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How to choose a CrossFit box (and when it is worth switching)

CrossFit Wilanów

You have done CrossFit for two years. At your box there are twenty people in a class, the coach stands by the whiteboard running the clock, and your squat looks the same as a year ago because nobody corrects it. Or the other way round: you have just moved to Warsaw, you are looking for your first box here, and they all look the same online. Either way the question is the same: how do you recognise a good box? Below is a checklist that works at any club, including ours.

What to check in your first class

In its guide to choosing a gym (2023), CrossFit advises visiting several boxes and taking a class at each before deciding, because the atmosphere differs even between time slots at the same club. Here is what to look at once you are there:

  1. Is it an official CrossFit affiliate with certified coaches? “CrossFit” is a trademark and only an affiliated club may use it. The affiliate map is on the CrossFit website. A coach should have at least the CrossFit Level 1.
  2. How many people are in the room, and does the coach watch the movement? Count. Then watch: does the coach walk between people and notice what someone’s knee is doing, or stand by the timer? There is a limit to how many people a coach can still see.
  3. Is scaling a conversation? A good coach asks about experience and injuries before class, and picks your version of each exercise from what they see in the warm-up. “Do as much as you can” is not scaling.
  4. Is there an introduction for new people? CrossFit’s guide lists a beginners’ programme as one of the criteria. The form varies: a separate course, a first class with a conversation 15 minutes beforehand, personal training to start. What matters is that someone looks after you before you join the group.
  5. What does the hour look like? A briefing at the board, a warm-up linked to the workout, a skill part, the workout, a stretch. If a class is “warm up on your own and off we go”, half of it is missing.
  6. Are the standards the same for everyone? Full range of movement expected from everyone, including the coach when demonstrating.
  7. Do people stay after class? The guide calls this atmosphere. Put simply: does anyone talk to you, or does everyone vanish after the last rep?
  8. Does the timetable fit your life? Times, getting there, parking, the language of the class. The best box you cannot get to is not the best box.

Eight points, one class. If you end up with five yeses, that is a good sign.

Six skills of a good coach

Points 2, 3 and 6 come down to one thing: the quality of the coach. CrossFit’s Level 1 Training Guide lists six abilities an effective trainer should have, and compares them to the ten general physical skills: a coach is better with all six, not two.

Teaching. Explains the mechanics of a movement: the key points first, then the finer detail. Changes the explanation when you do not get it. It is the coach’s job to notice when communication breaks down.

Seeing. Tells good mechanics from bad, including small faults, and in motion, not only in a static position. According to the guide this is the hardest skill for new coaches.

Correcting. Fixes movement with verbal, visual and tactile cues. Picks the most important fault and fixes one thing at a time. A short cue such as “push your hips back” works better than a lecture. Praises small changes.

Group management. Organises time, space and equipment so that as much time as possible goes on movement rather than logistics. The guide sets a requirement: every participant should feel they got the coach’s personal attention, even in a group.

Presence and attitude. A positive atmosphere, empathy, contact with each person. “Positive” does not mean fake. Clients sense a lack of care faster than they judge your knowledge of anatomy.

Demonstration. Shows the movement through the correct range and leads by example: holds the same standards as the group.

The guide adds that the Level 1 certificate is valid for five years and is a beginning, not proof. Seeing and correcting are developed by the Level 2 course and by practice: teaching people, watching more experienced coaches, filming your own classes. A certificate tells you which exam a coach has passed. The rest you check in the room.

When switching boxes makes sense

Not when a workout was hard or a coach corrected you. When, for several months:

  • nobody has corrected your movement, even though you ask,
  • you are stuck on technique, not on weight, because weight is not everything,
  • there are so many people in class that the coach physically cannot reach everyone,
  • scaling means “do less”, not “do it differently”,
  • you do not know why you are doing what you are doing, and there is nobody to ask.

If three of the five sound familiar, take the checklist at the start of this piece to another club. One drop-in is enough to compare.

What stands behind it at our box

We do not say we are the best box in Warsaw. We say what we do to make the eight points hold true here.

The team. Four coaches hold the CrossFit Level 3 Trainer certificate: Łukasz Wysocki, Bartłomiej Smoczyński, Małgorzata Sławińska and Filip Zawadka. Two hold Level 2: Nicole Krawczyk and Dawid Kowalski. Łukasz has coached CrossFit since 2011, co-founded CrossFit Elektromoc, one of the first boxes in Poland, in 2013, and is the first Pole on the international coaching team of BirdBox Coaching. Not everyone on the team is a CrossFit coach: Aleksandra Chudzyńska and Małgorzata Mularska are specialists in mobility, Body Art and yoga.

One method. We work in the philosophy of BirdBox’s The Gymnastics Course and The Coaches Course. That is not decoration on the website: all our CrossFit coaches have taken these courses, so they teach movement the same way and with the same words, whichever class you end up in.

Coach Development. Filip Zawadka is responsible for the quality of our training, group and personal. He trains the team, sits in on classes and works regularly with each coach on their coaching. He oversees internships and supports recruitment, looking for people who fit the way we teach. Once a month he brings the whole team together for 2-3 hours of Coach Development, working through one technical or psychosocial aspect of coaching according to The Gymnastics Course and The Coaches Course. These sessions are open to coaches from other clubs and other branches of fitness and strength and conditioning. If you are a coach and would like to come, write to Filip.

At most 12 people in a class. That is the number at which a coach can still see everyone. We do not make groups bigger to fit more people in.

Someone looks after you. A new person arrives 15 minutes early and talks to the coach about experience and injuries. With OPEN, the first 12 weeks are led by a coach who looks after you, and Dawid Kowalski, our Member Success Lead, is responsible for getting new members started.

If you come from another box. There is no entrance test. You come to a class like everyone else, tell the coach where and for how long you have trained, and they pick your version of the workout from what they see in the warm-up, not from what you tell them. Someone experienced usually trains Intermediate or RX from day one, but the coach decides that, not your years of training. Classes are in Polish, and if anyone in the room does not speak Polish, the coach runs the class in English. Buy one class, go through the checklist, decide.

Sources

Buy your first class

One class to find out whether we suit each other. No commitment. If you decide on OPEN on the day of your first class, we deduct the cost of that class.

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