Getting in the Game

July 15, 2012

T.J. Murphy

At the CrossFit Games, watching the best compete is just the beginning.

Saturday, July 14, 1100 hours, Carson, Calif., at the entrance at the Southwest corner of the Home Depot Center, site of the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games. 

I’m standing and layering on the sunscreen here near Section 105 of the 125-acre, $150-million athletic complex. The HDC is equipped to handle sports including soccer, tennis, track and field, cycling, volleyball, baseball, basketball and more, and it’s well suited for the multi-sport net that CrossFit casts. 
 
For the ticket-buying spectator there is far more to do here than simply watch the Games. From Section 105, you can hear the women’s individual Sprint and Rope-Sled competition being announced from the track that’s currently in use, and the word is it’s standing-room-only packed right now. If you want to see the likes of Annie Thorisdottir and Annie Sakamoto having at it live, now is the time. However, if you want to see what else the CrossFit Games has to offer the visitor, this is a good starting point.
 
A host of opportunities exist to get in a workout or get some coaching. This starts with 14 steps to the GNC booth, where a single stand-alone pull-up bar is drawing in CrossFitters to take part in a contest: max strict pull-ups for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate. This can serve as the beginning for your warm-up to jump into the ceaseless WODs and seminars being held at The CrossFit Experience, essentially an open-air box with a pull-up structure and other equipment that’s new for the Games. 
 
Right now Brian MacKenzie of CrossFit Endurance is giving 14 volunteers instruction in running mechanics. He’s just assigned 6 rounds of a 5-burpee/short-sprint met-con to show the impact of fatigue on mechanics. 
 
“Let’s see what happens between rounds 1 and 6,” he says ominously. 
 
The mini-seminars at the Games include a who’s who of CrossFit specialty-course coaches: Mike Burgener, Dr. Nicholas Romanov, Kelly Starrett, John Melbourne, Greg Amundson and more. Between the seminars, the leader of the CrossFit Experience, Chris Smith, invites spectators to try out WODs and join in team chippers. 
 
“We knew something was missing at the Games last year, and we really wanted to get some great spectator involvement,” Smith says. “We’ve also been filming demos of the WODs that are being included in the competition.”
 
Moving east, in the corridor between the main competition stadium to the south and the Athletes Village that’s been constructed in the HDC soccer stadium, I walk past the tents where Rogue and Reebok are selling apparel and gear. This is where you can start giving the credit card a workout. Rogue is selling everything from T-shirts to ergometers to rings to lacrosse balls for mobility. Reebok has three booths side-by-side. 
 
Beyond these are a row of CrossFit Specialty Course. Tractor tires are being flipped and heavy stones are being lifted in front. 
 
If you’ve bypassed the GNC pull-ups, the CrossFit Experience and the tire flipping, don’t think your chances to train are over. You have yet to enter the Vendor Village, which is the next stop on my map. 
 
On my way over, however, I can see athletes are doing thrusters and pull-ups in the Masters Competition area on the east side of the Home Depot Center. Who doesn’t want to watch others suffer through Fran?
 
It’s clear at the moment I approach the fence that they’re almost finished. One is in a wheelchair doing the workout scaled. My girlfriend, Gretchen Weber, is with me, and she points this out to me. A longtime member of San Francisco CrossFit, this is her first time to the Games.
 
“This is what’s different about CrossFit from other sports,” she says, nodding toward the the group the finished have now circled around the one athlete still working through his final nine thrusters. “In what other sport does the one who comes in last get the most applause?”
 
It’s true. The announcer is bringing it all up an octave as well.
 
“Everyone is watching! You’ve got to pick that bar up!”
 
“Just two more! One … two.”
 
As the last thruster is finished, the crowd roars. After the last pull-up, the crowd roars even more. According to the women at the Wounded Warrior Project booth, there are 10 veterans from all the military branches in the demonstration. They tell me that the Wouned Warrior Project isn’t just a state-side operation but that they also have representatives in the field, Afghanistan for example, and make contact with casualties immediately as part of the process of offering support, rehabilitation and engagement with something like CrossFit.
 
Alongside the Masters arena is Tent City, a rectangle of real estate where teams and CrossFit affiliates have set up their bases of operation, with massage tables, coolers of food and drink, tents, cots, chairs and music. It’s its own little ecosystem. 
 
On the southern border of Tent City is the Vendor Village. I have two words for anyone going into the Vendor Village: buckle up. 
 
Rows of vendor booths — approximately 100 —are selling everything from T-shirts to shoes to compression socks to toys (toy barbells, kettlebells) for children. My girlfriend remarks that I might want to invest in the toy kettlebell so I can have something to work on my Turkish get-up, which I admit is in a sad state of affairs. I causally ignore her. 
 
Booths for paleo foods, grass-fed beef and fish oil are equally ubiquitous as booths for gear — particularly jump ropes. Jump-rope demonstrations are being held throughout the Vendor Village. 
 
Visitors are encouraged to try out the equipment on display, and as I walked through the aisles I saw my fellow CrossFitters trying out handstand push-ups and practicing their gymnastics moves on rings. 
 
I couldn’t help noticing the Reebok Oasis, a huge lounge where CrossFitters were sitting back in on red or white sofas and watching the Games on any of the eight plasma screens. High-pressure oscillating misting systems sent a layer of cool air over the athletes as they sipped on cocktails acquired from a circular bar in the middle of the oasis.
 
With effort, I resisted the desire to join them and walked to the far end of the Village, where Rogue Fitness had set up yet another outdoor box where spectators could sign up to do WODs and get in a coached workout. On tap for today: Christine from 1-4 p.m. It was sold out. However, there were still slots for Fran available, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., and looking over at the pull-up bars you could see a small group of athletes suffering through the famous workout. 
 
Lots of options. At this moment, one has the option to go check out a Mike Burgener seminar, go watch the competition, go buy stuff, go get a grass-fed burger with no bun, or pony up and do Fran. Or there are those sofas and tequila drinks in the Oasis.
 
At the CrossFit Games, there’s no reason to be bored. And there’s no excuses.