"CrossFit is almost all conditioning, but it is comprehensive, it gets logged and you see the improvement almost immediately."
When it comes to the CrossFit Games, how you stack up to the rest of the field over the course of the season is demonstrated broadly in the Open. The field is narrowed at Regionals, and a champion is crowned at the CrossFit Games. The Games are an event where the talents, strengths and weaknesses of the fittest are compared. Julie Foucher is returning for her third attempt to prove why she deserves that crown.
The Path to the Podium
Foucher was a competitive sprinter in high school and relates this to CrossFit.
“I liked the short intense workouts CrossFit provides right away,” she says.
Not to mention the competitive atmosphere. “I missed the team,” Foucher says about the lull between high school and CrossFit. “I missed the coach telling you what to do everyday.”
When Foucher wasn’t sprinting, she was swinging, vaulting and twirling her way to a hard-fought gymnastics background. This background clearly serves her well in her relatively new CrossFit career. “CrossFit is a lot like conditioning for gymnastics, but with gymnastics it was just something added on that you had to do,” she says. “CrossFit is almost all conditioning, but it is comprehensive, it gets logged and you see the improvement almost immediately.”
Foucherʼs gymnastic beginnings left her with a refined talent her competitors may envy. Especially while watching the small athlete compete next to her larger competition. Gymnasts are taught to be good at everything and Foucher admits even before CrossFit, her specialty was not specializing.
“I can’t really tell you what my specialty was, I didn’t really have one,” she says. “I wasn’t great at anything, just good at everything.”
Coach relationships
Foucherʼs relationship with her coach Doug Chapman started at CrossFit Ann Arbor. Even though some things have changed over the years, the Foucher/Chapman relationship has not. If anything, it is stronger than ever.
“My favorite part about training with Doug is the structure,” she explains. “He really makes sure every area is covered and that you don’t have to think.”
After Foucherʼs second year competing at the CrossFit Games in 2011, her focus as a medical student began in Ohio, away from coach and fellow CrossFitters in Michigan. Although Foucherʼs destiny took her from Michigan to Ohio, her passion for training and her loyalty to her coach never wavered.
“I like being coached, and I don’t want to ever worry about my training. Doug does that,” Foucher says.
Chapman enjoys training Foucher, as well.
“My favorite thing about training Julie is her attitude,” Chapman says. “Rarely says, ‘I can't.’ Always ready to tackle the task at hand. Always does everything. If it is something impossible, she finds a way.”
On and off the floor
Foucher has a raw power, shaped with refined habits practiced until the end results leave a crowd in awe. “One of the most moving things is having the young girls come up to meet me,” Foucher says.
For Foucher, Regionals was just as much about winning, as it was about helping. To this day, Foucher remains in contact with several young faces she meets at competition.
The cameras caught all of the record breaking performances at the 2012 Central East Regional, but they missed the autographs, the hugs and the tears created by someone going out of their way to make someone else’s day. They missed Foucher working harder, and with more feeling, off the floor than she did on the floor.
“Those young girls are being so influenced by other people,” Foucher says. “They need that force saying, ‘Be strong, be who you are’.”
Foucher, with all her grace and power will compete with the world's fittest. She will be prepared for whatever happens. Her strength comes from within, and she will never stop serving as an example for young athletes by never giving up.
