Most of us like CrossFit because it holds a very high standard for overall fitness that simply doesn’t exist in any alternative sport for adults. This is of course a given.
After 2 years of my girls going though various CF kids programs my opinion is that we do not hold the same standard for the kids, especially teens.
I’m not sure why the CF kids program became mostly a tumbling and rolling hour with some skillwork but that is what it is evolving into, especially compared to what kids experience in competitive gymnastics, weightlifting and track.
CF Teens are learning the basics of pushups and pull-ups in some of the classes while they would be expected to prepare for the olympic tryouts in competitive gymnastics.
This lack of focus is reflected even in the training hours. Many boxes will have 30-40 adult WOD classes for every CF Kids/Teen class.
It is my hope that we will collectively challenge the sport to bring the kids programs to the same world class expectations and then have olympians coming from the CF Teen teams. Or even a CrossFit Games age group of their own.
We can sure make the kids/teen program the same elite fitness that the adult program has already become.
