Leo of CrossFit Revenge will be writing a week-long series chronicling his performance during the 2013 Crossfit Open.

The Open concluded with four athletes taking on one of the toughest workouts in CrossFit. Rich Froning Jr. vs NorCal’s Jason Khalipa and Sam Briggs vs Camille Leblanc-Bazinet. Earlier in the week Dave Castro released a video from Santa Cruz, CA, the venue that would host 13.5. Castro not so subtly stated that for the “average” athlete, this event would be a race against the clock; but for the elite CrossFitter it would be a nightmare.

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 4 minutes of:

100 pound Thruster,

15 reps
15 Chest to bar Pull-ups

If 90 reps (3 rounds) are completed in under 4 minutes,

time extends to 8 minutes.

If 180 reps (6 rounds) are completed in under 8 minutes,

time extends to 12 minutes.
Etc.

“Well…This workout is going to suck.”  Ever since I started CrossFit I’ve been known for my strength.  My weaknesses are in my bodyweight movements (pull-ups, dips, muscle ups, chest to bar pull-ups).   Going into this workout I was ranked 156 in the North East out of 6,000 male competitors.  I was nowhere close to making it to a regional competition, but I was feeling good.  Not even a year into CrossFit and I am higher-ranked than every other competitor I train with—besides one: Matt Herold.

Sitting by myself thinking of this workout brought butterflies to my stomach.  I was upset that I wouldn’t be able to perform well in the last open workout and as well as my rivals.  My competition can easily butterfly their pull-ups and now they will butterfly the chest to bar.  “I’m fucked”.

Coach Lou put all of the competitors in the last heat to close up The Open at CrossFit Revenge.  I’m right in between Matt Herold and Ryan Quattropani, the two competitors that are going to kick my ass in this workout, the two guys that I am fearful of when it comes to any competition we’re in.  Since I knew that I was not going to do well, I filled up at flask with Jack Daniel’s for a post WOD drink.

Clock ticks down for the last time of The Open: 3,2,1….GO!  100# thrusters are easy, I get to the pull-up bar, and do 5, then another 5 chest to bar pull-ups.  “Wow, I’m keeping up with Ryan and Matt.” Back to the thrusters, 10 then 5 and back to the pull-up bar; 2,2,2,1,3,3,3 what a tough set, now I’m just getting down on myself.  I get to only doing 4 thrusters before my 4 minutes runs out.  Now it’s my turn to root on Matt and Ryan.  I grab my flask, swig a shot of Jack and root my teammates on until they finish their 8 minutes of 13.5.  They are dead on the floor and I finish my boozy container. “Thanks Dave Castro.”

Leo of CrossFit Revenge will be writing a week-long series chronicling his performance during the 2013 Crossfit Open.

6-time Games athlete Chris Spealler battles it out against 2010 Games winner Graham Holmberg in 13.4. Watching the event put my stomach in knots. Once again the competitors break from their normal routine of strength, volume and WODing in order to watch these two athletes knock each other down from the barbell to the pull-up bar. Spealler, one of the most respected men in the CrossFit community, stands at 5’5” and weighs barely 160 pounds. Common sense says he shouldn’t even be in CrossFit. He shouldn’t be able to lift the amount of weight that he does. Miraculously, the guy snatches 235 pounds and clean and jerks close to 300. His body weight movements are spectacular: 100+ butterfly pull-ups without leaving the bar; 200+ double unders without a single break. He has the heart of a grizzly but the body of a cub. Graham Holmberg, back in 2010, beat out Rich Froning Jr. in the very last workout to gain the title of “Fittest Man on Earth.” Dave Castro announces 13.4:

7 minute AMRAP

3 Clean and Jerks @ 135#

3 Toes to Bar

6 Clean and Jerks @ 135#

6 Toes to Bar

9 Clean and Jerks

9 Toes to Bar

12 Clean and Jerks @ 135#

12 Toes to Bar

15 Clean and Jerks @ 135#

This is a timed workout; if you finish the round of 12, move onto 15, then to 18, then to 21 until time runs out.

This time, Coach Louie figures: since I’ve been doing really well in the open workouts, he’ll put me first before all the other competitors so he can set the standard high for others to follow.

One of my really good friends from school Roy Johnson, started CrossFitting months ago. He grew a liking to it. He’d wake up at 4:30 AM and go to his traditional Globo Gym to train. They don’t have traditional bumper plates there, or even rings for him to do ring dips, ring push-ups, and muscle-ups. He’d come in and tell me the ways he was able to workout with what he had. Roy was in the first heat of the night. With his wife watching and his daughter, Makenzie, sitting in my lap, we look on eagerly as the clock ticks down. He reverse curls the weight to his shoulders; strict presses the weight above his head. This goes on for 7 minutes. He is dying so I pick up Makenzie and bring her closer, so he can hear her rooting daddy on. For a guy that has only been CrossFitting since November, he finishes 13.4 with 96 reps (15 rounds + 6 C&J).

After watching Roy go, my game plan was to do the rounds of 3 and 6 unbroken on the toes to bar. Ray and Jo are the most supportive parents I can ask for. I’m getting my bar all set up, feeling the weight of the 135# hit a couple warm up clean and jerks. Walk over to my bar to test the toes to bar out. I’m in the zone, I’m getting pumped up, “A Day to Remember” is blaring and it’s my favorite song. It’s go time. I look up towards the crowd, and who?!, but my parents are standing in front of me. I give them a huge hug and they wish me “good luck”.

3 Clean and Jerk, 3 toes to bar, 6 clean and jerk, 6 toes to bar; I start breaking the clean and jerks into singles, and chipping away at the toes to bar. The work out is whizzing by and before I know there’s less than 60 seconds to go. It’s burnout time; time to blaze until I collapse. It’s an all-out sprint.

13.4 scared me the most because I don’t have the same core strength as some of the other competitors. Still, I set the standard high.

Results:

100 total reps

15 rounds + 10 Clean & Jerks

With 33 vertebrae, our spines afford us huge amounts of flexibility. But under the load of a heavy squat or the extreme forces of running with haste, our 33 spines should act as 1.

Jogging or biking without a braced back exposes individual segments of the spine to sheering forces. In addition, a soft belly allows the pelvis to jostle and rock, leaking power and wasting endurance.

With loaded movements like the squat, the spine is protected most when the ribcage and the pelvis are directly in line with each other, allowing the back to be perfectly flat. As the ribs deviate from the hips, the lower spine, or lumbar, drifts away from the upper part, the thorax. Over time and reps, this can wear down the structures of the central nervous system, the same ones that protect your spinal chord.

By cultivating healthy posture, we can learn how to tighten our trunks and move in safe and efficient ways.

The overhead squat is extremely challenging. But with practice, the movement teaches us out to lower our center of gravity while keeping an erect torso and active shoulders. Closing and opening the hips and knees is important for jumping and landing, peddling and running, rowing and tackling. With every joint engaged, the OHS also develops body control, flexibility, balance and awareness.

As Hozz demonstrates above, the movement doesn’t need to be heavy to be effective. A body weight OHS will reveal many of your weaknesses. (While Hozz’s left foot is perfectly straight, his right foot is turned out. This indicates that his right quad is too tight or that his right hip is not in its proper alignment. His torso could also be straighter–a tight upper back or shoulders.)

Leo of CrossFit Revenge will be writing a week-long series chronicling his performance during the 2013 Crossfit Open.

The computer is up and streaming Talayna Fortunato vs. her rival, Kristen Clever.  They battled each other over Fran. And Talayna squeaked out 2 extra pull-ups faster then Kristen to take the podium in her rookie year. The duel was in Colorado, a mile higher from where they usually train: in Florida for Talayna, and Southern California for Kristen Clever.

Dave Castro announces the workout.  He pulls the arrangement of movements from a box:

Wallball

Jump Rope

Rings

“Did he just repeat a workout from last year’s Open?” my competitor Ryan asks.  Matty replies, “he sure did.”  The workout was 12.4. The EXACT same workout. And now its 13.3, too.

12 minute AMRAP

150 Wall balls

90 Double Unders

30 Muscle-Ups

My first reaction to this workout was:  “What the fuck? I suck at muscle-ups.  I can only string 5-6 together and my fellow competitors can hit 8,10, sometimes 12.  I’m fucked.”  I knew I would do well on the wall ball because I have the lungs and rebound that will help me through 150.  My double unders are spot on, I can bang out 70-80 in a clip so I should be able to get through the hopping quicker than most.  When it comes to muscle-ups, my thought process was to do singles.  Jump to the rings for a muscle-up. Jump down. Grab the rings for a muscle-up.  No use trying to string them together. If I fail I’ll get frustrated with myself and fail more.

“Shit they put me at 8:15. PRIMETIME again. I guess the coaches have a lot of faith in me to put me in front of a hundred people.”  On the wall balls: “Coach Lou what do you think of breaking it down 25,25,25,25, 20, 15 then splitting the double unders in 30,30,30?”  Coach Louie says, “I think you’re going to kill this workout tonight Tim!”

Wow 25 wall balls was easy, now I’m at 50, lets keep going!! I finish KAREN (150 wall balls) in just over 6 minutes; look around everyone is still on wall balls.  I grab my jump rope.  BAM! 30 double unders done, 60 then 90.  I have just over 5 minutes to complete as many muscle-ups as I can. Chalk up my hands, grab the rings, hips start flying through the air, quick sit up and ring dip.  Judge yells GOOD!

I jump down from the rings, the second I jump down lactic acid builds up and we all know what the means, CRAMP!!!! Grab the rings again, hips open, ring dip…GOOD! “Holy shit I’m at 2.  Well let’s keep this fucking going!!”

The timer ticks down, 13.3 has been completed, and I’m I happy with my score. Hell yeah! I finished with 15 muscle ups, a total of 255 reps. The after effect of 13.3 was the worst part of the workout.  I couldn’t walk up and down stairs, had trouble taking shits for 4 days.

Leo of CrossFit Revenge will be writing a week-long series chronicling his performance during the 2013 Crossfit Open.

The #1 Crossfitter in the world against one of the strongest women in the game. Annie Thorisdottir and Lindsey Valenzuela take the stage in South Brooklyn, NY. Earlier that day I watched Lindsey snatch 200lbs, and I asked myself: “When will I be able to snatch that much?” It’s time to announce 13.2.

12 minute AMRAP

5 Shoulder to Overhead 115#

10 Deadlift 115#

15 box jumps

SICK!!!! Finally a workout I may be able to win. Once again we huddle around a computer and watch Annie take on Lindsey. “These girls aren’t stopping,” I thought to myself.  I wonder what Dan Tyminski is thinking about this WOD. (He is a local Long Island Games athlete who came in 14^th last year.)

For 13.2, my strategy was to not stop moving. Rest at the top of the box, deep breath and go. If I had to step down, step down and jump right back up on the platform.

Again, Coach Louie puts me in primetime. I’m not only by myself, now I’m up against the only teammate that may squash my chances at qualifying for Regionals. Matthew Herold is his name. Matty is an unbelievable competitor but I’m not sure he can keep his form or if he can crank out enough power. The clock starts at 10…3,2,1 bang! 5 Shoulders to Overhead, 10 Deadlifts, 15 box jumps.  I’m done in under 45 seconds.  “Can I keep this pace up? ehhh most likely not.”  The next round ends at 8:35. “Wow that was a quicker round.” I burn through rounds 1-7 and now I’m sitting at 210 reps with about 4 minutes to go. Off the box. On the box. I’m staying focused push jerk after push jerk, deadlift after deadlift, box jump after miserable box jump. My back starts giving out, and I let out a big “FUCK” as I get into round 9 (270 reps).  FUCK.  As I’m push jerking in round 10 I hear the cheers of my best friend, Mark Kusick: “Don’t drop that bar, Tim. Time’s almost up.” As I mute out the rest of the audience and jump onto the box, my coach comes over to me and whispers so no one else can hear. “How bad do you want this? How bad do you want to prove yourself?  Now is your time, Tim.” Round 11 begins with Shoulder to Overhead. 5 completed and 6 deadlifts before the clock beeps to 0. I collapse onto the floor like any other CrossFitter should.  We went all in. Fellow athletes in the box give me high fives while my competitor, Matt Herold, lays on his back in disbelief…we tied with 311 reps (10 rounds; 5 Shoulder to Overhead; 6 Deadlifts).

Mobility Man
By Hamza Shaban

Kelly Starrett is the Deepak Chopra of sports medicine. Classically trained but reformist of mind, the good doctor hopes to reshape the tradition of physiotherapy from which he sprang. But it’s not divine transcendence Starrett supplies. Instead, he offers something quietly profound and entirely more useful, a way for us humans to perform basic maintenance on our bodies.

In his colossus of corporal knowledge, Becoming A Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance (Victory Belt Publishing), Starrett bares his offering to the gods of sport: the Movement and Mobility System.

With the foundation of a traditional strength and conditioning program—arduous lifts and ferocious sprints—coupled with a training philosophy that views correct movement as the ultimate skill, Starrett wishes to steer sports medicine away from coping with injury and toward performance longevity. He does this by testing and refining our most primal movements. These fundamental iterations of push, pull, and drive like the squat, deadlift, and press serve dual functions. They are furnaces forging iron-like flesh and diagnostic instruments. By revealing faulty biomechanics and stalled motor control, Starrett’s emphasis on mobility makes the invisible visible.

In the author’s paradigm, performing a push press not only fortifies the muscle fibers in the legs and shoulders, it also exposes how a person might reflexively push or jump. During the dip before the drive, does the athlete allow her knees to lurch forward, putting undue stress on the hinge joint and forcing the lower spine to overextend? As the bar travels upward, do her elbows flare outward, coercing her shoulders into a compromised, internally rotated position? For Starrett, the drills adopted by strength and conditioning coaches pinpoint our mechanical limitations and confess our anatomical pathologies. As Starrett writes, “By consistently and systematically exposing athletes to the rigors and full-range movements and optimal human motor-control, we’re able to quickly identify force leaks, torque dumps, bad technique, motor inefficiency, poorly integrated movement patterns, holes in strength, speed, and metabolic conditioning; and restrictions in mobility.”

While Starrett’s doctrine of “gym as laboratory” is hardly groundbreaking, his articulation of three movement principles—spine stabilization, one-joint rule, and maximizing torque—is a significant and lasting contribution to sports science.

Supple Leopard builds on the long-standing idea that the stabilization of the spine is of utmost importance. This axiom holds true for yielding peak athletic achievement (Usain Bolt, SEAL Team 6) and maintaining a healthy skeleton (everyone else). Because the human body radiates power outward—from core to extremity, from torso to limb—setting and bracing the trunk should be the first step in any physical endeavor. With a fixed, tight center, the ribcage is stacked directly atop the pelvis, an ideal carriage to whip horsepower from the hips and shoulders. And the back is flat—it’s optimal shape for transmitting tenacity. To organize the spine, Starrett uses a simple 4-step approach. Stand tall and squeeze the glutes; tuck in the ribcage; exhale and stiffen the abs; gaze forward with shoulders broad and down.

From this organized and sturdy bearing, we construct the best pose for any feat of strength. Absent this transferable, repeatable routine, Starrett argues that athletes compromise the structures of their central nervous system, and wreak carnal havoc on the joints north and south of the trunk. (This serves as a habit-making paradigm. In frenzied combat and furious sport the idealized stance will always be challenged, negotiated, or surrendered.)

Without first bracing the core for a deadlift, the backbone will prove its flexibility and round—in order to accommodate the load. Where a proper pull from the ground features a back as straight and rigid as a wrench handle, a relaxed midsection invites dangerous sheer forces on the lumbar vertebrae, begging for disc slippage. Without an engaged butt to initiate a back squat, the spine defaults into hyperextension, a gnarly bone-on-bone clash also known as “stripper’s arch.”

As Starrett demonstrates, the spry spectrum of flexion and extension should be expressed in the arms and legs, not by the spinal cord.  This is what he means by the “one joint rule.” Otherwise, in a desperate effort to provide some form of stability, the body will naturally fall back on secondary arrangements, like hunched shoulders or a rounded back. Allow these second order postures to become habit, and faulty motor patterns become reflexes, normal joint function disintegrates into disability. On ugly form, the shrewd instructor remarks, “It’s not a problem until it becomes a problem.”

This is where Starrett’s favorite concept arrives: torque. While the human animal appears in many sizes and proportional arrangements, the mechanics of the hips and shoulders are the same for everyone. Both types of joints are ball-in-socket. A sac of ligaments and fibrous tissue surround the joint and connect bone and cartilage. These leathery bags provide freedom to move and create stability through rotation. At the top of a pushup, to actively point your elbows-pits forward is to harness rotational force, or torsion. This action screws the shoulder joint tightly in place, like wringing a towel around a tennis ball. When trainers tell their students to “snap the barbell” during the bench press, they are cueing a twisting, squeezing motion to externally rotate the shoulder and create torque. From a joint that is wound-up and stable, muscles can safely and efficiently move bone, which produces enormous amounts of power.

Throughout the book, Starrett utilizes the laws of torque and the primacy of spine stabilization to guide us through dozens of beastly engagements. Minus a braced midline and torqued-up joints, we learn that exertion is wasted. The body, in a drastic triage, will hunt for tension any way it can. “If you don’t or can’t create a stable position from which to generate force, our body will provide one for you,” Starrett explains. In the squat, this manifests itself in knees and ankles that collapse inward. In the press, it looks like an arched lower back and rounded shoulders. In the deadlift it’s the donkey-butt hips that shoot up, or the collapsed thorax that caves in.

The reader begins to see the teacher’s lessons everywhere: offices filled with hunched over desk workers; walkers and runners with feet turned out, like a duck’s; and worst of all, gym-goers showing all the wrong signs—a soft middle and a reckless, baffling inattention to good form.

With simplicity and precision, Starrett illuminates the body’s crude elegance. His chapter “The Systems” replaces the narrow concept of stretching, and in its place, advances a more holistic method that goes beyond “end range static stretching.” It includes motor control, range of motion dysfunction, joint capsule issues, and short, tense muscles. Armed with a dungeon master’s medieval arsenal—stretch bands, foam rollers, lacrosse balls, Voodoo floss, and the sadistic, gracious hands of a super-friend, Starrett teaches us how to self-massage, dispatch nagging pain and heal tweaked tissues.

Many readers will recognize Kelly Starrett from his popular blog, MobilityWod. Supple Leopard is a logical extension of this undertaking. The website presents daily mobility routines and addresses recurring themes in athletic life (of the field and cubicle variety). Starrett on the page is much like “K-Star” from the videos, playfully illuminating and methodically convincing. His vision of human mobility has an intellectual coherence rare in the fitness world.

As a writer, blogger, and touring seminar coach, Starrett is CrossFit’s ombudsmen. Along with exemplars of gymnastics and Olympic lifting Carl Paoli and Diane Fu, both prominent co-stars in Supple Leopard, Starrett is CrossFit’s most dedicated and constructive critic. This is just one more reason why the book is a crucial work. It is a worthy attempt to shift our fitness culture away from “How much do you bench?” and closer to “How good is your bench press form?”

Against the miasma of meat-head gym-wisdom and the circus of poor technique, Starrett’s project is a much needed corrective. “Remember,” K-Star urges, “your tissues were designed to be 110 years old. You just have to know what the stable, tissue-saving, catastrophe-avoiding positions are. And, you have to practice them. A lot.”

Leo of CrossFit Revenge will be writing a week-long series chronicling his performance during the 2013 Crossfit Open.

Wednesday, March 6th: The Open’s first workout is announced. As we take a break from training and huddle around a computer that has no sound, we see Dave Castro announce 13.1. “Really, Dave? A combination of 12.1 and 12.2. How could you do this to us?”

17 minutes to complete the following:

40 burpees

30 snatches @75#

30 burpees

30 snatches @ 135#

20 burpees

30 snatches @165#

10 burpees

As Many Snatches @205#

After watching the video, the “Competitors Class” at CrossFit Revenge reflects on last year’s workouts. As a a rookie to The Open, I have nothing but high intentions. The guys start chattering. “I hope I get through the 165#, I can get 190 reps for sure”. I continue my training thinking of how I will strategize. Do I try and do all of the 30 snatches at 75# unbroken? Can I touch and go 135# for 5 reps? Will I be spent from the burpees and not be able to even lift the 135# bar?

With all of these thoughts running through my head, Friday comes quickly. CrossFit Revenge hosts a Friday Night Lights at our box, an in-house competition. There was a Novice fleet and a Scaled Fleet as well as an RX fleet–for those trying to make it to Regionals.

I’m the horse everyone is rooting for, the only competitor who fans think can make it to Regionals. 8:30 has arrived; Coach Louie puts me in the primetime spot for everyone to watch. I start pacing in my lane prior to the clock ticking. It counts down 3,2,1…everyone shouts GO!!! By this time the adrenaline is pumping, I blast through 40 burpees, hit the 15 snatches, take a breather, 10 more snatches, then the final 5. “Wow I’m feeling good, just keep your breathing controlled, and you’ll be fine.” As I increase the weights from 75# to 135,the breathing becomes a little bit heavier. “Shit this weight feels heavy, guess I’ll be doing singles, once the weight hits the ground pick that fucking bar right back up.” I get through my 30 snatches and now onto the 20 burpees. I up the weight to 165#. The clock hits 0:00 I lay breathless on the floor looking at the ceiling while my teammates are high-fiving me and slapping my soaked body with approval. I ended up getting through 10 snatches at 165#, upping my total score for 13.1 to 160 reps.

-Leo

This box of cereal compares itself to an egg. We’d go one step further: skip the cereal and eat the egg instead.

Looks solid! Leo clean and jerks 205, his PR is 255.