Welcome back, competitors!

Congrats to everybody who competed this weekend, particularly Sara, our affiliate team, and my friends from home at the Crossfit Tribe. I thought the programming was great, particularly on the last event, and they took great advantage of the space they have. One thing to note as I talked with a lot of the different boxes and athletes, the elite athletes, most of the people who make the final 18 of men or women not only train everyday but that is all they do. Most of them owned boxes or in some other way are working in fitness full-time you did not hear of a lot of brokers or attorneys. I do not find this discouraging as I cannot leave my job to do this, but it does show the amount of time and dedication you must put in to get those results. Either way congrats to everybody I recommend to anybody who didn;t go to check this event out next year, the level of intensity and athleticism even compared to sectiones was night and day.

Congrats everybody, judging by the photos looks like it was a lot of fun!
Honestly, I can’t fathom getting the point where I’d be able to compete. I love the feeling of progress I make every WOD, I just don’t know if I’ll ever have it in me to reach the point where I can go up against all the elite athletes. I’m okay with that, because I still go all out, every time. I crossfit for the ‘doing’, not the ‘done’.
WOD: 135,145,155,165,165 — then a 3:58 1k row.

Happy Burfday Bryce!!

135, 155, 175, 185(f-3 reps), 175
What’s the age requirement for masters, 50? That gives me 15 years to train for my first year of eligibility, and by then I think Jacinto would still be kicking my ass…

In regards to the questions, having competed in sectionals after only 7 months of crossfit and being relatively inactive for the previous 5 years I think ANYBODY can excel at crossfit and be able to compete. Compared to most other sports there is less natural talen, i.e. baseball, golf, but much more training and diet regiment and most importantly body type. Crossfit has no weight classes and the weights for the workouts tend to require somebody to be a certain size to be truly competitive. Even Austin M., who got 3rd place) who is only 5’5″ still weighs 170. My friend from home who competed weighs only 147 and was clearly the lightest person there, although he did well on the C & J and the AMRAP the OH Squats were too much weight, and this is someone who eats more than anybody else I know and is constantly trying to gain weight, it is just not how his body is built. This is my advantage in crossfit, although I am not particularly naturally athletic and do not do most of the lifts correctly, I am 6’1″ 190, a relatively good size for a crossfitter. I think anybody can compete but without weight classes I do not think you will see a winner of the games right around 5’10″ 185.

Watching everyone compete this weekend not only got me itching to get back to the gym (even though I’m in the middle of a week off), but got me even more excited to get done with school so I can concentrate on my training and get in competitive shape. Not to mention get my shoulder completely healed…(it’s so close!!)
As many of you know, I’ll be moving back to UT after I graduate in December, but Gracey is under the impression that I’ll be coming back next year to compete with the Box.

Dave raises an interesting topic, is Crossfit a small, a medium, or a large man’s sport?
Putting my Hari, analyze the numbers, hat on, here are some figures:
2009 Games
Mikko Salo won at 67″ and 176lbs
The top 16 men last year averaged 72″ and 195lbs
The 74 men that competed averaged 70″ and 185lbs
2008 Games
Jason Khalipa, 69″ and 205lbs, won
Top 3 averaged 69.33″ and 193lbs
The deciding event was a squat clean Grace at 155lbs
2007 Inaugural Games
OPT, 70″ and at the time 163lbs, won
Top 3 averaged 68″ and a “measly” 166lbs
The final event was a Crossfit Total
Crossfit programming at any single event, whether it’s the national, or regional, or sectional, is more art than science. For instance, if the 2008 final event had been 30 muscle ups instead of 30 clean and jerks, the podium would have probably had Chris Spealler, 65″ and 137lbs, on top.
Given that Crossfit can be so varied, perhaps it’s more accurate to look at one’s performance over the course of several years and several competitions. It will be interesting to see how last year’s competitors fare this year given what will surely be different and more challenging events.
I would argue that Crossfit is a medium man’s sport, 170 to about 185lbs. I like the fact that there are no weight classes, it makes the sport purer. I hope that doesn’t change but think it will in order to make the competitions more accessible to the sport’s growing population.

Almost without exception, the WOD’s at the Games punish competitors for what they do poorly rather than reward them for what the do well. Here are a few examples:
Among the Masters competitors, I would grade myself an “A” in CTB pull-ups and pushups, a “B” in the other movements except for being a “C minus” in double unders. The effect of my poor double unders dominated my results. Had I been straight B’s, I would not have DNF’d on DU-Helen. All my time was wasted on inefficient and missed double unders . This is, of course, entirely my fault. Years of counting double under attempts rather than mastering the skill caught up with.
A second area where I underperformed was the 1RM thruster. This wasn’t a matter of strength, per se; it was a matter of form. My lousy technique cost me 15-20 lbs relative to my strength, which would have made a significant difference. (Had I not received excellent coaching from Kevin Prouse, my results on this WOD would have been much worse. Thank you, Kevin!)
The good news is that I can and will fix these things, as well as several others that I have been hiding from for years. One year from now, my DU-Helen time will be sub 10:00 and my 1RM thruster will be 185, numbers that this year might have sent me to the finals. And next year, I will know better than to believe any other weakness will go unexposed.
In the individual competitor WOD’s, the same theme was apparent. Everyone at that level can do CTB pull-ups, but not everyone can handle high-rep, high-weight OHS. The difference between being a “B” in both and being an “A” in one and a “C” in the other was the difference between finishing and DNF’ing. (Congratulations, Sara!) In the AMRAP, everyone could dead lift and box jump. Those exercises did little more than further punish those who did not own HSPU’s. The relative rankings on that WOD probably would have been nearly identical had it consisted of no more than AMRAP HSPU’s for 12 minutes.
In the Affiliate WOD’s, it was the same story. The snatch- HSPU WOD came done to how many of the four team members could do HSPU’s well. (Also, those who needed to press out their snatches found those muscles exhausted when they switch from being right-side up to upside down . On the 20-minute row plus five exercises, the outcome was determined to a large extent by what people couldn’t do well. The more one person had to carry the load on any given exercise, the less talent was available elsewhere. In the final chipper, if any athlete couldn’t handle the prowler, his or her team was out of it. (Amazing job on that by Avery and Sophie!)
Next year, the individual members of our affiliate may not be the best at any particular exercise, but they will be weak at nothing.

Welcome back guys and congrats on representing the blackbox!!! I’m loving the photo-documentation on crackbook.
225,250,250,265,275

Josh, I agree, and I’m pretty sure the same could be said about the top 3 female athletes as well
I had a great time this weekend, thanks to everyone who came out to support the team and the individual competitors.
I have noticed, at both the sectionals and the regionals, that the best competitors have a very strong mental game. They know how to fight through the pain and keep going even when it gets uncomfortable. I think your mental attitidue is just as if not more important than your skill work. You can only get so far in your training and in order to take it to the next level you have to master the mental aspect of the sport. This is something I definitely need to improve as I continue training.

I go to the main site every day, I watch the videos, I read the articles, the top crossfit athlete’s own their own affiliates or are first responders. I have yet to seen a video highlighting a top athlete who does not own an affiliate or is not a trainer/first responder.
I always thought there should be two divisions of athletes, trainers/affiliate owners/first responders vs. everyone else. Admittedly, I’m a desk jockey. It is my choice, it is what I have to do to build my career. As a rational actor, I know, no matter how hard I train or eat properly, I am sitting at a desk for 8 to 10 hrs per day. How can I compete against a personal trainer? An affiliate owner? A SWAT team member?
I consider myself a Cross fitter but my goals are modest:I am trying to get on main site programming w/out missing days, I want to clean up my diet and work towards better form on the Olympic lifts. Hell, I’m still working towards my first pull up. As someone still new(ish) to crossfit, competing against anyone but myself seems daunting.
Sure, watching someone get a sub 3:00 Fran is inspiring, it makes me want to achieve better results, but when you find out they have been training for 3 months non stop and they own their own affiliate, it can get a little disheartening.

i go to crossfit some mornings, i got jiu jitsu some nights. some days i do both. most days i find both too tiring. when i am not doing that i am either behind a computer or behind the bar. i would like to think that if i owned/worked@ a gym i would be able to kick some serious ass…but i kinda doubt it. if i wanted to, i could exercise more. Go to both every day. As it is i am always constantly dealing with one injury or another. It would be nice to blame my profession on my lack of ability, but it is really a genetic and motivation issue.

Totally agree with everything above. This weekend was a lot of fun and I’m happy I did it.
Even if you aren’t fortunate enough to have the training time of a full time gym owner/trainer, almost every crossfitter here ends up making more progress than the average globo-gym goer after a few months. I think a lot of people would be surprised at what they can do even if they don’t consider themselves and athlete. Getting a little better every day adds up over time. Just because you think/know you won’t win doesn’t make it a good reason to not go and compete anyway.
Its also a good way to test yourself… you have a judge making sure your reps are legit (but everyone is holding themselves to that standard everyday, right?) and its just a completely different environment then your average WOD. You will learn a lot about yourself and your own mental toughness as well… and I’m sure you’ll have at least a bit of a different mindset on your next WOD.

85-105-115-120-125
PR + 10. I am partial to the back squat.
Loved the number of ladies lifting at the box tonight!

85-105-115-120-125
PR + 10. I am partial to the back squat.
Loved the number of ladies lifting at the box tonight!

Grace 2:38 rx’d, sorry for dropping the weight Court.
cashout 21-15-9 box jumps/burpees 3:15
Squats: 135:185:205:205:205

With Crossfit’s evolution of exercises, think sandbags, prowlers, and fat bar deadlifts, an intriguing question now is what is considered a Crossfit weakness?
Twice this year handstand walking and ring handstand push ups have shown up on the main page. Could they perhaps become a ‘standard’ Crossfit movement along with double unders and chest to bar pull ups?
I think many people were surprised that the Games included a 7k run last year, even though run 10k showed up a few times on last year’s main page. Unknown and unknowable I guess.

I would like to say that I do not believe Josh R is 90% paleo. JK.
Second you are making me feel bad cause I have that schedule that allows me to train that way. I think that I have the ability to get into next year’s Regional competition but to be among the top guys is gonna be tough. My goal is to make the top 30 next year at sectionals and with some good training i think I can achieve that goal.

taking some time off the WODs. I’ll start up again in the next cycle. Came in and sat on the erg today.
30 min: 6326 m avg split: 2:23 i believe… not bad for not pushing it too hard and trying to focus on my form. as soon as my ass started to burn i had to focus a little more. ha!
@ Lenny: You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. We all know that a number of factors go into how well you perform on any given day. I have days where I feel fine, but I may just be completely ignoring the fact that my body is exhausted from stress in another part of my life and my numbers then suffer (had that with the Total a few weeks ago). Maybe the cold got to you just enough that day, or not enough sleep. The fine tuning of an athlete is what makes the elite what they are. Set your goals high and don’t stop until you reach it. You are the only one that determines whether or not you fail at something.

first exposure to back squat max today. thanks to the other women in the 7:30 class who were clustered at my bar for all the coaching and encouragement, and to Coach Court for the same. it is such a kick to be working out with you all – you inspire me.

Lenny-
After reading my post from earlier, I sounded like an idiot. I sometimes forget why I started this: to get in shape and have fun. After looking at the pictures and hearing the stories, competing should be something I look forward to, to try and build towards, regardless of the outcome.

85×5 / 95×1,f / 90×3,f / 87×2,f / 85×2,f
Weirdly, felt good in spite of multiple fails. Cashed out with 21-15-9 alternating 20″ box jumps and burpees, 6:25.
Starting mid-June, going to work weekly with back squats. Time to get better at those.

185-195-205-215-225 (PR)
Going to regionals was really inspiring. Congrats to Sara, Hari, Sophie, the Mikes, Christine, Lenny, and Avery for working hard and having fun.
I didn’t register for sectionals this year because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to to do the WODs. I’ll probably have the same fear next year, but I’m going get over it and to do it for the fun.
Happy birthday, Bryce!