CrossFit Advanced Judges Course – My Experience

If you’re reading this, you probably fall into the two main categories of people who are looking to take the CrossFit Advanced Judges Course:

• Those who want to judge large, in-person CrossFit events and/or Semifinal athletes who will be submitting their videos and scores virtually
• Those who actually really enjoyed the CrossFit Judges Course and are interested in diving deeper into the CrossFit judging (and overall CrossFit) ecosystem

…and if you don’t fall into one of these categories…I have questions…

Anyways, it is perfectly reasonable and expected that those of you in these groups would be looking into this course. However, I have a bit of bad news for you.

This course…ain’t all that great.

As someone who has a lot of good things to say about the other, more “basic” judges course, this one isn’t anything like that one. Combine that with the fact that it costs 4 times as much and doesn’t have as much…evergreen CrossFit information and…well…it’s probably better if we just get right into it…

Information

Thankfully, with the manner in which we present information in these reviews, we get to immediately address the CrossFit Advanced Judges Course “elephant in the corner”…

Straight up, I would argue that the majority of the information in this course is intended for people who are interested in or who definitely will be judging large-scale (and likely officially sanctioned) CrossFit events. I would argue that ~3-and-a-half of the 7 (legit) modules in the course are primarily focused on large-scale event judging.

So…if you’re only taking the course to help your semifinal athlete fulfill their requirements, you’re gonna get a lot of superfluous information. If you’re doing it for “enrichment” (which you might be doing if you’re new to CrossFit and were able to get a lot from the CrossFit Judges Course), you’ll feel like you’ve wasted your money.

Other sections cover more general judging-related information such as how to clearly communicate rep counts and “no reps” while another discusses count reps in common “sequences” (ex. alternating legs, moving large markers (also an exclusively in-person judging issue)). Even the section on “When Things Go Wrong” only covers when things go wrong in person (although it does have a funny picture of Sprague):

I would say that the best and most relevant information the course offers is the (excuse the pun) advanced filming tips and guidelines it provides. To be fair, for experienced athletes and judges, a lot of this stuff should be intuitive, but then again, it seems like every year there are some top-level athletes who have issues.

If you used the guidelines in this course as a type of checklist to consult and complete as your athlete set up for and filmed online qualifier workouts, you’d be in good shape every time. Some would argue that if reviewing these guidelines actually prevented an athlete from submitting a messed up video, the course was worth it!

Something else to note is that upon accessing the course, you’re immediately presented with a link to a pdf that essentially condenses all of the course content into ~55 pages. I’m not going to link to it since I’m not sure if it’s publicly available, but if you’re a serious judge, this is a valuable little document to have on hand.

Overall, I didn’t really find the information in the CrossFit Advanced Judges Course to be overly relevant and was shocked at how much of the content was entirely focused on in-person judging. I’m honestly not sure how the vast majority of the course info is relevant to (online) CrossFit Semifinal judges.

Information: 50

Structure

I took the “regular” CrossFit Judges Course just before I took this one and would say that the structure of the two courses are pretty much the same. If you’re unfamiliar with the first course, they go like this:

• Main course overview/course progress page
• Individual unit (“module”) pages
• 2-4 subsections within each module
• Module quizzes

If you’ve taken the first Judges Course or read my review of it, you’ll notice two differences here:

• Each module has fewer subsections (each of these are shorter, overall)
• While the module quizzes do require a “100 percent” to pass, almost all of these are single-questions quizzes. You get the question wrong, you can immediately correct it; you don’t have to go through the entire quiz again.

Also like the previous course, “progress” is linear and you have to complete all sections in order before proceeding (even when you go back after completing a section, you have to complete everything in order again). The content doesn’t build on itself so I don’t see why this is necessary.

Pretty much all of the single-question quizzes are multiple-choice and very few involve something other than exclusively text-based questions (as opposed to having to watch videos or otherwise observe something to answer).

Overall, the course structure is straightforward (arguably, more straightforward than its predecessor’s) and is easy to navigate. It should be arranged in a non-linear manner, but otherwise, no complaints.

Structure: 90

Knowledge Required

Surprisingly, I don’t think someone really needs that much prior CrossFit knowledge to “properly” participate in this course. Now, this is assuming that all course takers will have taken the pre-req CrossFit Judges Course, have a pretty good understanding of the main purposes of judging and a grasp of the movement standards.

Because the course is so focused on large-scale event judging, course takers need to be more familiar with what “uniformity” means as well as what constitutes a “light jog”.

However, even if you don’t have a firm grasp of these principles, there isn’t much preventing you from whizzing through the course.

The “Common Sequences” is the only section that really focuses on movements with an assumption that you’re at least somewhat familia with common movement flow. Even here, it holds your hand through concepts like “alternating legs”.

Like the previous course, I wouldn’t go in completely cold (and technically you can’t since you’ll need to have taken the other course first), but the use of the word “advanced” to describe this course is really hyperbolic.

Knowledge Required: 90

Interest Piquing

Man…this course is…not interesting.

I mean, I guess I could say that if the thought of being a large-scale event judge is appealing to you, you might like it…but I don’t think so.

Maybe it’s just me, but modules called “Uniform Standards” (which topics like “if everyone is wearing a hat, you have to wear a hat”) and “It Takes a Team” (a really short module that is as vapid as you’re imagining) just ain’t it.

My interest especially starts to tank when I come to the realization that learning about the on-field “appeals manager” and common site hand signals aren’t really going to do much for me when I’m assessing semi-final videos on YouTube.

The $10 CrossFit Judges Course at least has some snippets of interesting information (especially for those brand new to CrossFit), but this one is just lousy.

Interest Piquing: 50

Price

The Advanced Judges Course will run you $40.

When you consider all of the possible fitness courses you can take, this isn’t that much money. If my research is correct, it is actually one of the least expensive CrossFit courses you can take.

I’m not going to go into much more detail here since we try to be more objective with this category as opposed to trying to assign “value” to areas like this. With that being said, if we did rate this course on something like “value for money”, it would receive a much lower score than it does here.

Price:

Sign-up Process

If you’ve already taken the CrossFit Judges Course (which you have if you’re getting to this stage of the sign-up process), you’ve already done everything necessary to set up your CrossFit account so that all you need to do is click a few buttons and input your credit card information.

As with the previous course, just navigate to the “Explore All Courses” in the “Course” tab on the main CrossFit.com website and scrolling down about 1/3 of the page to the “Advanced Judges Course” graphic.

Because of the assumed information (that you already have a profile and have completed this process for the previous course), we actually rate this as a “better” process than it is for the CrossFit Judges Course…it’s the best part of the course!

Sign-up/Logistics: 100

Who is the Advanced Judges Course really for?

I can only really think of two groups of people who should take this course (and I’m pretty sure it’s required for both groups). Let’s see who these people are:

People who are required to complete it (Semifinals Track)

The first “required” track includes people who are going to judge CrossFit Games Semifinals athletes, specifically those competing their workouts virtually. These people not only need to (for some reason) have their Advanced Judges Course credential, but also need to have their CrossFit Level 1 certification.

CrossFit HQ really isn’t taking any chances with these judges!

These credentials are required; simple as that.

People who are required(?) to complete it (Large-scale Events Track)

I’m not 100 percent sure if judges at the CrossFit Games and events like the French Throwdown have to have completed the Advanced Judges Course, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.

Even if this isn’t required of them, this is literally the only demographic who the course seems to have in mind. As such, this is pretty much the only other suggested group.

Nobody else

Outside of the two groups listed above, there isn’t any reason for anybody else to complete the CrossFit Advanced Judges Course. It isn’t an interesting course and there isn’t anything particularly useful for “casual” CrossFitters (or even for enthusiasts) to get excited about.

If you’re just really itching to offload $40, message me instead; I’ll gladly take your money!

Frequently Asked Questions

Excited to learn more about the course?! Let’s cover some of the most burning questions people ask about the course:

The CrossFit Advanced Judges Course…why?

I completely understand CrossFit’s continued efforts to decentralize a lot of the earlier-season CrossFit Games stages, specifically when it comes to judging. Whether this includes affiliates taking on the responsibility of validating Open scores or “certified” judges calling out crappy videos, it’s a smart way of lowering costs (how much would it cost for paid staff members to validate everything) and saving time.

In theory, the requirement to make virtual Semifinals judges have to have some type of “super credential”, given the higher stakes of these events, makes sense…in theory. In practice, though, the Advanced Judges Course is an irrelevant bust.

I would go so far as to say that it’s even lousy as a pre-requisite course for its true intended audience: large-scale, in-person event judges. These people would be better served by getting access to the Advanced Judges Course pdf and having an hour-long, pre-event meeting (which, I have to assume, is already established protocol).

Ultimately, the course content just doesn’t line up with what I, as someone who will potentially be judging a Semifinal athlete, expected to see in the course/learn from the course.

Like, at all

The worst part is that there isn’t really even subsidiary content that would make the course attractive to those who want to learn more about CrossFit (like there is in the other judges course).

I simply cannot recommend this course to anyone other than those who have to take it (and to this select group…don’t expect too much; you’re gonna be let down).