Since we launched SugarWOD in 2013, we’ve been on a mission to create a connected community of CrossFit affiliates, coaches, and athletes. In our opinion, a robust community like we envision should be open to individual differences and yet interconnected enough to allow for creativity to thrive.
When we all can easily interact, our community becomes stronger.
And just like the CrossFit affiliate system allows for individual gyms to experiment with their training and business models, open software platforms allows innovative new ideas to be built. We think the phrase “no (wo)man is an island” applies equally to (wo)mankind and software.
So, today we are thrilled to announce that we have opened the SugarWOD technology platform to our community through an open, reliable, and well-documented API. SugarWOD is the first technology platform dedicated to the CrossFit community to make this commitment.
What does this mean?
Having an open API means that other software platforms, vendors, and individuals can interact and integrate with SugarWOD’s database of information.
We’ve always said that no software platform should try to do everything. Now, individual best-in-class products can be integrated to create a world-class solution for your box.
For example, with a gym owner’s approval, API access is available to their box’s calendar of workouts and their athlete’s performance and participation data. This information could be used within a gym management platform to save owner’s time and provide richer analysis on their member’s activities.
Likewise, developers can now build completely new apps and websites using SugarWOD’s API to access our open library of benchmarks, workouts, movements, and lifts. Before today, if you wanted to create a new CrossFit-centric tool or business, you’d have to spend months sourcing and maintaining this data.
With our open API, the community can now access a clean, verified data source. Building fitness technology has never been easier!
Why is this important?
A few years ago, accepting payments on the web was a real nightmare. A couple of young guys in Ireland decided it didn’t need to be this way. So they built an open, API-based payment processor called Stripe. This simple innovation has allowed 1000s of businesses to be built quickly by reducing the amount of work involved.
We think that the CrossFit community has tremendous opportunity to innovate and we want to help that happen. Our hope is that by opening up and sharing our data and technology we can spark ideas in the CrossFit community and establish an ecosystem where people can improve upon what we have built at SugarWOD, just like Stripe did for the business community.
Who can use this API?
- Software Vendors – gyms use several types of software, including member management, scheduling, marketing automation and billing. Many of these systems could be enhanced with access to the gym’s workout data.
- Gym Owners – many gyms have expressed an interest in creating custom websites, web pages, or apps for their members.
- Individual Fitness Technologists – some individual athletes would like programmatic access to their SugarWOD fitness data for further analysis or integration into other products they use like a Fitbit or Apple Watch.
With today’s announcement, we are ready to serve approved Software Vendors and SugarWOD customer gyms. Access to Individual Fitness Technologists will be available soon.
As a non-technical box owner, what can I do?
Help us connect the CrossFit software community.
- Let us know what kinds of integrations you’d like to see. Please email us at hello@sugarwod.com.
- Use your power as a customer and reach out to the vendors you use. Let them know that you’d like to see creative product integrations to save you time and increase value in your gym. Consider contacting your representative at some of the well-known gym management solutions like ZenPlanner, Pike13 (Front Desk), MindBody Online, and PushPress.
Connecting software systems is a two-way street. SugarWOD is ready to do our part. Help us get others on board!
What’s next?
Currently, the API is in beta testing and we’re working with a select group of vendors to build integrations. If you’re a customer interested in access to the API, send an email to support@sugarwod.com and we’ll work with you to get set up.
If you’re a software developer, please visit our Developer’s Center for access to the full documentation.