One of the early gifts of CrossFit to the fitness world was looking at data. Is your program working? If so, you should be able to tell. You can look at specific, measurable things like max lifts, run times, etc., and see what the results are. If all of those things are moving in the direction you want them to, then you are getting fitter. Full stop.
That has a dark side though.
The dark side is that we assume that the inverse is also true. In other words, if we see our mile time go down, or our deadlift max go down, then we think we must be getting less fit. But it’s much more nuanced and much more complicated than that.
A maximal strength effort is an incredible feat, no matter what the numbers are. It’s affected by muscle mass, strength potential, neurological function, stress, sleep quality, nutrition, hydration, focus, and mental toughness (among many, many other variables!). If your 2-year-old woke you up at 3am, if you have a deadline at work this week, if you had an argument with your spouse this morning, you might miss your deadlift attempt no matter how faithfully you’ve been sticking to your training and nutrition regimen. Does that mean that you’re less fit?
Or, maybe your last deadlift PR was when you were 51, and even though you’ve been training consistently, now you’re 59. Assuming that you didn’t just start training, but that you’ve been doing it for decades, are you going to be as strong in your late 50s as you were in your early 50s? Unlikely. Does that mean you’re less fit?
Fitness isn’t a straight line that goes up forever. That would be fun, but it’s not the way it works. But equally important to remember is that it’s also not a singular effort or singular event. Measuring your mile time on July 25, 2025 against your mile time on July 25, 2024 in no way gives you a comprehensive picture of your fitness. Interesting? Maybe. But not fully accurate.
But the point of measuring all these fitness things was never to get boxed in. It was to give you a lot of ways to see how things were going and then make adjustments as needed. Are you fitter as a whole this year than last year? Or this decade than last decade? Has your pace of aging slowed? Are you maintaining muscle mass longer than you used to? Do you have more range of motion or are you keeping range of motion longer? How do you feel on a day to day basis? How much stuff can you do outside the gym that’s important to you? How happy are you?
Those things are harder to quantify, but they’re absolutely a part of what it means to be fit.
Testing stuff – lifts, times, body composition, blood chemistry, heart function, etc. – gives you valuable data. But don’t conflate that with who you are.
There’s a lot more to life than how much is on your barbell.