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.
