Unlike many athletes at the California Regional, Ronnie Teasdale is not training for the CrossFit Games.
“I’m training to be able to do everything,” he said.
For Teasdale, “everything” includes a bar muscle-up into a top-of-the-bar pistol, bouncing a volleyball on a PVC pipe while standing with one foot on a slackline, and hula-hooping in a Speedo. Teasdale’s Instagram feed is filled with videos of him completing seemingly impossible feats of balance and strength like these.
Like Teasdale, Kristan Clever has some unconventional training methods, testing the limits of her strength and balance on the rings, parallel bars, and performing nose-to-floor strict handstand push-ups.
Both Teasdale and Clever initially shifted away from the barbell because of injuries, but found joy in these bodyweight movements.
“I had some knee issues and to give them a break, I focused on gymnastics, flexibility and mobility. It’s the most interesting part of my training,” Clever said.
“The reason I don’t do barbell stuff is because I have three tears in my shoulder labrums (from competing in hockey). I do all that silly stuff because of my injury,” Teasdale said.
Regional Nate
Clever and Teasdale were both excited when “Regional Nate” was announced. Each knew they would enjoy the event’s strict muscle-ups, strict handstand push-ups and kettlebell snatches.
“It wasn’t a surprise to see strict movements. I thought there would be an event with strict movements two years ago,” Clever said.
“I am a fan of this workout,” Teasdale said, “because it’s athleticism. There’s no escaping strict movements. (Castro) programmed strict muscle-ups before strict pull-ups. He skipped over strict pull-ups.”
Clever, knowing the event would be long, broke up the muscle-ups early. She had to pace herself.
“I knew I was going to break up the muscle-ups early and expected to go to singles because I knew at some point I would have to rest. I did the first round unbroken and thought that might hurt me,” she said.
It didn’t.
While women around her slowed down or stalled out on the rings, Clever maintained her steady pace. She said she kept thinking she might be on the verge of failure, but gave herself pep talks to continue.
Her words of encouragement to herself are similar to what she says to her athletes at Valley CrossFit.
“I tell them when it’s getting hard to focus on what you’re doing well, even if everything else is going wrong,” Clever says. Toward the end of “Regional Nate,” Clever said out loud (but really just to herself), “get to the handstand push-ups, those are fun.”
The words of encouragement worked, and Clever won her heat and the event. She finished Day 1 in sixth place overall.
Teasdale, competing at his sixth regional, said he didn’t test out the event ahead of time. Wearing his signature jorts, which he debuted at the 2011 SoCal Regional (page 6), Teasdale stayed smooth and calm during his muscle-ups, taking 16th place.
At the end of the first day, Teasdale sits low on the Leaderboard in 26th place, but he seemed unconcerned with the standings.
“I’m just trying to collect life experiences,” he said. “This is an awesome life experience. I love comparing myself (to the other athletes). The bars are all set up. We get physical therapy,” he said about his experience as an athlete.
Teasdale said he takes the “constantly varied” concept in CrossFit very seriously. Every day he wakes up and thinks, “what can’t I do?” and then he attacks that skill or movement.
“I fell in love with CrossFit six years ago under the idea of constantly varied movement,” Teasdale said. “I don’t spend 10 hours in the gym because I want life experiences,” he said, which could include riding a unicycle through downtown L.A. or the aforementioned Speedo hula-hooping.
“I’m at the California Regional and my life is awesome. This is awesome.”
Then Teasdale paused and looked at me, and even though we had just met, “you are awesome,” he said.
