Just a friendly reminder of the Foundational Movements Seminar on Squats tomorrow at 4pm, doctor Class at 4:30pm, # 40mg 5:30pm, and Eyes on the Open Seminar at 6:30pm. There is a sign up sheet by the office window for the Foundational Movement Seminars. Please SIGN UP!!
We had 4 athletes compete in the CrossFit FTF Affiliate Challenge (Don Q, Emmaline, Chance and I) on Saturday. This is a nice little event that has grown into something bigger over the last three years. Like nearly everything associated with CrossFit, it’s gotten bigger and more competitive in three years: from 17 male competitors in year 1, nearly 40 last year, and over 60 this year with a team a masters/scaled division, pushing the event to nearly 100 male competitors.
As “Games Season” approaches, it’s not a bad idea to get an idea of where people’s fitness levels are as you enter the Open, and the FTF Challenge provided an eye opener. I think we all experienced a moment that we rested, or gave someone an opportunity to “pass” us during a WOD, and we paid for it. We have 3 weeks to clean it up, an get ready for the Open.
WOD1 was a sprint, double couplet of deadlift/burpees, rest and thruster/pullups. The rep count was low and weights were relatively light. This forced you to absolutely sprint throughout the WOD, as the top times were separated by seconds. I have talked about this recently, but you needed to go into the WOD with a high heart rate (already spiked) and ready to MOVE. It was a dogfight to get to your pull-up bar, and the rig was ROCKING, similar to some of our 5:30 classes ;). I finished 4th here.
WOD2 was a 400m run followed by a ground to overhead session. The goal was to move the most possible weight in POUNDS, not reps, so you could choose your weight. I went heavier than most, confident I could move 135 nearly as fast as 115, but I was wrong and I finished 8th in this event. I wish I had a do over here, as 115 was the way to go. Between the 4 of us, very little rest happened here: we all moved the barbell steady throughout, and finished the WOD laying on the ground.
There was a floater WOD that consisted of a 500m row in 5 min, followed by as many double unders as possible in remaining time. The row and double unders were scored. Chance and I killed the double unders, finishing 3rd and 2nd respectively. The row was a different story. Another scored sprint, and we don’t row a lot at CFO. I rowed 500m in 1:41.5, which is a near PR for me, but it put me in 43rd place. OUCH! No CFO’ers did well on the row, and it’s something we should work on in our spare time.
The event was relatively well run for a CrossFit event: the WODs were simple, easy to score and time capped, so the event kept moving. The judging was decent, but anytime you go to an event, you’re going to see inconsistencies. You just deal with it and move on. As far as the WODs, I prefer WODs that may be a little longer that WOD1 (a 3 minute sprint with a minute rest built in). I also tend to program WODs that cycle through movements, returning to them when fatigued like yesterday’s WOD, as opposed to run, clean and jerk to finish or row, double under to finish. I believe the repeating couplet/triplet stresses the body in a better way than the single modality, and I think CrossFit agrees with me (or I agree with CrossFit).
All in all, it was a good event, and I’m glad we did it. We got 3 workouts on a beautiful day and feasted on In N Our after. I’m super proud of Don and Emmaline. It was Don’s first competition after watching a bunch of ’em. Emmaline keeps answering the bell, even if she’s the smallest competitor and ALL the weights are bigger than she is. Don kept saying how much fun competing was compared to watching. Just don’t ask him about the 400m run 😉
Workout of the Day
“Angie”
100 Pullups
100 Pushups
100 Situps
100 Squats