dumbbells have appeared in three workouts and a medicine ball has appeared twice in three years.
- Front squat
Deadlift
Snatch
Clean and Jerk
Clean
Bench Press
Overhead squat
Dumbbell hang power clean
Dumbbell shoulder-to-overhead
Dumbbell lunge variation
Dumbbell snatch
Wall balls
- Gymnastics: Two workouts have consisted of all gymnastics movements (Test 2 in 2021 and Test 2 in 2022). Besides Test 4 in 2023, every other workout that has programmed a gymnastics movement has paired it with a loaded implement. The takeaway? The potent combination of bodyweight movements and lifting is at the core of CrossFit programming.
- Handstand push-up variation
GHD sit-ups
Rope climbs
Burpee box jump over
Ring muscle ups
Single-leg squats
Chest-to-bar pull-ups
Bar muscle ups
Handstand walks
V-ups
- Monostructural: The most commonly programmed cardio movement is rowing, appearing in all three years. The double under crossover made a big splash at the 2023 CrossFit Games and the new jump rope variation was edited and written into this year’s Quarterfinals as a single under crossover.
- Rowing
Double unders
Crossovers
Shuttle runs
- Formats: For simplicity, I’ve lumped ascending and descending rep scheme workouts into the chipper category. The big takeaway is that only three of the 15 workouts that have been programmed for Quarterfinals followed a repeated rep scheme for rounds. It’s also worth noting that this year Adrian Bozman introduced AMRAP’s to the Quarterfinals in two out of the five workouts.
- Chipper: 8
Rounds for time: 3
AMRAP: 2
Max lift: 2
The bottom line: Quarterfinals has served as an extra stage for more advanced athletes to showcase their fitness and play with higher skill movements since its introduction in 2021. The past three years have provided basic data that help to identify common trends for this stage in the CrossFit Games qualification process.
There may not be a cookie-cutter template, but the repeated programming of movements and formats can help steer training to be more prepared and successful in future years for athletes who may be on the bubble of qualifying for Semifinals. For the everyday CrossFitter, you can use this information to identify what higher level skills and strength levels to work towards if you have hopes of becoming a Quarterfinals athlete in the future.
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