Searching and browsing for workouts

This weekend we rolled out some changes to beyondthewhiteboard.com. The most noticeable of these is the autocomplete field for choosing workouts and exercises. We decided to make this change because some of these fields were gigantic and cumbersome. In the case of the exercise selector, we had over 1,200 items in each of those dropdowns! Now, instead of having to scroll through a giant list, you just type in part of the name of the exercise or workout you are looking for and a dropdown with a list of matches will appear. Official CrossFit workouts and exercises will appear first, followed by unofficial matches. We think this will streamline creating and posting for workouts, as if you’re subbing out exercises it’s much easier to find them. For example, I still have to do pull-ups with a band, and before this change I would have to pull down the whole exercise list and find “Pull-up – Red Band”. Now, I can just type “Pull” and it’s the third item in the list. Likewise, if I type “Dip”, “Band Dip” is the third result.

However, some of our users have complained that it makes finding a workout difficult when choosing a workout, and some gym admins have said that it makes it difficult to set a WOD. Now that we’re approaching 20,000 different workouts in our database it’s difficult for me to understand how it’s easier to find something from a list like that, but it doesn’t matter; I’m here to help. So, here’s a quick FAQ on finding your workout, whether you’re an athlete posting your results, or a gym admin setting your WOD.

I created a workout. How can I find it now that the dropdown with “My Workouts” is gone?

Use the workout browser. Near the top of the page is a link to “workouts”.

Click here and you’ll be taken to the workout browser. By clicking the links at the top left you can see lists of official workouts, workouts created for your gym, max effort workouts, workouts created by other Crossfit affiliates, workouts created by other users of beyond the whiteboard, workouts you created yourself, and a list of workouts which have been “liked” by members of beyond the whiteboard, with the workouts with the highest number of votes first.

Click on “My Workouts” to see a list of workouts you have created. If you are a gym admin, any workout you create belongs to your gym, so click on your gym’s name.

From here you can further refine your search by clicking on one of the filters at the bottom left. So, for example, if you are a gym admin, and want to find a workout created by your gym that requires your members to post their total time, click on your gym’s name, and click on “Total Time” below that. You’ll have a paginated list of all workouts matching those criteria, each with a “Post Result” and “Set as WOD” link at the top right of each workout’s section.

I want to find a workout whose name I don’t remember, but I know some of the exercises that were in it! What do I do?

Our search engine is powered by Sphinx, and it’s more powerful than you might think. We index many different objects on their name, on the names of other objects they reference, and so on. What this means for you is you can find a workout by searching for the exercises it contains! For example, if you wanted to find a workout which you know included walking lunges, box jumps, and double unders, you can type “walking lunge box jump double under” in the search box at the upper right corner of the page and it will come up in the results.

Unfortunately we don’t know what sort of thing you’re searching for when you do a search, so click on “Workouts” on the left, which will bring you to a tabbed list of workouts. You can filter these results by official workouts, max efforts, workouts belonging to your gym, other gyms, or to you personally, using the tabs. Just like the workout browser, each workout has a “Post Result” and “Set as WOD” link. If you want more information on one of these workouts, clicking the name will take you to the workout’s page, where you can see the entire list of exercise sets, any results you have posted to it, your gym’s rankings, site rankings, etc.