Florida Grid league (GL): The New CrossFit?

I want to introduce a new type of sports league in this blog post. Interestingly, this is based on a lot of activities we do in the gym and is scored differently than any other leagues in the world.

Brace yourselves for the Florida Grid League (FGL)!!!

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Interestingly enough, as the name suggests, it is situated around the state of Florida in U.S.A. and was started as the pilot league for the formation of American grid association. With the amount of responses, marketing and participation coming across the state of Florida, the grid association developed this pilot into a multi-state venture with different leagues happening across different states for e.g. East grid league and the Atlantic grid league. There will be continued formation of different leagues across all the states as soon as the commercial grant is sanctioned. Having said that, it is time for us to actually understand what this league is all about and why has it us on the edge of our seats.

Florida Grid league (GL): Background and concept –

Initiation of this sport was started way back in 2014 with the NPGL or the National pro grid league, aired live on the TV. The league lasted for 3 seasons till 2016 and faded out due to commercial reasons. This created need for a more robust commercial model and a pilot project which would run smoothly. In came the FGL!

“The sport of grid” , as they call it, is a team sport based on an equal number of male and female participants in the same team. This starting position of the sport itself neutralises the gender bias the traditional sport carry with them. The teams competing at a time do not cross 2 the competition happens across 4 blocks as displayed in the figure below. 11 races happen across different resistance training categories. Yes! You heard it right! The sport is made up of various exercise elements. Some of which we regularly do in the gym. The only difference being the addition of speed to each of the exercises to make it a time-based competitive sport which provides us with an adrenaline boost.

https://americangridassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2016-04-04-at-1.35.53-PM-1024×693.png

Races happen across different events and it is mandatory for each team to focus on these cornerstones or have people who are:

• bodyweight specialists
• heavy weight specialists
• generalists who can perform a variety of movements

The choice is mutually based on what the athlete can best perform in and what is his equation in the team. This helps the best possible decision and person to compete from the team and increases the probability of the team winning that race. Strategy and teamwork play an important role in the race events as there are multiple times in which there might be 2 or more athletes performing the same thing. Usually, 11 races last 2 hours and all players have to compete in some ways or other, this is one of the primary attributes of playing GRID.

What the future holds:

For starters, keep checking their social media for updates with their increased activity on Instagram & tiktok. Apart from outright marketing, I will also share a couple of updates these guys have announced:

1. Conclusion of American grid trials happened by April 2021
2. With Atlantic and East grid leagues coming up after 2019, the conferences will be the next logical step.
3. Multi-state leagues focused on making this sport reach wider audience should be the priority
4. Taking CrossFit head-on ? Seems farfetched as of now due to CrossFit having a strong ground presence. But, there is a possibility of that happening in the near future.

Suggestions

1. Inculcating a more basic approach to grid rather than lifting heavy, as the main component is speed.
2. Focusing on raising the number of gyms that can conduct GRID
3. Inclusion of other specialists like strongmen, sportsmen etc
4. Calendar based event-schedule