Blog | Strength | Training Why CrossFit Football & Power Athlete Had Everyone Raging

Author / Raven Winters

8 - 10 minutes read

How CrossFit Football and Power Athlete Changed the Game in Training for Athletic Performance.

There’s been a lot of online chatter about CrossFit Football, Power Athlete, and the difference between general fitness and true athleticism. Some people assume John Welbourn just slapped “Football” onto CrossFit and called it a day. Others claim CrossFit was never meant to develop athletes in the first place.

Built by Power Athlete founder and 10-year NFL vet John Welbourn, CrossFit Football brought structured strength training and real athletic development to the CrossFit landscape.

So let’s clear things up.

CrossFit Football was not a replacement for CrossFit. It was an expansion. In 2008, Greg Glassman recognized that sport and tactical athletes needed something beyond general physical preparedness (GPP). That is why CrossFit HQ brought in specialists to create Subject Matter Expert (SME) courses, programs designed to fill the gaps in CrossFit’s methodology for performance-based training.

CrossFit Football was one of those programs, and it did what no other CrossFit methodology was doing at the time.

Progressive strength training alongside conditioning
Sprint-based, power-focused conditioning instead of pure endurance work
Movement across all planes, not just sagittal dominance
A structured approach to training athletes instead of randomizing everything.

Over time, it became clear that true athletic training required more than what CrossFit HQ was willing to support. So, when the partnership ended in 2016, CrossFit Football evolved into Power Athlete, the next step in performance-based strength and conditioning.

Why CrossFit Football Disrupted the Fitness Landscape

When CrossFit Football launched in 2009, it wasn’t met with universal praise. Strength coaches were skeptical. CrossFit purists resisted it. But athletes? They ran with it and reaped the performance gains.

At the time, CrossFit.com posted daily randomized workouts focused on general physical preparedness (GPP), mixing various movements and modalities. But strength isn’t built by accident, it requires structure, progression, and intent.

CrossFit Football introduced a systematic approach designed for true performance development:

STRENGTH FIRST: Every session started with progressive, heavy strength work.
SPRINT & POWER CONDITIONING: Short, intense efforts replaced long metabolic grinds.
ATHLETIC MOVEMENT: Workouts emphasized force production and absorption, durability, and movement in all directions—sagittal (forward/backward), frontal (side-to-side), and transverse (rotational)—to match the demands of sport and real-world performance.

Whether a beginner, intermediate, or advanced athlete, the program provided structured progressions to build a foundation of strength, speed, and resilience. Because performance isn’t random, and neither should be your training.

The day it launched, CrossFit Football drew over 16,000 hits worldwide, proving that athletes were searching for something more than just intensity, they wanted training that actually made them better beyond the four walls of the gym.

How CrossFit Football Was Programmed

CrossFit Football wasn’t about mindless conditioning or chasing a sweat angel. It was built around strength because strength is the platform everything else is built upon. Every session followed a two-part structure:

SWOD (Strength Workout of the Day): Heavy, progressive strength work to build raw horsepower.
DWOD (Daily Workout of the Day): Short, intense conditioning that complemented the strength work.

This setup ensured athletes got strong first, then applied that strength under fatigue, rather than just running themselves into the ground with endless metcons.

The Top 10 Hardest CrossFit Football Workouts

Think you can survive the 10 hardest CFFB workouts? Step up and prove it. These weren’t just workouts, they were tests. Designed for athletes who needed strength, power, and durability, not just work capacity. Every DWOD came after a heavy strength session. You didn’t just roll in, hit a burner, and call it a day. You earned the right to suffer by getting strong first.

10. DEADLIFTS / POWER CLEANS

A grip-destroying seven-round barbell challenge with no breaks.

09. RELIGION

A back squat and burpee box jump challenge that earned its name from sheer suffering.

08. WINCHESTER

A hero workout honoring LT Ron Winchester with overhead lunges, sprinting, and kettlebell swings.

07. BENCH PRESS / REVERSE WALL CLIMBS

A brutal upper-body challenge combining heavy bench press and wall climbs.

06. FIGHT GONE GO F**K YOURSELF

Three rounds of five movements, one minute at each, all performed at high intensity.

05. THE GFY CHALLENGE

Tabata Deadlift Challenge at 315 pounds.

04. DEATH BY BACK SQUAT

Max reps of back squats, increasing by one rep per minute at 225 pounds or body weight.

03. TILLMAN

7 rounds of 315-pound deadlifts, sprints, and pull-ups.

02. REVERSE WALL CLIMB / BALL SLAM / EVIL WHEELS

100 reps of each, completed for time.

01. KALSU

100 Thrusters for time, with 5 burpees at the start of every minute.

These workouts were legendary for a reason. They pushed athletes to their limits while building real-world strength, power, and performance.

Why CrossFit Football Evolved Into Power Athlete

CrossFit Football did not fade away. It evolved.

The biggest lesson was simple. You cannot randomize strength. You do not build true power, speed, and durability through constantly varied training alone.

Strength requires structured, progressive overload.
Power demands precision, moving with violent intent through Compensatory Acceleration Training (CAT) and controlled exposure to heavy and awkward implements.
Athleticism hinges on training in all planes of motion (sagittal, frontal and transverse).

That’s why Power Athlete was born, to take what CrossFit Football started and make it better. To build real strength. To forge true athleticism.

And when we say athleticism, we mean:

THE ABILITY TO SEAMLESSLY AND EFFORTLESSLY COMBINE PRIMAL MOVEMENT PATTERNS THROUGH SPACE AND TIME TO PERFORM KNOWN AND NOVEL TASKS. — Power Athlete’s definition of athleticism.

What This Means for You

If you want to be generally fit, CrossFit works. If you want to BE THE HAMMER, your training needs to be structured, progressive, and built around strength and power, not just work capacity.

Want to train like a Power Athlete? START HERE.