Weightlifting Belts

Weightlifters have been wearing belts for support as long as there have been competitions. Belts were originally just a piece of leather with a buckle at the end. In the 70’s The Russians added a piece of leather under the buckle to prevent pinching.  The Bulgarians improved upon that by moving the belt over to the side to prevent from hitting the buckle in the clean. In today’s world we now see belts that are made of nylon, Velcro and other non-traditional materials.

Powerlifters have a belt that is the same width across the entire length of the belt. This is because they generally use a low bar squat and don’t have to worry about getting into a full squat position. Olympic lifting belts are narrower at the ends in order for the belt to sit below the rib cage in the clean while in the full squatted position.

So when should you use a belt. I was always taught to only use your belt when attempting max lifts. By this I mean Max Squats and Max Clean and Jerks. While warming up, and lifting all other attempts up to 90% of a lifters Max, no Belt is worn. Lifting without a belt up until that point helps to decrease the lifters reliance on the belt, and increase the feeling of Support while wearing it. 99% of lifters do not wear a belt while snatching because the snatch pull happens exactly where the belt sits and it would get in the way.

When tightening the belt before a lift, don’t tighten to the point that you cannot take a breath. Make sure there is always at least room for a finger or two. Making the belt to tight can lead it to push up under your rib cage in the clean, or prevent you from taking a deep breath before the Jerk.

Happy New Years Eve Everyone. Have a  Great evening, see you in the New Year.

Clothing: The Right Fit.

I have been at the “Butt” end of many a joke when it comes to this topic. (Pun intended) Wearing the correct clothing while training and competing is imperative. Today I am focusing mainly on Suits and tights.

Weightlifters wear a Weightlifting Suit, a singlet. Much the same as wrestlers or rowers do. We are not wearing the suit to show off our muscles, or any other appendage for that matter. It is a part of the Competition Uniform. We have to wear them. They are not just there to make us look cool, they actually serve a purpose.

Weightlifting technique is all about keeping the bar as close to your body as possible. In doing so, the bar will inevitably brush or slide up against your thighs. Weightlifters wear suits and tights to minimize the amount of drag, or resistance against their thighs. Wearing shorts or track pants while training does nothing more than add to the resistance of the upward trajectory of the bar, and hence slow it down. Have you ever tried swimming in a pool with track pants on? Same principle, smaller scale.

When I started competing in Weightlifting things were very different. We were only allowed to wear a legless suit that looked more like a retro 1930’s ladies bathing suit than actual competitive athletic attire. Below is my suit, which I have been wearing for over 20 years now.

Having an open thigh back in the day led to many an awkward moment for a weightlifter. I will never forget when I first went to train with the National team. On the very first day, very first thing that was said to me, Salon!!!  I wasn't quite sure what the coach meant until it was explained to me. You gotta get rid of your leg hair dude. You see what happens is that if you have long hair on your legs, when you drag the bar across your thighs the knurling on the bar will effectively act like sandpaper and rip the hairs, and some skin, from your body. I have seen this happen more than my fare share and let me assure you it is not a pretty sight.

 So off to the salon I went. What followed were probably the most awkward and embarrassing moments of my youth. Let’s just say having a young lady lather you in hot wax was new to me. Followed by Pain. Lots and lots of Pain.

Wearing my original suit in April 2014.

Doing a 137.5 kg/ 302.5 lbs C&J back in 1999 in the same suit.

With freshly waxed legs I then learned all the other tricks lifters used to help the bar slide off their thighs. Powder, baby oil, Lip gloss I have seen it all being used at some stage. Today lifters are allowed to wear a full suit, including legs. So thankfully you will never have to know the pain and embarrassment of wearing a legless suit.

                     

Above is my current weightlifting suit.

Steroids and Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED's)

So the second thing people always ask me after they hear I am a Weightlifter and Coach ( right after they have said "but you're so small") is have you ever taken steroids? Unfortunately there is a certain stigma attached to doing a strength sport, Whether it be Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, Crossfit, Weightlifting or Strong man. People will always make some type of a reference to PED's.

I have never taken a PED in my life, and I never will. I could never live with myself if I did. I would never be able to accept any achievement I might have accomplished if I had taken PED. When competing internationally as a Weightlifter you are issued a Doping Control Passport. In your Doping control passport it states all of the times you have been drug tested over the years. Which is usually several times a year, in and out of competition. This makes it very difficult for a weightlifter to take PED's. Sadly there are still many athletes who are willing to take the chance of being banned for life to win a gold medal. Lets take the mind set of an athlete into consideration for a second. In Sydney at the 2000 Olympics they did a survey on the athletes and asked the question. If you could take a pill today that would guarantee  you the gold medal tomorrow, but would kill you the next day, would you take it? Over 65% said yes. Thats how much winning means to an athlete. It is everything. I love winning as much as the next athlete, but I prefer living more. So yes, many athletes will look to PED's to give them the advantage over their competitors.

I once asked an Olympic Gold Medalist what he thought about Drugs, his answer was simple " He who has the best Chemists, will always be the best". Out of respect for him I am not going to mention who is but I think his words speak for themselves. Where there are athletes, there will always be those who are looking to give them an edge by illegal means. I find it deplorable  that so many professional athletes have come out as having used PED. Their results should be stripped from the record books. As an athlete myself I find what they have done to be an insult to me as a competitor, and a complete an utter disgrace to the integrity of not only themsleves, but to the unity of Sport as a whole. Shame on you, is all I can say.

Do PED's work. Sadly Yes they Do. Are they Dangerous. Yes they Are. I have personally lost friends due to Steroids. I understand why someone would take steroids, I just personally do not think that the rewards outweigh the potential risks. More worrisome is the prevalence of Steroids in High School Athletes today.  Younger and younger kids are looking for a jump start to their athletic careers by taking PED's without any thought to the repercussions later on in their lives. The affects of prolonged steroid use are well documented. Your heart, liver and many other internal organs will fail you well before they should. It is simply not worth it.

You can still achieve great things without drugs. It will take you longer, and you will have to work much harder to get there, but thats what makes it so much more rewarding in the end. When you can stand there and say "I did this without drugs".

Supplements:

Supplements are exactly what they say they are, Supplements. They Supplement your diet, they do not become your diet. Nothing will be as important then eating enough, and eating correctly.

Taking Supplements will not automatically give you gains or increases in the gym. You are not magically going to Squat 400 just because you are taking supplements. You still have to work hard. What supplements will do is help you to train longer, and recover quicker. And lets face it, the most important part of training is recovery. I cant cover all supplements so I will simply list a few that I have taken and use, and the affects they have on me. 

Firstly and probably the most controversial is Creatine. Creatine will help to give you more energy while you are training by replenishing your creatine phosphate stores in your muscles. It is most effectively used by athletes who require more fast twitch fibre activation. Sprinters, Weightlifters, Shot Putters. While taking creatine you can expect to see a rapid increase in strength and Body-weight. When I took creatine I found the increases in strength not to be linear to my increases in body-weight. Meaning, I got bigger and stronger, but not strong enough to justify the 10 lbs increase in  body weight. As an Olympic lifter I am bound to my body-weight division. I stopped taking creatine for this reason. Creatine has also been know to leave an athlete feeling bloated and retaining water, as well as having some nasty effects on bowel movement. As an off season supplement Creatine can help to bulk up and make some increases in strength.

Secondly Glutamine. Firstly you have to understand what glutamine is. Glutamine is an amino acid; used in the synthesis of protein and thus supports the production of muscle. It supports and regulates the immune system, it is an alternative fuel source for the brain and it also supports and regulates the dietary system. Glutamine is an easily attainable amino acid. It can be found in almost all major food sources that are also rich in protein. If there is an excess of glutamine in the body, it just goes to waste. It can't be stored for an extended period of time in the body, so if you are on a maintenance diet - not trying to lose or gain weight (muscle or fat) or you are bulking (putting on muscle/fat or just muscle) then you probably do not need to use glutamine supplements. However, for those who are cutting (losing fat and attempting to maintain muscle) then glutamine is a fantastic supplement. It is for this reason that I use glutamine when I am cutting weight for competition.

Protein is the king of all supplements. If the key to muscles growth and regeneration is protein synthesis then having an abundance of protein is  the answer. You cant take to much protein, you can however not take in enough protein. I for one am guilty of this. I don't eat enough raw protein during the day so I "supplement" my diet by having a protein shake every day.

I consider Protein to be the one essential supplement for any athlete.

So based on the above, my supplemental intake during the year would look like this. Creatine and Protein during the off season to gain muscle mass and strength. Glutamine during the preseason before competition to lose body weight and maintain muscle strength. Protein over the course of the competition season to maintain and not lose strength.

Diet: Intake and Expenditure

Seeing as though it is the season to be jolly, and much eating and drinking will be taking place over the next week I thought it only pertinent to cover diet today. I personally stick to a "seefood"diet, I see food and I eat it. I literally eat what I want, when I want. I am one of the lucky ones. I have been between 135 and 145 lbs for over 20 years, and with the amount of training I do I don't expect that to change much in the next 20 years. (I hope) Most people on the other hand struggle to maintain their weight, and are on one diet or another. There are many good diets out there today to chose from. There are many Bad diets out there to chose from. I take a different approach than most. Rather than try and push people towards a certain diet, I try and get them to think more in terms of Intake and Expenditure. I use the following story to illustrate my point;

You have just started a new job, and with that job you have been given a company car. Every Monday morning you have to go to the same Gas station and put in $100 dollars worth of gas. So you drive around for a week, and next Monday you go to the station and put in another $100. Now you have the 100 plus what ever you hadn't driven out before you put the $100 in this Monday. This Continues for a Month. At the end of the Month you have about $200 worth of gas in your Car.

This is the principle of intake and expenditure If you don't expend what you take in, your body will store it for you. I ask clients to count their calories every day for a week, and then calculate how much exercise they have done in a week. Try it, I am sure you will be very surprised by the result. The number you get is your deficit. It's how many calories you didn't burn off. Once again, if you don't burn it off your body will assume you want it to store it for you, which it does rather well.

Diet is always going to be a contentious issue. People on either side of the spectrum will push their own diet and philosophies on you. Not every diet will work for you. Not every diet is going to be good for every person. Try them, test them, and make your own judgments as to which one works for you. Don't just take the word of some internet Meme with a skinny model on facebook. 

Which brings me to my last point. Stop mocking people who use a different diet or have a different opinion than you do. This is America, everyone has the right to chose whatever they want. Chastising someone because you feel that your way or diet is better is immature, and only serves to point out your own insecurities. I have plenty of opinions about diets that people wont like. I keep them to myself, and I most certainly wont be posting that opinion to Facebook every single day looking for affirmation.

Success in Failure:

Last week I covered goals and how important they are when it comes to training. Today I want to talk about failure. Failure is a part of the journey to success. Without the one you couldn't have the other. We all fail in the gym. If you don't fail in the gym you are either not pushing yourself hard enough or your Programming is seriously outdated. 

Don't look at a missed weight, or attempt at an exercise as a failure to achieve something. Failure is simply the opportunity to learn from your mistakes and better yourself in the future. OK, I missed that lift. Instead of getting to upset with yourself and storming out of the gym, think to yourself why? Why did you miss that attempt, what are you doing incorrectly. Finally come to a conclusion as to how to correct the mistake and work on that. If you can't determine what you are doing incorrectly ask your coach, that is what we are there for. 

I had a huge mental block in my career getting a 100 kg / 220 lbs Snatch. I spend years trying the weight over and over again. Something about the magical triple digit mark had me stumped. Until one day my coach decided to load the bar to 102.5 kg and tell me it was 97.5 kg. I did it easily. He new I could do the weight, he believed in me. 

Ask any Olympic Lifter how many times he has failed on a weight before he was successful. Hundreds, if not thousands of times. Failure is not a bad thing, if you think of it as such you are your own worst enemy. Embrace failure, learn from your mistakes, and from there you will find success.

Set Goals to Achieve Success

Training without goals is like sailing without sails, you are going to end up going around in circles. If someone asks me what I consider the most important thing when it comes to training I will say it is setting goals. Setting goals helps to keep you motivated throughout a year, or several years.

That being said, it is important to be realistic about these goals. Don’t set yourself a goal of winning the world championships, or the Crossfit games when you are starting out. Start by setting small weekly goals that are achievable. These goals can be attaining a certain weight, or doing a number of reps, anything can be a goal. I try and have one goal for every training session. If not a max weight I will try and do a new record number or reps on a weight. This way you can always do one thing in the gym that is a new achievement or accomplishment. Do 1 lbs extra on a press, or one extra rep on a Squat, I don’t care, but try and do one thing every session that is better than the last. This way when you leave you will maintain that excitement and enthusiasm until the next session.

Without this type of mental motivation many athletes become despondent, leading to them giving up or taking a break from training. These are the short term, weekly goals.

When it comes to the long-term goals, by all means think big. I want to break this record; I want to qualify for the Crossfit Games; I want to compete at World Masters. Again be realistic about where you are in your training and set attainable goals for the coming year, or years. After one year of training and competing again (After a 10 year hiatus) I set my goal for the following year to compete at the World Masters Championships and Win a Medal. Something I subsequently achieved. Right now I am already planning for which competitions, and internationals I plan on competing in next year. I have a three-year plan that culminates at the World Masters Games in New Zealand in 2017 (Hopefully with a world Championships gold, and World Record)

Goals are the key to training, set them, stick with them, and achieve them. Once you have…… Set new ones.

Burning Bra's, lifting Bars: Woman and Weights.

So yesterday I had a training session with my brother and his fiancé. (Yes, I have a brother) My brother sits on the executive of the New York Squash Rackets association and writes a very successful blog on the topic of Squash. If anyone has an interest in the sport I have attached a link to his blog below. While training he mentioned an article he recently read regarding woman and weight training. After our our session he forwarded me the link (attached below), and it got me thinking about the topic. 

Very enlightening article but not anything new to me. I have been doing weightlifting for quite some time, and have had this opinion of woman lifting weights long before it became popularized by sports such as Crossfit. Let me put it simply, " there is nothing sexier, and more attractive than a woman who lifts weights" Nothing!!! We have gotten to the point where the old wives tales have been debunked. The myths and fallacies told to woman over the centuries that lifting weights will make you big have not only been dissproven, but this article reiterates my point that men find woman who lift weights more attractive. Woman no longer consider muscles to simply be the domain of men. Woman no longer consider being strong as a sign of there sexual orientation. Strong is the New Sexy, and woman are embracing it. Call it feminism, called self empowerment, call it what ever you want, there is nothing more attractive than a woman picking up an Olympic bar and doing a snatch, clean and Jerk or Squat.

I have heard the same thing over and over again from woman who come to me for personal training, " I don't want to get Big" I don't want to gain weight. I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. Thats totally understandable. However, the thing is, you are not going to get big, you are going to add lean muscle mass, and lose body fat.  While your overall bodyweight might increase, your body composition will change, significantly. If you think your jeans are going to fit better after you start weight training you are wrong. Your quadriceps will get bigger, your gluteus will get bigger, but here is the catch. They are going to be tighter and more toned. Woman need to stop thinking in terms of mass and start thinking in terms of appearance. Throw that bloody scale away and stop obsessing about how much force you are being pulled back towards the center of the Earth by and start concerning yourself more with how you feel physically. 

I have been to Fashion shows at Model Week in Manhattan. I have been to afterparties with woman whom society considers to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Let me tell you something about these woman that you aspire to be. They look look like half dead anorexic zombies to me. I find nothing attractive about them, yet these are the woman who are plastered all over magazines and billboards giving the young woman today this unrealistic expectation of what beauty is.  If you want to see beautiful woman you should have been at the Winter Challenge at Crossfit Hoboken last weekend. More beautiful and attractive woman under one roof than any fashion show. Ladies, Muscles are the new sexy. Weights are the new Yoga. You started with Burning your Bra's. now start bending the Bars.

My Brothers Squash Blog:

 http://www.brettssquashblog.com.

The Article that started it all:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2873487/Women-lift-weights-seen-attractive-men-fitness-fanatics-Cameron-Diaz-Millie-Mackintosh-leading-athletic-trend.html

Training: love what you hate, hate what you love.

We all have our favorite exercise, that one thing that we are really good at. We thrive upon it. We are good at it and it makes us happy. For me it is Squatting, (if I haven't mentioned that before). When I say Squatting, I mean Back squats. I can back Squat really heavy, triple Bodyweight in fact. That makes me happy, it gives me a sense of achievement and accomplishment. What I hate on the Other hand ("Darren" for my South African Readers) is front Squats. Front Squats are so much Harder than back squats. Even though the weight is less than a back squat, having to hold the weight on your shoulders, and the emphasis it places on the upper back and core, makes it such a harder lift than Back Squats.

                                                         402 lbs back squat

So naturally what do I do, back squat, all the time. I neglect my front squats because I favor my back squats. This is something that we all do in the gym. We focus all our energy into doing something we know we are good at, (myself included) because it make us feel good. In doing so we neglect the thing we should actually be focusing on, our weak spot. Front Squats. I would rather be dragged across a field of broken glass tied to the back of a pick up truck than front squat. I know that I get into a deeper position in a front squat than a back squat. I know that doing front squats will only benefit my clean and jerks. Yet I still do more back squats than front, because I like back squats. 

                                                          300 lbs Front Squat

A few weeks ago I embarked on my " Screw You " Training regime. It entails front squatting every day for a month. I am not doing this because I particularly want to do it. I am doing this because I know that I will see the greatest increase in my Olympic Lifts by focusing on the one thing that I have neglected above all else. The strange thing is, after two weeks in, I am no longer hating front squats as much as I used to. While I might not look forward to the front squats every day I am certainly relishing in the fact that I am making daily and weekly progress. I was always told that if you want to Clean and Jerk a weight, you should be able to front squat that weight for 5 sets of 5 reps. Once you can do that, you should have no problem Clean and Jerking It. So I am focusing all my energy for the next three weeks on hitting 5x5 front squats at 275lbs. I guess we will know how it goes come New Year.

Training as I get Older: Load and Recovery

In my last post I mentioned that I have been training for almost 25 years. I have not always been training with the same methodology or mindset. With age a few adjustments and variations need to be incorporated into training in order to maintain your longevity in the sport.

In your teens and 20's, your bodies ability to recover from training is phenomenal. After only a few hours of rest you are ready to go again. ( Yes I am still talking about training ) In my heyday, when I was at a National training camp with the South African National team we would train hard twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. The lifts, and loads would vary, but one thing I remember clearly was front squat in the morning, and back squat in the evening. We did this every day, except Sundays, we only did back squat on a Sunday afternoon. The thing that gets to me most about those days was how fast I would recover from training. We would start at around 10:00 am and finish around 12:00. After that we would head back to the dormitory and eat lunch. At this particular stage we were tired and sore. We would eat, and I mean eat. I am talking about pasta by the bowl loads, with seconds. Then we would usually rest for an hour or two. That would bring us up to around 4 pm. At 4:30 we would make our way back to the training hall for our second session for the day. This would be the heavy lifting session, max lifts, Pulls and Heavy Back Squats. The thing that I am today mesmerized  by is the fact that we would be fully recovered from the mornings session by the time we started the afternoon session. That was then. 

Alas, Youth is wasted on the Young. So what I have noticed personally about training as I have gotten older , from early 20's to mid 30's, is that I can still train hard, almost as hard as I did then. But, and this is the catch, my recovery time has more than doubled. Probably tripled in fact. I can still do the same workouts I used to do, it is just taking me so much longer to recover from them.

If I do heavy back squat in the evening, my legs are still like jello the next morning. There aint a chance in hell I am going to be able to squat heavy again the next day. At the World Masters Weightlifting Championships in Denmark this year, where I got a silver medal in the Men's 62 kg Division 35-40 Age group, I had the opportunity to talk with many of the athletes of varying ages from 35 all the way up to 90. Yes there where people still lifting at 90 years of age.

The general consensus was simple, it only gets worse. This is rather a mortifying fact for someone who is intent on lifting until the day he dies. 

So what now, where do I go from here. Well it all boils down to programming and periodization. I cant program heavy squat in the evening, and then again the next day. I simply cannot handle the load anymore. By now it should be rather evident that I consider Squats to be the quintessential exercise for an Olympic Weightlifter. I cant back squat heavy every day, let alone squat twice a day anymore. So what I do is alternate my back and front squats on separate days. This way I can Squat every day but have 48 hours between each. Now I know what you are thinking, but you are still squatting every day. Yes I am, but the subtle difference in the muscle recruitment and load allows me to recover sufficiently from one, in order to do the other.

Back squats are heavier than front squats and put more emphasis on the lower back and posterior chain. Whereas front squats use a much lighter load, and are more quadriceps and upper back intensive.

This philosophy of "Load and recovery" can be used with all lifts. Heavy cleans on one day, light Power Snatches the next. This way I can get through all of the exercises I need to do in a week, and still be able to walk the next day.

Different Theories, different styles:

There are many different styles of weightlifting. There are many different training techniques and philosophies. The Russian Principle, The Bulgarian Method, the Chinese philosophy, to name but a few. They all have their merits. They all have their good and bad points. There are many different ways of looking at all of these. Some Say do Heavy Pulls, some say Don’t. Some Say Squat Heavy twice a day, some say squat twice week. Everyone has an opinion. And Opinions are like assholes, we all got one.

Chinese Narrow Stance Clean

So which one would work best for you? Only you and your coach can decide that. I have been training for over 25 years and I am constantly updating my training philosophies and principles. Try them all, I say. So what fits you the best. Only you know what your body can handle, and what it can’t. I can’t train the same way now as I did in my 20’s. I have had to change my thinking around training in order to accommodate the fact that I am older than I was. I can no longer handle the Load of the Bulgarian Method. I am no longer recovering from training after a few hours, more like a few days. So I now train according to what my capabilities are. And you should do the same. Know thyself.

USA's Kendrick Farris Power Jerk

Every coach is different and has different styles and philosophies when it comes to coaching. No coach is alike. Just like personalities we all have our own way of doing things. And just like people we are all susceptible to being liked or disliked because of our views. No coach is always right. No coach knows everything there is to know. I certainly don’t. However I do try to know as much as I can, and keep as up to date with training philosophies as I can. Will my style differ from others, yes.  Will my terminology differ from others, yes.  As coaches we are all simply trying to help those who are as passionate about lifting as we are. We are never going to be perfect, but we will try and be as perfect as we can.

Guilty of Bias; A new Perspective on the Crossfit Games

I have to be honest, I am guilty. Guilty of being biased. You see I have had something of a change of heart in the last day regarding my last post. More of a realization actually. What I realized is that I have been looking at the Crossfit Games from the wrong perspective. Mine, as a weightlifting Coach. 

HEIGHT:	WEIGHT:
Men:	Men:
2011 – 70.1 2012 – 69.8 2013 – 69.7 2014 – 69.3	2011 – 188.7 2012 – 198.0 2013 – 195.2 2014 – 191.4
Woman:	Woman:
2011 – 65.0 2012 – 65.2 2013 – 64.9 2014 – 64.8	2011 – 139.1 2012 – 143.5 2013 – 142.1 2014 – 141.8

Crossfit is not Olympic weightlifting, and it is not trying to be. I should not have imposed my expectations and beliefs upon it. I have been looking at it from my own viewpoint and perspective this whole time, which was wrong.

 My opinion on Bodyweight exercises and whether it is easier for lighter lifters hasn’t changed. My opinion on whether it is unfair to have lighter lifters snatching the same weight as heavier lifters hasn’t changed. What has changed is my perspective on the games itself. All along it should have been the Crossfit athletes themselves I should have been looking at. 

So I decided to do a little research. When the 2014 Crossfit Regional’s workout was revealed this year many people assumed it would favor the smaller lighter athletes based on its emphasis on Gymnastic skills. It featured a max distance handstand walk, 150 pistols, 21 ring muscle-ups, 54 strict handstand push-ups, 54 burpees, 10 legless rope climbs, 50 ring dips, and 64 pull-ups. Below are the average Heights and Weights of the Crossfit Games individual Qualifiers over the years 2011-2014

Based on the above statistics it would seem that there was no significant decrease in qualifiers average weight. What does that say about the theory that Bodyweight exercises are easier for lighter athletes?

I decided to look further and found this great article over at www.theboxmag.com.

(Link below) The writer asks several top level Crossfit athletes their feelings on the one-size fits all philosophy on the Crossfit games. One athlete in particular gave his comments on being a smaller athlete competing in the games. Chris Spealler, at 151 lbs in undoubtedly one of the best light athletes around. When asked;

Do you think the Games are fair for all competitors?

"No, I don’t think CrossFit is fair. Anybody who does think its fair is stretching a bit. But I don’t think it’s designed to be fair. They do a good job of balancing things out, but I don’t think that every Game’s is fair."

As a lighter guy myself I feel Chris’s pain here. He seems to feel aggrieved by the fact that he has to compete against guys that are so much heavier than him. Who can blame him? He does however also seem to thrive on it. In the article he says he likes being the underdog, and goes on to say that he would like to see at least one event in each competition where the load was based on an athlete’s bodyweight.

What struck me most about his answers was that when asked whether he was interested in competing in bodyweight categories at the Games his answer was unequivocally NO. In fact all of the athletes pretty much unanimously agreed.

So what this tells me is that the athletes, those that are competing in the sport of Crossfit are happy with the current formula, and are not interested in having bodyweight categories.

The numbers and the norms don’t lie. If you want to succeed at the Crossfit Games as a Man you need to be 69.8 inches tall and around 195 lbs, and 65 inches and 142 lbs as a Woman. (Unless I finally hit that growth spurt at 40 I am sh1t out of luck)

You see Crossfit is not looking for the best weightlifter; it is not looking for the best tri-athlete or gymnast. No, Crossfit is looking for the best ATHLETE at all of the above. The best at doing all that encompasses Crossfit, hence their motto “The Fittest on Earth”

To read the full article with interviews from several athletes over at theboxmag.com  

CLICK HERE