Dan Edelman urges parents and grown-ups everywhere to resist the urge to adult-erate youth sports.
As a CrossFit Kids trainer, what do you do with a larval-stage firebreather?
Before answering, remember that this is CrossFit, which, as we know, forges elite fitness. Taking a broader cultural view, this is the U.S. A 10-year-old with a butterfly kip and muscle-ups? Ho-hum. Examples of the ever-more incredible are at our fingertips at all times. We are fast becoming numb to instances of the common executed uncommonly well.
It is within this environment that the CrossFit Kids program unveiled the Teen Challenge, a first-of-its-kind team exhibition involving adolescent CrossFitters, ages 13 to 18, that occurred at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games. In October 2011, Jeff and Mikki Lee Martin followed up with the first Gauntlet competition. CrossFit Kids HQ hopes to see this expand internationally in scope and magnitude. We envision these teen competitions as someday evolving into a full-blown youth sport with recreational and prep-school organization.
Here’s where we need to step carefully.