CrossFit
Warm-Up / Skills
10 Minutes Practice Double Unders
Metcon
12 Minute AMRAP
150 Backward Singles Buy In
In remaining time:
AMRAP
7 Deadlifts
25 Burpees
Male Rx: 225 lbs
Female Rx: 165 lbs
Thoughts for the week on Competition and Open, Regionals & Games Qualification…
Hey All – you get another lengthy blog post from me again. This time, it is on the topic of competition. Kristen and I have competed in athletics our entire lives, so we are familiar with the topic of competition. We have competed at some of the highest levels of our given sports (NCAA Division 1 Wrestling & Swimming). We specialized in training for these sports and did what we had to do to be the best that we could possibly be. In the end, we fell short of our goals, but we do not regret the effort we put forth in trying to obtain them. It is that training, dedication, sacrifice and commitment that have made us what we are today. The cool thing about the sport of CrossFit is you can’t specialize. You have to be competent, if not excellent, in all aspects of fitness to win a local, regional, or national competition. You can’t have a weakness, period. This sport is growing exponentially, each year, and in the near future there will be hundreds of thousands of competitors in CrossFit. I did a little research on what it actually takes to make it to the CrossFit Games. This is based off of all the information submitted by the top 10 athletes in the NorthEast region on their profile pages. Some athletes did not enter all of their information, so I simply went to number 11, 12, 13 etc. until I had all the information needed. There was no athlete polled who placed outside of the top 20 in their region. All the men’s information was taken from the NorthEast top 20. All of the women’s information was a mixture of the top 20 from the NorthEast and Top 20 from Mid-Atlantic. A few pieces of information that I found interesting were – If the men were missing one stat, it was most likely their 5K times – Most women listed their weights on the lifts and not much else. I averaged all of the events in the Games profiles and here is what I came up with:
Men’s Women’s
Fran: 2:21 3:08
Helen: 7:48 8:25
Grace: 1:47 2:13
Filthy 50: 16:09 19:01
400M: 1:01 1:17
5K: 20:12 21:17
C&J: 298lbs. 180lbs.
Snatch: 240lbs. 140lbs.
DL: 505lbs. 305lbs.
Back SQT: 433lbs. 245lbs.
Max Pullups: 61 38
FGB: 436 385
Obviously, these are just some benchmarks that have been tested. If you know your times then compare them. Understand that this is an average and if you’re in this range or close to it you may have a chance of getting to regionals. If you are not close than you can see what you need to improve on to even have a shot. We could add many other WODs, exercises, athletic events to this group of information but I would imagine the outcome would remain constant in the fact that the top athletes will move the most weight and have the better times.
So… 3 out of the top 10 make it to the games. First, you must qualify for the regionals by placing top 60 in the Worldwide Open. 70,000 athletes competed in the Opens last year, 70,000! That number will increase next year, the year after and so on. To place in the top 60 in your region is incredible! In fact, if all regions had equal number of participants (4,118) and only 60 make it to the regional, then only the top 1% of participants qualify for the regionals. If we go a little further than that, with the athletes that make the games, that number is even crazier at .07%. I’d also hate to break it to you but the NorthEast is badass! The top athletes are unbelievable with Austin Malleollo’s Fran time at 2:11, 570 Deadlift, 300 C&J and Jenny Davis 2:41 Fran, 355 Deadlift and 195 C&J. Pretty amazing stats by both of them but, then again, they won the regionals and are the .02%. There are certain lifts & skills you must be extremely efficient at before even considering making it to the games. These are, but are not limited to the following:
Thruster, Pull Ups, Snatch, Power Snatch, Hang Power Snatch, Split Snatch, Squat Snatch, Handstand pushups, Handstand pushup with a deficit, Walk on your hands, rope climbs, Cleans, squat cleans, hang cleans, power cleans, double unders, who knows maybe triples soon, bar muscle ups, ring muscle ups, burpee muscle ups, wall balls, GHD sit ups, GHD situps throwing an object, run, bike, swim, sled push & pull, ring dips, Toes to Bar, Box Jumps – fast, Overhead Squats, Heavy Deadlifts, Rowing, Pistols, One arm Dumbell Snatch, Back Squat, Front Squat, Air Squat, Chest to Bar pull ups, Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, Split Jerks, Burpees, Burpee over bar, Traverse a monkey bar, Throw for distance and accuracy, SDLHP barbell and KB, Clean & Jerk…
All of this information really doesn’t mean shit. The fact is these athletes have trained hours upon hours to get strong enough to make the weights in the workouts prescribed seem light enough that they won’t slow them down. They have also put themselves through some rigorous training that tests their mental toughness so that they know they have a little extra when they need it. They have practiced skills for days just so that if one actually shows up then they know they are capable of completing the task. Competition is a GREAT thing! We encourage you all to attend a competition as it will bring out the best in you. It may also point out some flaws in your training, which is a good thing. Then you can go back to the gym and work on those flaws. The point of this whole post is that a very small amount of people ever make it to the Regionals and an even smaller amount ever makes it to the Games. Remember why you got started with CrossFit in the first place, to get in the best shape of your lives and have a fuckin’ blast doing it!
