Dave Castro unveils two new gymnastics moves for 2026 CrossFit Games

Dave Castro raised the difficulty level of the 2026 CrossFit Games by unveiling two new gymnastics moves, the Forward Roll From Support and the Backward Roll to Support, with the Games in San Jose only weeks away. He revealed them on the Girls Unfiltered podcast and posted the clip to Instagram the same night, with Jacob Marlow and Trista Smith demoing the movements while Castro also showed Rafael Sancen a tutorial video during the segment.

The timing is the real pressure point. The 2026 CrossFit Games are scheduled for July 24-26 at SAP Center in San Jose, California, and CrossFit has said the event marks the 20th anniversary of the Games. That leaves athletes a very short runway to turn two unfamiliar pieces of gymnastics into competition-ready skills, especially when the reveal came so close to the floor that there is little room for trial and error.

These are not the kind of movements athletes can bluff with engine alone. CrossFit has already published official movement pages for both skills, and the Backward Roll to Support page is blunt about the demands: it is challenging and should only be attempted by athletes prepared for deep and confident ring dips, a strict muscle-up, a pull-over on the bar and a strict backward roll to support. That list tells the story. The bottleneck is not just conditioning; it is positional strength, inversion control and the ability to keep tension while moving through awkward shapes.

The Forward Roll From Support adds the same sort of puzzle from the opposite direction. CrossFit has treated it as an essentials and movement resource, which is a signal that coaches can start building exposure now instead of waiting for a workout announcement. In practice, that means more time under support, more controlled inversions, more transitions to and from unstable positions, and less reliance on familiar rep schemes that reward repeatable cyclical work.

CrossFit’s own Behind the Scenes series showed Castro testing events with Rafael Sancen at The Ranch in Aromas, California, seven weeks before the Games, and athletes have already been spotted on Instagram trying the new movements after Episode 2 aired. Jayson Hopper was among those testing them early, which gives some competitors a head start and leaves others learning under the spotlight. The official athlete roster already lists veterans like Jeff Adler, Jayson Hopper, Justin Medeiros and Pat Vellner alongside a long list of rookies, so the edge may come down to who can solve a new movement fastest when the whiteboard stops looking familiar.