What does AMRAP mean?
AMRAP stands for As Many Rounds (or Reps) As Possible. You are given a fixed time cap and a short list of movements, and you cycle through them in order for the whole cap. Your score is the number of complete rounds you finished, plus any reps of the round you were partway through.
How a round works
An AMRAP gives you a list of movements with rep counts — say 10 air squats, 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups. You do all three in order. That is one round. Then you start again at the top, and keep going until the clock hits zero. There are no rest intervals built in; if you rest, it comes out of your own time.
That is the whole format, and it is why it has spread so far beyond CrossFit. It needs one timer, no equipment if you programme it that way, and it produces a single number you can write down.
Why the score is written 7+12
When the clock stops you are almost never exactly at the end of a round. So the score records both parts: seven complete rounds, plus twelve reps into the eighth. Written7+12. That partial round matters — it is often the difference between two athletes who both finished seven.How to score an AMRAP covers the counting rules and the edge cases.
Why it scales to anyone
Most workout formats punish the least fit person in the room by making them finish last, or not finish at all. An AMRAP cannot do that: the clock is the same for everyone and it stops when it stops. A fitter athlete gets more rounds in the same twenty minutes; a beginner gets fewer. Both did twenty minutes of work, both have a number, and both can compare that number against themselves next month.
That property is also what makes AMRAP the natural format for training in a group. Everyone starts together, everyone stops together, and nobody is standing around watching.
How long should the cap be?
Five to twenty minutes covers almost everything. Short caps —5 and10 minutes — reward going hard immediately. Longer caps —15 and20 — become pacing tests, where starting too fast costs more than it gains. That trade-off is the subject ofAMRAP pacing.
Try one
Every workout in our AMRAP workout library is bodyweight, so you can run one now with no equipment. If you just want a clock, thefree AMRAP timer needs no account.
Related questions
Does AMRAP mean rounds or reps?
Both, depending on the workout. Most AMRAPs list several movements and you score complete rounds; a single-movement AMRAP — one minute of burpees, say — scores total reps instead. The acronym covers both because the principle is the same: fixed time, maximum work.
Is AMRAP good for beginners?
Yes, and better than most formats. The clock is fixed, so a beginner and an experienced athlete finish at the same moment and neither is left behind. You scale by doing fewer reps per round or moving more slowly, not by stopping early.
How many rounds should you get in an AMRAP?
There is no target. The number depends entirely on the movements, the rep counts and the time cap, so a good score on one workout is meaningless on another. Compare a score only against the same workout done by you or by someone next to you.
Run an AMRAP with your friends
One shared countdown, one leaderboard, everyone on the same clock — wherever they are training.