USA Weightlifting Goes CrossFit! Pro or Con?

One of my lifters, Beth, tipped me off to this new development at USA Weightlifting:  A new hybrid USAW/CrossFit competition:

The event will join weightlifting – one of the oldest Olympic sports – with CrossFit – one of the most popular strength and conditioning programs in the nation that combines weightlifting, sprinting and gymnastics.

Yep, USA Weightlifting is finally thinking outside the box.  Now … it’s true that a lot of weightlifting coaches behind closed doors have a lot of negative things to say about CrossFit.  Some of these complaints are well founded, most are not.  But …

The REAL question is, “is this new move going to help USA Weightlifting – as a business – or is it just another bad business decision on their part?”

Here are the facts.  CrossFIt is THE most popular fitness system in the world that includes the Olympic lifts.  Period.

Most people (the general public) don’t even know that Olympic weightlifting exists as a sport – at all.  They think we oil ourselves up and pose in panties.

And the few who might not be that clueless, still think we’re Powerlifters who compete in the Bench.  We’re an extremely underground sport.  How is it that an obscure sport like Bobsledding has top of mind awareness (everyone knows what it is), but weightlifting – a sport anyone with a bar can do – doesn’t?

CrossFitters may be the only people on earth who actually know what it is that we do.  More over, they have respect for us, and actively seek us out to help them with their technique on the lifts.

I’ve had LOADS of local CrossFitters here in Portland come to me to improve their technique.  I currently have a few CrossFit practitioners on my competitive team.

USA Weightlifting embracing CrossFit is (in my opinion) a great move.  It may ruffle some feathers.  But, if USA Weightlifting doesn’t start making some changes – soon – there won’t be a USAW.

One might also ask, “who is going to go to this contest?”

I admit, my first response to seeing this new hybrid competition was, “No weightlifter is going to do that.”

Weightlifters don’t do reps.  And certainly not for time!

But, who cares?  We don’t need to have a new contest for people who are ALREADY members of USAW and compete regularly – we’ve already converted them!

We need something (a lot of something’s) to inspire new blood to give weightlifting – as a sport – a go.  This is a middle ground, opening a door, wetting an appetite.

CrossFit has a reach that USA Weightlifting can only dream about.  It has a cult following (that admittedly turns off many non-CrossFitters) that is easy to move en masse.  If you get loads of CrossFitters excited about lifting competitively, you have a whole new market of potential lifters who already know about the lifts and are excited about them.

We call those “highly qualified leads” in business.  USA Weightlifting is a business.  I’m glad to see a step in the direction of it being run like one.

 

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