Before we get started, we invite you to check out my review of Sentinel Training’s 200+ Machine Conditioning Workouts. If you need a few more workouts that are intentionally designed to maximize aerobic capacity for CrossFit, check ’em out.
Most of the articles that talk about the “hardest CrossFit workouts” or “REALLY SO HARD CROSSFIT WORKOUTS OMG!1!!!1” start off by telling you all about what makes a CrossFit WOD “hard”.
I think you know what makes a workout hard (and what makes a workout suuuuuck).
So we’re skipping all of that and jumping into the list.
(one caveat: no long AMRAPs made the hardest CrossFit workouts list. Too easy, to just coast for most of the workout. If you wanna finish any of these bad boys, you gotta put in the work (with the exception of “The Worst Minute”…you’ll understand this one!))
Table of Contents
The 21 Hardest CrossFit Workouts
Ship
Equipment: Barbell, bumper plates, plyo box
The work here is certainly a lot, but the thing that makes Ship so hard is the “danger” factor.
3-foot high box jumps under heavy fatigue!
I would suggest that you get a soft box for this one, but I don’t know if they make them that high. Take these slow unless you want to say goodbye to your shins…in many cases, the hardest CrossFit workouts can be (slightly) dangerous WODs!
Bull
Equipment: Jump rope, barbell, bumper plates, pull-up bar/rack, air runner
Any one of these movements are somewhat reasonable, but combine them all and…yowzerz!
The double-unders are numerous, overhead squats are heavy and runs are long. Start tripping up those double-unders, particularly on the second round, and you’ll want to throw in the towel.
I would suggest doing as big of sets of overhead squats as possible, but at 135 pounds…definitely easier said than done!
As a side note, I have no idea how this didn’t make the list of the top double-under workouts of all time!