The 2011 Reebok Crossfit Games Recap

So the 2011 Reebok Crossfit Games are officially over! What did we learn this weekend? Here are some of my thoughts

- I predicted 4 out of the top 5 women and I was really close to putting Rebecca Voigt in 5th which would've made me 5 for 5. I predicted 2 of the top 5 men. I predicted both winners (Annie and Rich). I predicted that Crossfit New England would be one of the two teams that could possibly win. Bottom line - I'm the Nostradamous of Crossfit

- Too bad Mikko Salo was out so early. It was such a tragedy. For him to finish that first workout from having his eardrum blown out shows great courage. If he had competed, I don't think he could've beat Rich but he would definitely have top 5 potential.

- Big Congratulations to Crossfit Taranis (3rd place team) and Angie Pye (10th place women), for representing BC!

- Rich and Annie have a legitimate chance of repeating next year being the first 2 repeat champs. I haven't felt like this for the past winners ever.

- The only man who has a chance at giving Rich a run for his money is Josh Bridges. He is LEGIT. In fact, IMO, he was the most impressive this weekend.

- I thought the programming for this year's games was the best programming ever. It truly spanned broad time and modal domains. I felt that it truly represented the fittest man and women in the world. The only error they made was the softball throw, they should have put a shotput throw in place, it would have been a better representation of upper body power/core to extremity power. Softball throw was too biased to those with that skill already.

- I am already excited for next year!!!

2011 Reebok Crossfit Games Predictions!!!

Hello fellow crossfit dudes and dudettes! The 2011 Reebok Crossfit Games are upon us! In T-Minus 1 day, approximately 50 men and 50 women, along with 40 some-odd teams will battle it out for the claim to be the fittest man, woman, and team in the world!

With the announcement of the individual 1st event which includes a swimming portion, and the 2nd and 5th events which includes multiple skills tests, the programming for this year's games are off to a fantastic start! This year's Games has the potential to be the best test of fitness out of all the prior games. With that in mind, it's time for some predictions. You can't have a competition without some predictions from Phatty himself.

Teams:

I believe it's going to be a battle between Crossfit Invictus and Crossfit New England. (I know, not really going out on a limb here). My underdog pick is Crossfit Taranis from Victoria, BC to crack the top 10. BC represent! Woot! woot!

Individual Women's:

1. "Iceland" Annie Thorisdottir - this is a last second change, but I believe Annie is prime to take it this year upsetting Kristin Clever's chance to be the first repeat champ.

2. Kristin Clever - It's going to be close between Kristin and Annie the whole weekend but there can only be one winner!

3. Samantha Briggs

4. Julie Foucher

5. Michelle Kinney

This year's Camille award aka relative newcomer darkhorse to make a name for herself: Angie Pye


Individual Men's:

1. Rich Froning Jr. - no need to explain this choice

2. Mikko Salo - ditto

3. Dan Bailey - He has some weaknesses ie. gymnastics so he could fall, but I think his strengths will pull him up

4. Ben Smith - I like this pick here because not many people have him in the top 5

5. Chris Spealler - hard to choose between Speal, Austin, and Josh Bridges here but Speal has the experience and best overall skillset out of any athlete

This year's Austin Malleolo award aka relative newcomer darkhorse who nobody is talking about: Joseph Weigel

How are the Canadians gonna do? Those 2 guys from Eastern Canada are gonna be near the bottom, Lukas Parker has a chance to crack the top 15-20. Jeremy Meredith will end up 20-25. Both very respectable showings!

p.s. I think either Mikko Salo or Matt Chan will take event 1. See y'all tomorrow!

Crossfit Power Rankings July 2011

Crossfit Power Rankings are based by the most recent performance by the athletes in past Games, Regionals, and the Open. More weight is given to the bigger the stage of the performance.

Men:

1. Rich Froning Jr.
2. Graham Holmberg
3. Chris Spealler
4. Matt Chan
5. Mikko Salo
6. Dan Bailey
7. Austin Malleolo
8. Ben Smith
9. Jason Khalipa
10. Josh Bridges
11. Daniel Tyminski
12. Joseph Weigel
13. Nathaniel Schrader
14. Philip Kniep
15. David Stowe
16. Mikko Aronpaa
17. Patrick Burke
18. Gabe Subry
19. Pat Barber
20. Nick Uranker

Women:

1. Kristen Clever
2. Annie Thorisdottir
3. Jessica Parmanian
4. Julie Foucher
5. Samantha Briggs
6. Michelle Kinney
7. Becky Conzelman
8. Rebecca Voigt
9. Stacie Tovar
10. Camille Leblanc-Bazinet
11. Angie Pye
12. Elyse Umeda
13. Lisa Shiu
14. Amy Dracup
15. Christy Phillips

Crossfit Regionals Week 2 Recap

So Week 2 of the Crossfit Games Regionals we had the Mid-Atlantic, Norcal, Canada East, and Europe. In my opinion probably the most competitive of all the regionals. This weekend's regionals had everyone talking about one guy, A.J. Moore.

Mid-Atlantic

- A.J. Moore finished 1, 2, 2, 30, 2, 6. His 30th place finish in the 100s workout (it should be officially called that) is definitely an outlier. Apparently he had 59 missed reps on his kettlebell swings during this workout and there is video evidence of this. You be the judge.

My 2 cents: Sure, some of them shouldn't have counted but given the context of the situation, as a judge, you need to balance being strict but also give some leeway according to how your other fellow judges are judging the other athletes. If the other judges are being more lenient and letting things slide, you should back off a bit also. I can understand 10 no-reps, maybe even 20. But 60 no-reps when you have to do 100 total? I think that's a little too harsh.

- There is now a campaign to get A.J. Moore to the Games, and deservedly so cause he would be a beast in Cali.

- Ben Smith won the last 3 workouts, look out for him. Current prediction: Definitely top 10

Norcal

- Maybe the most stacked regional of all the regionals. We have 5 athletes in this regionals who were in last year's games and they finished 1-5, duh.

- Jason Khalipa dominated the weekend

- Neal Maddox gets to go to the Games because Khalipa gets a free pass for being a previous Games champ.

- Too bad, Big Dawg, Joey Warren just missed out. If he was in any other regional, he woulda made it

- On the girl's side, big ups for 30 some-odd year old Annie Sakamoto for qualifying. Old School.

Canada East

- I don't think any of the men who qualified will be big contenders this year. They should've combined Canada as one regional again this year. It would've been interesting to see how that would have turned out with 4 guys qualifying. I haven't checked the numbers but all 4 guys potentially could've been from out west.

- Camille (F'n hottest badass chick in Crossfit) Leblanc-Bazinet completely annihilated the competition. She won every event except for a third place finish in the last workout which she probably could also have won if she wanted to. She is a force to be reckoned with. At this rate, wouldn't be surprised to see a top 5 finish from her at the Games.

Europe

- Outstanding performances for Tuomas Vainio but he can't do muscle ups well so that's his Achilles heal

- The other Mikko needs an extra year to be truly competitive.

- Annie dominated to nobody's surprise and it will be damn fun to watch her and Kristin battle it out at the Home Depot Center. Can any woman challenge these 2? Camille? Becky Conzelmen? Angie Pie? We'll see....

Next week, we'll have Central East, North West, South West, and Asia doing battle. Until next time.

Musings from the CrossFit Games Canada West Regional

- All six events were won by three athletes in the male division: Lucas Parker (1st), Jeremy Meredith (2nd) and Steve Howell (4th).

- If you look at the scoreboard, you'll see one blip on Howell's scorecard, the thruster workout where he accumulated 20 points, if he had lifted 10lbs more, he would've gotten 7 fewer points, putting him ahead of Meredith.

- It's been mentioned before, but if there were no cutoffs after day 2, and everyone competed in the last day, the standings would definitely look different, but would it change the top 2 who gets to advance? If so, Crossfit HQ might wanna re-visit that idea.

- Jeremy Meredith finished in chronological order: 1st, 2nd, 7th, 1st, 9th, and 10th. He blames it on his nutrition on the last day. He's got 8 weeks to figure out what went wrong.
ps. I have video on my iphone of him cleanly and successfully thrustering 255lbs so he shoulda got 1st on that WOD too. I don't know why it was a mis-rep. Does anybody have an explanation?

- If we compare the top 10 from the Sectionals to the Regionals, you'll see that most guys at the top stayed at the top save for Nate Beveridge (mainly cause of his goat, handstand push-ups) and Brian Carter. Carter finished in 9th place overall in the Sectionals and 40th at the Regionals. But if you look closer, his placings at the Sectionals were 2, 4, 5, 50, 29, 32. So does that mean he got progressively less fit during the opens? Did he lose work capacity as the opens went on? Hmm.....

- Over on the Women's division, it was all about the story of the Taranis Twins (they needed a nickname), Angie Pie and Alicia Connors who dominated the weekend winning all the events between the two of them.

- Angie Pie is gonna be a HUGE Crossfit Celebrity. You heard it here first. She is gonna be this year's Camille Leblanc-Bazinet. She's got the looks and the work capacity to back it up. Watch out for her.

- Angie finished 28th in the world during the Opens and WILL place top 15 at this year's games.

- Gotta give a shout out to my man, Pete Kendrick, 9th place, gutsy performances all around. Brrraaap.

- Finally, Congratulations to Lucas, Jeremy, Angie, Alicia, Crossfit Taranis and Crossfit Vancouver for qualifying to the games. Go Canada Go!

Fitness Goals of the 2012 Crossfit Season!

After the 6 week long open sectionals of the Crossfit games, I went through 6 workouts and learned a lot about myself, my skill level, and my work capacity. I ended up finishing in 172nd place out of 455 participants in my region. Out of those 455 participants, only 340 were able to complete all six workouts. So completing all the workouts was an achievement, however, I still want to make huge improvements so that I can reach the top 60 next year.

In my quest to the qualify for the Canada West regionals of 2012. I plan on achieving these goals by the time the sectionals start next year. I feel that by posting these goals on my blog, I will hold myself accountable to reach them.

400lb Deadlift
300lb Back Squat
225lb Clean & Jerk
200lb Overhead Squat
175# Snatch

sub 4:00 Fran
sub 9:00 Helen
sub 4:00 Diane
sub 7:30 2K Row

20 rounds of Cindy
50 unbroken pull-ups
10 unbroken muscle ups

That's all for now. It's a good list to start. Now, you can all hold me accountable for trying to reach my goals. I'll revisit this post a year from now.