Burdens

What a Burden is

A Burden is the shared consequence work assigned to a station. Every station has one. When an active station misses its target during a Work Phase, the protocol generates the Burden for that station and the room completes it together.

A Burden is the way the format makes a station's shortfall consequential for the whole group. The protocol is not interested in which athlete caused the miss — only that the room hit, or did not hit, the target.

The word "Burden" is the canonical public term. It replaces casual words like "penalty" or "fine".

How a Burden is produced

A Burden is produced in two steps.

1. Evaluation. At the Freeze, the platform compares the per-station result to the per-station target. If the result is below the target, the station fails.
2. Burden Assignment. The platform takes the failing stations, looks up their assigned Burdens from the Session settings, and publishes those Burdens to every athlete's device.

The list of Burdens is computed, not declared. The coach does not pick which Burdens appear — the platform assigns them from the Session's settings.

Burden Assignment is governed by the CCB Core Specification. The deterministic generation is what makes the shared consequence fair and predictable.

Who does the work

Everyone in the room. Burdens are a room-wide effort, not an individual punishment.

• Every athlete in the room performs every Burden the room generates.
• The list is published to every device at once.
• The room works through the list together.
• The protocol does not release the next Work Phase until every athlete has signalled completion or the coach ends the round.

This is what makes a Burden a shared consequence. The work is collective because the consequence is collective.

What the room does not see

By default, the room does not see which stations failed. The platform publishes the Burden list itself, and the active Burdens, without identifying the failing stations.

This is the no-public-blame default. The athlete view is deliberately incomplete in order to keep the consequence collective rather than individualized. A presentation toggle exists at the coach's discretion; the default is the no-public-blame view.

The coach's view always includes the per-station breakdown. The room's view does not, by default.

Determinism in Race Practice

In Race Practice, the same Evaluation runs after each Work Phase. The same generation rule produces the same Burdens from the same inputs. There is no coach discretion — there is no coach.

This is deliberate. Race Practice exists so an athlete can rehearse the entire protocol under race-like conditions. If the Burdens depended on coach discretion, the rehearsal would not match what competition produces. Determinism is what makes Race Practice useful as preparation.

Completion

The Burden round ends when every athlete has signalled completion. The protocol does not advance the Session until the readiness handshake is complete. A coach may end the round manually for safety reasons; this is a session control, not a standard flow.

If an athlete leaves or disconnects mid-Burden, the protocol preserves their state for that round. The athlete can return, complete the remaining work, and signal completion normally. The round is not pushed forward on their behalf.

What is standardized

The Burdens format is standardized in three places:

• the canonical Burden Library (the named list of movements a facility's stations use by default);
• the per-Session Burden assigned by the coach;
• the platform's Assignment logic.

What the coach may adjust:

• the specific movement and rep count per station;
• the cap on how many Burdens a single round can include (within platform rules).

What the coach may not replace:

• the canonical list of stations and their positions;
• the deterministic Assignment logic;
• the readiness gate before the next Work Phase.

What is not a Burden

A few things look like Burdens but are not:

• Penalty or fine. A Burden is named exercise work assigned to the room. It is not a monetary penalty, not an individual sanction, and not a coach's verbal reprimand.
• Personal failure messaging. When a station fails, the protocol generates a Burden and publishes it. There is no message that names an athlete or assigns blame. The no-public-blame default is the room's experience.

These distinctions are part of why CCB works at a group level. The platform's role is to enforce the shared consequence, not to escalate it.