One of the attractions of golf is the handicap system that allows novices, pros and all in-between to play a good game and be measured against their own best effort.
This allows for beginners to beat the best on a good day and in general challenge each of them on their own terms…
As the CrossFit World expands vastly to cover all athletic abilities, maybe there will be time for a similar index based on a CF standard: work output or power.
The recent announcement of CFHQ on their comprehensive ranking system will help select the top CF athletes for a competition. It will not help compare two WOD results between athletes of very different abilities, like an index could.
There are dozens of CF calculators that can measure the power of our recent WODs in watts, horsepower or ft-lb/sec. It is not inconceivable to set out the next Throwdown with average power output over a period as our baseline handicap index.
Then we can have real comparison of work output…
A 175lb 5’9 athlete doing Fran at 4:00 has the same power output as a 190lb 6’1 athlete doing the same at 4:30 (around 215 watts). Their own best should be the baseline. Improvements before and after can then be easily calculated using tools like the Catalyst power output calculator and make it comparable.
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I know this is an old blog entry, but I was searching around to see if anyone else had the same sentiments that I do when it comes to Crossfit handicapping. I’ve been doing this for 2 years. I’m 38 years of age. I entered one competition for fun and despite being in pretty good shape, I got pretty much annihilated by the 22 year olds. Competitive rowing uses a handicap system that is based on age and they have weight classes. They understand that work capacity goes down as we age and of course tends to go up when we weigh more. I think a formula could be determined that would approximate this for xfit as well. Age would be a greater factor than weight class, since many movements are bodyweight of course. But having this set handicap means that an extremely fit 45 yr old crossfitter could beat the 22 year old who isn’t at the top of his form. I’d say that in many circumstances, the 22 year old might win with a raw score. The difference between this and your golf handicap method is that it grades people on a general curve rather than having to establish a benchmark and giving them a particular rank.