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Deep Dive
Why Routine is Not the Enemy of CrossFit Training
You’ve probably been told that constantly varied training is the key to building functional fitness.
One day it's heavy thrusters, the next it's handstand walks and kettlebell swings—and you're led to believe that this randomness is what makes CrossFit effective.
But what if the thing you’ve been avoiding, routine, is what you need to break through training plateaus and stay injury-free?
Variety has its place, and it's what keeps training fun and us coming back for more.
Yet the right amount of training structure and progression are often what separate consistent progress from poor results.
If you're serious about building long-term strength, endurance, and resilience, it might be time to reconsider your training.
As a Physical Therapist and CrossFit Coach.
I’ve spent over a decade helping athletes like you train pain-free, get stronger, and perform at their best through smart, structured programming.
Below we'll outline the exact approach I take to doing so.
You’ve probably heard it before: “Keep the body guessing.”
The idea is that by mixing things up constantly, you’ll avoid adaptation and keep progressing.
That belief has shaped how many CrossFit gyms program workouts and how athletes like you might approach your training week.
The problem is, your body doesn’t work that way.
Real improvement—whether it’s getting stronger, building aerobic capacity, or refining a skill—requires repeated exposure to the same types of stimuli.
You adapt through practice and progression, not randomness.
When your workouts are completely different each week, there’s no opportunity for progressive overload.
That’s where the magic happens.
Without that consistent exposure, you may feel like you’re working hard and will likely make gains initially, but after the newbie gains wear off you likely spin your wheels.
You can’t track improvement, your performance varies wildly, and your progress stalls.
What's worse is random training can increase injury risk.
Big spikes in workload—like doing heavy Olympic lifting after not touching a barbell for weeks—can push you past your capacity.
And when that happens, you're not just missing PRs—you’re missing training entirely.
So, if you’re tired of inconsistent results and feeling beat up all the time, the problem might not be how hard you're working.
A Smarter Approach to Programming
Train with the Year in Mind
You’re not training for just this week—you’re training for the athlete you want to be six months from now.
That’s why you need to think in seasons, not just sessions.
The Bulletproof Training Program, for example, works backward from major milestones like the CrossFit Open, breaking the year into clear phases: accumulation, intensification, pre-competition, competition, and deload.
Each phase has a purpose.
In the accumulation phase, you're building volume and movement quality.
Intensification shifts to heavier loads or faster pacing.
Pre-competition sharpens your performance, and competition phases simulate event-style tests.
Deloads give your body time to recover.
When you train this way, every block builds on the last.
Within each block are shorter cycles called "mesocycles" where individual lifts, skills, and paces are developed strategically, not randomly.
You will typically see the following time durations:
Accumulation phases: 6-8 weeks
Intensification: 4-6 weeks
Pre-competition: 2-4 weeks
Competition: 1+ weeks
Deload: 1-2 weeks
During these phases, the same patterns are trained with just the right amount of variation to keep progress going.
But this will look like changes in grip, stance, tempo, range of motion, etc.
It won't look like squats in week one, deadlifts in week 2, cleans in week ,3 etc.
Each week builds upon itself to develop the movements and qualities chosen for that cycle.
How To Develop Each Fitness Quality
Strength Training
If you're constantly changing your lifts week to week, you're missing out on the adaptations that come from focused repetition.
Training the same strength movement—like a back squat, strict press, or deadlift—for 3 to 6 weeks allows your nervous system, muscles, and joints to adapt in a meaningful way.
During that cycle, you can still create variety by adjusting things like grip, stance, load, reps, tempo, or rest.
With subtle variations like these every few weeks you provide just enough of a new stimulus for the body to avoid accommodation and adapt.
But not so much where the movement changes completely and other is no transfer of performance to the remaining variation.
For example, running a back squat progression and after week 3 performing a box squat, then after 3 weeks performing pause squats.
You can get as complex as you'd like on which variation is best but you can see that all three movements share a similar pattern.
This allows for the transfer of strength to the back squat to boost your PRs.
Cyclical Endurance
Rowing, biking, and running are great tools to develop your aerobic engine.
But jumping into random intervals doesn’t build much just like random strength training doesn't.
A smarter approach starts with longer, slower intervals where you learn pacing and build your base.
Over time, you progress to shorter, faster intervals with less rest, improving both your top-end output and recovery.
If you are following The Bulletproof Training Program you will see this as Max Aerobic Power Training.
This format of cyclical conditioning sets the framework for traditional CrossFit training as you build aerobic fitness and get faster over time.
Typically durations for cyclical MAP training are about 8 weeks in length where the intervals change but the modality does not.
Mixed Modal Conditioning
In traditional CrossFit-style training, there needs to be some variety in your metcons.
But the better way to approach it is by taking a pattern-based approach each cycle.
By emphasizing specific movement patterns like squatting, hinging, or pressing over a 3–6 week cycle, you allow your body to build repeatable capacity in those areas.
When you focus on patterns instead of movements you'll have more options for variety while keeping the right amount of routine.
For example, the workouts below would be a pattern-based approach:
WOD 1:
10 Minute AMRAP
15 Wallballs 20/14# to 10/9'
50 Double Unders
15 Burpees
WOD 2:
10 Minute AMRAP
12 Front Squats 95/65#
8 Box Jumps 24/20"
10 Hand Release Push-Ups
You can see how the patterns of each movement are the same but the actual movements are different.
Squat
Jump
Horizontal Push
This provides the perfect amount of routine and variety for CrossFit training.
Skill Development
Complex skills like muscle-ups or handstand push-ups aren’t mastered through chaos they’re earned through smart layering.
Start by isolating the skill to learn the nuances of it and build volume.
Then add cyclical movements like rowing or biking to elevate heart rate without interfering with the muscles involved in the movement.
From there, introduce non-interfering movements and eventually more demanding elements that intentionally fatigue the muscles involved.
Finally, place the skill in mixed modal aerobic workouts before testing it under high-intensity anaerobic fatigue.
This progression keeps the same movement involved but adds progressive challenge to make the movement harder to complete under fatigue.
Final Thoughts on Routine in CrossFit Training
Contrary to what you might have been told, routine is not the enemy of CrossFit training.
Excessive variation is the enemy of long-term progress.
If you’re serious about getting stronger, faster, and more skilled without constantly battling setbacks or injuries, structure matters.
Randomness may feel exciting at the moment, but it rarely builds the kind of fitness that you are looking for.
Real growth comes from repeated exposure, strategic progression, and training with intention.
Now use this post as a guide for your training and you can begin to turn scattered effort into measurable results.
Want a better and more effective training program?
Then CLICK HERE to book a risk-free consultation to see how I can help.
This Week's Blog Post
How To Achieve Your First Strict Pull-Up In CrossFit
In this guide, we'll review the exact steps I take my clients through to get their first strict pull-up.
Learn proven strategies and get the same progressions I use weekly.
My flagship 1:1 program is designed to eliminate your joint pain while elevating your CrossFit performance in less than 12 weeks without overhauling your training or missing time in the gym for rehab.
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