Comments on: Games 2009

By: Student of the Week: Bob Shaw — CrossFit Coastal: Wilmington, NC

Student of the Week: Bob Shaw — CrossFit Coastal: Wilmington, NC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:49:24 +0000

[...] Links for the Day What We Look For in CrossFitters Our “Future Selves” – great article by Patrick Cummings Dutch Lowy on the CrossFit Games [...]

By: Jay M. in SC

Jay M. in SC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:07:38 +0000

Good discussion here. As an avid CF’er for 3 yr and now affiliate owner, I follow this type of discussion with much concern. I do not however feed my family with income from CrossFit training, its more of a “lifestyle hobby”. I had several points to share and they are simply one man’s humble opinions.
First, the ’09 games , like all of the games, are a “snapshot” of fitness and those in the top quartile are mostly determined by the programming and scoring of the events. On any given day, depending on the choice and order of events, guys like Dutch, Speal, and Everett would be in the top quartile if not higher. This event happened to select out those with great endurance, above average DL, skill with a sledge (most of whom admitted gaining from nonCF activities), and one helluva tolerance for quad pain.
Secondly, the fact that gymnastics and heavy-ish Oly lifts were conspicuously absent from day 1, was dissappointing to me.
Third, the scoring, as has been discussed elsewhere, had some shortcomings.
I have recommended elsewhere that ’10 Games have Day1 on Friday with 3 Wods testing Power, endurance, and skill in various ways, followed by a rest day Sat, then day 2 on Sunday with another 2-3 Wods with a clean scoring slate to allow 16 competitors to compete head to head with fresh legs and refueled met-con capacity. I truly believe this would be more effective at selecting the most skilled “CrossFit” competitors and fairly evaluate them without increasing risk of debilitating injuries.
I think that may be more in line with what you were saying about effective, fair, and safe testing of this extreme level of fitness. These are not complaints but observations since again I have NOTHING to gain or lose in this except credibility of the lifestyle and fitness that I embrace. The efforts of all involved was awesome and awe-inspiring, but as the fitness of these incredible athletes continues to evolve, so should our means of testing them, particularly as the “financial purse” develops and a “prime-time” position emerges. As Dutch points out, we should practice what we preach and “live to fight another day”, because as many Affiliate owners know the “Fitness World” is watching with a critical eye. The more we “injure” our own, the less likely we will attract new clients.

By: True Down To The Core -- WOD for 090716 at CrossFit Durham, North Carolina |

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:01:00 +0000

[...] Today’s Fitness Article Links Functional Training: It Is All Different How To Peel Hard Boiled Eggs Without Peeling Dutch’s Take On The Games [...]

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:26:02 +0000

I totally agree Dutch… Amen!

By: dutch

dutch — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:22:47 +0000

Tim
I would have to say I agree on the point you make about the cuts after the second workout.
However after seeing how the day went I can’t say I envy those guys at all.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:05:21 +0000

I didn’t agree with, or understand why, the decision was made to cut athletes after the first 2 wod’s. Perhaps it had to do with the scoring system and who would be most likely or most eligible to win based on their points, but who gives a shit at that point? I could have more easily gone along with cutting after 4 wod’s, which may have painted a more accurate picture of an athlete’s fitness…

Cutting after 2 was too early!

By: dutch

dutch — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:18:52 +0000

Syn.
You are the man!
I totally agree.

By: John

John — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:07:43 +0000

Alright, so my question is how many events do they need in order to actually test overall fitness? I think they did a pretty good job, and one thing that I liked about this years games was the fact that it was a grueling 2-day event.

At our gym, we talk about durability, and your ability to recovery as being part of your overall fitness. For most athletes, it’s great if you can go out hard on friday and perform well, but can you get up on saturday and perform again? If you truly want to claim this person as the ”fittest man alive” then you need to have the games set up this way (in my opinion).

I totally understand what you’re saying about the injury risk, but life (and most sports) doesn’t let up on you when you’re tired, sore, exhausted. Fitness also involves coming back and performing well after you’ve been beaten down by something. At least to me it does.
Besides, overall wellness and health comes from a lifestyle of good nutrition, hard work, and healthy habits. The games are a test, thats it. I don’t think anyone is pretending to have gotten “more fit” at the games, except maybe mentally. I for one liked the way the games were set up this year. Just my two cents. What do you think, Dutch?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:12:31 +0000

CR: very cogent post, I stand corrected about Khalipa. It will be highly interesting to see the training regimen of the top athletes.

By: CR

CR — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:41:51 +0000

Now that we’ve got two Chris’s posting, I’ll change mine to “CR.” For the sake of clarity, I was the one going back and forth with Dutch earlier.

Chris,
According to Khalipa’s statement in one of the videos posted on the CF Games site, he has been doing quite a bit of running over the past year. Apparently, his lack of success in the run had more to do with debilitating cramps than lack of preparation.

Dutch,
Now you’ve really got me thinking! First, yes, fitness and health are interrelated, or, as the Coach Glassman said, “Fitness is super-wellness.” Second, as I think about this, it seems the goal of the CF Games has evolved. In 2007 it seemed like a friendly competition between a relatively small number of the top CrossFitters and those “in the circle” so to speak. 2008 was obviously very different, and the goal appeared to be to find the best CrossFitter. This year, the goal seemed twofold. On one hand, it was about testing the efficacy of the mainpage programming against the other manifestions of constantly varied, high intensity, functional movements (i.e. Gant Grimes hybrid, CFFB, CFSB, etc.), and, on the other, it was about finding the fittest individual per CF’s definition of fitness.

Without knowing the exact training programs of every participate (or at least a large number), it’s difficult to comment on the mainpage vs. everything else issue. The video of Mikko posted on mainpage today indicates that he’s been training mainpage CF for 2 years. In an interview with Khalipa after last year’s Games, he said that he follows mainpage. So, mainpage is doing something right, but, with that said, I think there’s a much underdiscussed aspect of the top CFers and that is their prior experience/training. Personally, I think a CFers background plays an integral role in what type of programming is or is not successful. That’s a long discussion for another day, however.

The second goal (determining the fittest individual per CF’s definition of fitness) is what you’ve got me thinking about. Regarding CF’s pursuit of developing super-wellness versus the possible unhealthy side effects of the Games themselves, I would say this: producing super-wellness is a process that occurs over weeks and months and years, and while this may be the overarching theme of CF, is it necessarily related to the Games? I think that if you were to ask Dave, Tony, or Coach if the CF Games were healthy they would say no. The difficulty, then, is rationalizing this with the overarching goal of producing super-wellness. Is it possible to have a contest in the course of 2 or 3 days that adequately measures the 3 models of fitness while maintaining a healthy end result? Is a healthy contest even necessary or is a slight degradation in overall fitness necessary collateral damage for a competition? I’ll have to think about this more and get back to you. Also, I’ll probably start a thread about this on either the CF or CA forum for those of you who are interested.