Adapt or Die: The Team Behind CrossFit’s Rising Star, Harry Lightfoot
The men’s podium at the 2025 Rogue Invitational featured familiar faces like Jeff Adler, Justin Medeiros, and Roman Khrennikov showcasing the kind of strength, speed, and skill we’ve come to expect.
- But many fans will tell you the real breakout of the weekend was Rogue rookie and UK local Harry Lightfoot.
Wearing his Adidas stripes and grinning through the chaos, Lightfoot seemed to revel in the moment. Yet after the dust settled, he shared on social media that the three-day grind wasn’t all joy. An 18th-place finish stung — rookie or not, it wasn’t the result he wanted.
Enter coach Mike Allen.
The two began working together when Lightfoot discovered Allen and his coaching program, AOD Fitness (Adapt or Die), on YouTube back when Allen was still coaching out of a barn.
- “Coming from a rugby background, he connected with our performance-based approach and soon joined our generic program,” Allen said. “After attending a few training days, it was clear he had serious potential.”
When team sports were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two discussed Lightfoot’s pursuit of individual coaching to see if a career in CrossFit was possible. After several years together, Lightfoot qualified for his first CrossFit Games at the 2024 French Throwdown and has now appeared at the Games in two straight years.
First Steps
Allen has always been passionate about sports, with rugby being his main focus. He played for Worcester and excelled in the competitive team atmosphere.
- “When I went to Loughborough University to study Physics and Sports Science, I discovered CrossFit through my friends Adam Roff and, later, Harry Kean, who both would later become my co-founders at AOD,” Allen said. “We began coaching at CrossFit Loughborough in exchange for a set of keys, allowing us to train after hours, which marked the beginning of AOD’s evolution.”
The friends briefly went their separate ways after graduating, but their shared passion for sport science, performance, and evidence-based coaching brought them back together and ultimately led to the founding of AOD.
- “We were seeing huge improvements in our own performance and realised how much we enjoyed applying sport science and data-driven principles to training,” Allen said. “At the time, we were exploring various online coaching models and decided to create something that reflected our own philosophy.”
In 2018, the three transformed Allen’s parents’ stables in Worcester into a modest training facility, which became their base. They struck a balance between an online coaching platform and in-person training, centered on three pillars: performance, development, and gratification.
The AOD Difference Maker
The heart of AOD Fitness, Allen told us, is “a deep passion for sports science and curiosity for innovation.” He went on to explain that while research is available on training and performance, there isn’t much that’s specific to CrossFit.
- They interpret established principles from other sports and disciplines and apply them to the sport of fitness. They also make sure they’re tailoring those principles to every athlete’s specific needs, backgrounds, skill sets, and goals.
He combines that data-driven approach with his experience and intuition, “maximizing the rate of improvement and ensuring that every session has purpose and return.”
Allen’s scientific background and influence are evident in much of what they do on a day-to-day basis.
- “Over the last few years, we have used methods from endurance sports science, including step tests and blood lactate readings, to help athletes define and improve their heart rate thresholds for endurance training,” Allen said. “This approach helped Harry place inside the top ten in the opening event of this year’s CrossFit Games, the long endurance test ‘Run Row Run.’”
Regarding strength development, the team applies concepts from the Westside Barbell conjugate method. Allen credits this for helping Lightfoot increase his one-rep max and set a PR in the back squat at the 2025 CrossFit Games.
Allen shares that working with Lightfoot has been incredibly rewarding.
- “Beyond his natural talent and work ethic, his greatest strength is his coachability. He completely buys into the process, trusts the plan, and approaches every session with a genuine growth mindset,” Allen said.
“Even on the toughest days,” Allen continued, “he wants to learn, adapt, and improve, which has been fundamental to his development.”
Over the past few years, Lightfoot’s shift to full-time training has paid off — something Allen has witnessed firsthand as the dedication shaped him into the athlete he is today.
- “From the outside, it may look like rapid progress, but it has been built through years of consistent, deliberate work and relentless commitment to improving,” Allen said.
In Lightfoot’s Own Words
Lightfoot shared that he credits much of his success to Allen and the entire AOD Fitness team.
- “I hope it’s apparent that I never refer to what we’ve done as ‘mine,’” Lightfoot told the Morning Chalk Up. “It’s shared. I’m a homegrown AOD athlete who’s had these guys invest a lot of their time into me, far beyond the service I pay for. And that’s what sets Mike and the team apart from anyone else. You can’t teach people to care.”
He also pointed out that in other professional sports, coaches and methods are supported by science and literature. Lightfoot could see the AOD Fitness team doing the same, and he wanted to be part of it.
Lightfoot added: “If it wasn’t for the constant innovation [Allen] brings year after year, I’m not sure I’d be where I am right now. It’s an ‘adapt or die’ mentality.”
Featured image: Mike Allen
