"We went into Regionals having seen the workouts done several times."
Six weeks before the first day of the South West Regional — and more than three weeks before Regional Workouts were even announced — the event’s judges began training.
Nearly 40 of them descended upon Front Range CrossFit in Denver each Saturday leading up to the event to talk movement standards, common faults, what’s expected, and also to judge workouts.
It’s a practice that has been ongoing for four years, since Skip Miller has been Regional Director.
“It honestly never occurred to me to not do it,” says the Front Range CrossFit owner. “I just didn’t know how else to make the judges train up with the skills they needed to be successful.”
Thad Eshelman and his wife, Makenzie, traveled more than three hours from Glenwood Springs, Colo., to attend.
Although the Eshelmans only were able to attend one of the judge-training sessions this year, Thad Eshelman judges other similarly large-scale events organized and hosted by Front Range CrossFit throughout the year.
“Typically on a Saturday, we’ll do two of the Regional Workouts,” he says. “We did some judging in the morning where we judged two different workouts: the dumbbell workout and the snatch ladder.”
That was followed by a PowerPoint presentation on all of the workouts, as well as discussion on the flow of each event, movement standards, what judges should look for and what Miller expected from them.
“We went into Regionals having seen the workouts done several times,” Thad says.
The judging sessions — three of which he attended last year — have made him a better coach, according to Thad, who owns Glenwood Springs CrossFit, an affiliate with 120 members.
“I’m a huge fan of it. I think if the sport is going to be successful moving forward, it’s going to be necessary,” he says.
Thad ended up judging the 1st or 2nd place finisher in every workout: Pat Burke, Matt Chan, Jasmine Dever, Colleen Maher, as well as teams Front Range CrossFit and Hacks Pack UTE.
The judging was consistent across the board.
“I thought that it was done very well,” says Thad. “I think that’s Skip’s whole point in doing this judging training (is), ‘do you want everybody to be on the same page in our region’?”
Judging can be a tricky thing.
“There (are) people at the event that are going to struggle with range of motion,” says Miller.
It might be the first time they’ve been told that’s not a rep.
“I know that … the top athletes that we judge are always incredibly complimentary of the judging and how the interaction goes with the judges,” says Miller. “It’s only fair to the athletes (to have) as well prepared a judging team as you can prepare them.”
