5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats — as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes. No barbell, no plates, no machine. Just a pull-up bar and twenty minutes of honest work. The most accessible benchmark in CrossFit, and one of the most revealing.
Cindy is a time-priority workout — the clock runs for a fixed 20 minutes and you accumulate as many complete rounds as possible. Unlike Fran or Helen, there’s no finish line. Everyone stops at the same moment. Your score is the number of complete rounds you finish, plus any additional individual reps completed in your final partial round.
The partial round matters more than people think. The difference between “14 rounds” and “14 rounds + 14 reps” (one pull-up shy of 15 complete rounds) is meaningful progress even if your round count didn’t move. Track the full score — rounds and reps — every time.
Cindy is the best benchmark for tracking consistent progress because the partial round scoring gives you fine-grained data. A 30-second improvement in pace over 20 minutes might not add a full round but will add reps. If you’re tracking carefully, you’ll see improvement even when your round count seems stuck.
Most athletes assume pull-ups will be their limiting factor in Cindy. They’re usually wrong. Sets of 5 pull-ups are small enough that even intermediate athletes can sustain them for most of the workout. What breaks down — consistently, across experience levels — is the push-ups.
The practical implication: if you want to improve your Cindy score, the single highest-leverage thing you can work on is push-up volume. Not pull-up strength. Not squat speed. Push-up capacity under fatigue is what separates a 14-round athlete from an 18-round athlete.
Cindy always runs for 20 minutes regardless of fitness level — that’s one of its best features. Scaling means choosing movement modifications that let you keep moving at a consistent pace for the full duration. The goal is continuous work, not maximum reps in the first 10 minutes followed by a collapse.
Cindy is one of the most home-gym-friendly benchmarks because push-ups and air squats require nothing. The only piece of equipment is a pull-up bar — and if you don’t have one, here’s exactly what to substitute.
| Equipment | Pull-up sub | Reps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rings or TRX | Ring rows | 5–8 | Adjust foot position for difficulty. Body parallel to floor = hardest. |
| Resistance bands | Banded rows (anchor at foot level) | 10 | Double the reps to match pull-up stimulus. Pull to chest each rep. |
| Table / sturdy surface | Table rows (inverted rows) | 5–8 | Lie under table, grip edge, pull chest to surface. Elevate feet to increase difficulty. |
| Doorframe + towel | Towel rows | 5 | Loop towel around door handle. Lean back, pull. Tougher than it looks — use a sturdy door. |
| Dumbbells | Dumbbell bent-over rows | 10 each arm | Double the reps (5 each side) and alternate arms. Pause at top each rep. |
| Nothing | Superman holds or prone Y-raises | 10 | Lower stimulus but keeps the posterior chain active. Best true no-equipment option. |
No-equipment Cindy: if you have nothing at all, swap pull-ups for burpees at a 1:1 ratio (5 burpees). You lose the pulling stimulus but preserve the full-body, cardiovascular character of the workout. Score and track it the same way.
The most common Cindy mistake is treating it like a sprint — going as fast as possible in the first few rounds and fading badly in the second half. Cindy rewards consistent pacing more than any other benchmark. The athletes who improve fastest are the ones who find a sustainable round pace and hold it for all 20 minutes.
The most effective pacing tool for Cindy is the EMOM — Every Minute On the Minute. Pick a target round time, start each round on the minute, and use whatever time remains in that minute as rest. This prevents you from burning out in round 4 and turns the workout into a manageable interval session.
Plan your push-up breaks before you start, not when you’re already failing. A common strategy: go unbroken for the first 5–6 rounds, then switch to 7+3 or 6+4 splits for the middle rounds, and grind through 5+5 in the final rounds. This is far better than going unbroken until failure and then resting 30+ seconds per round.
The air squats are your recovery. Use them to slow your breathing before you hit the pull-up bar for the next round. Don’t rush through them — the 5–8 extra seconds of controlled breathing is worth more than saving a second on squat speed.
Cindy scores vary more widely than timed benchmarks because 20 minutes of AMRAP gives athletes of all levels a meaningful result. A beginner finishing 8 rounds and an elite athlete finishing 30 rounds are both doing the same workout — just at very different paces.
| Level | Men (Rx) | Women (Rx) | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elite / Games-level | 30+ rounds | 26+ rounds | Unbroken sets throughout. Consistent ~40s rounds. Exceptional pull-up and push-up endurance. |
| Advanced | 22–29 rounds | 18–25 rounds | Mostly unbroken. Occasional planned push-up break. True EMOM pace or faster. |
| Experienced | 16–21 rounds | 13–17 rounds | Unbroken pull-ups, some push-up breaks. Consistent round pace throughout. |
| Intermediate | 11–15 rounds | 9–12 rounds | Multiple breaks per round. Still moving with intent. Scaled pull-ups or push-ups. |
| Beginner (scaled) | 6–10 rounds | 5–8 rounds | Ring rows, knee push-ups, or reduced reps. Finishing 20 minutes without stopping is the goal. |
Cindy is worth retesting every 4–6 weeks — the 20-minute duration is easy to recover from and the fine-grained scoring makes meaningful progress visible even between major fitness milestones. Keep your movement standards identical across attempts.
Once Cindy feels manageable, these variations add complexity or volume:
FITL knows what equipment you have. When Cindy is programmed and you don’t have a pull-up bar, it substitutes ring rows or table rows automatically — with a note on why. Your workout, built for your setup, every day.