"Life still goes on even if you're not competing. You can still enjoy CrossFit."
After a second-place finish at the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games, Julie Foucher walked away.
Leaving the sport she loved, no matter how honorable, was the most difficult decision the 25-year-old has made, she said. But after weighing her options of school or competition, school won.
“It was hard for a while,” she said. “You start thinking that you’re losing ground and everyone is getting much better than you. But I felt content knowing that I didn’t have an option. If anything, it motivated me to just want to get back out there.”
Since the three-time Games competitor (fifth place in 2010 and 2011) was not training for the 2013 season, she was in the gym four to five hours a week—a far cry from the usual 15-20 hours she was used to.
“Life still goes on even if you're not competing,” she said. “You can still enjoy CrossFit.”
Enjoy she did. She was truly appreciating her rare time training, much like a child savors those trips to an amusement park. The remainder of her week, except for sleeping and eating, was dedicated to the first part of her medical boards—a three-stage exam that would decide just how committed to becoming a doctor she really was.
“When the exam was really close, all I did was lifting,” she said.
Back to Training
Doug Chapman, Foucher’s coach and CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff, was the mastermind behind her lack of conditioning work during the few hours of training she was putting in the gym. Foucher trusted her coach and worked her self-admitted weakness: raw strength.
She said she survived the squats, the studying, the deadlifts, the presses and the sleepless nights with more coffee than any one human should consume. In June 2013, a month before the Games, she passed her boards.
Her victory party? A Games-specific training camp at her coach's affiliate, CrossFit Ann Arbor. Her training partners for the weekend? CrossFit Games athletes Neal Maddox and Jennifer Smith.
“At that point, I felt out of shape,” she said with a laugh. “But I got my skills and (metabolic conditioning) back faster than I thought.”
To get back the lungs she’s known for, Foucher dove back into Chapman’s programming—a system followed by athletes all over the world, built on the foundations taught at CrossFit Level 1 Seminars every weekend: mechanics, consistency and intensity.
“We follow CrossFit principles of constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity,” Chapman said. “We add some layers beyond the GPP program as we have a known season. The GPP program gets people generally fit, then we add skill and strength development.”
It varies, but Chapman’s athletes train two hours a day or more, five days a week. Most days, they hit traditional strength training like deadlifts or squats in varying increments. Five sets of five or five triples, depending on the week. After that, athletes may practice various skills like handstand push-ups and the Olympic lifts.
Chapman even provides delightful names to his demands. “MOFO,” for instance, has athletes alternating two barbell movements on the minute for 10 minutes, increasing percentages each week. Whereas “Prison Rules,” another enticing title, urges athletes to get the work done and get off the barbell as soon as possible, usually in 15-second work intervals with very little rest, for four minutes.
Chapman’s athletes, Foucher included, follow the same programming he sends them every Saturday evening via email. They report back on Beyond the Whiteboard or by video, and they’re encouraged to attend occasional training camps. Though Chapman’s training fluctuates, critical times like regionals and the Games are marked mainly with volume.
“Add volume before taper,” he said about the cycle that gets his athletes through the most demanding times. “We do it every year, just like every other sport.”
World-Class Coaching
Foucher's training this year doesn’t end with Chapman. While training at CrossFit Distinction or Ctown CrossFit in Cleveland, Ohio, she regularly makes the trip to Gym World in Brecksville, to work with 1996 Olympic gold medalist, Dominique Moceanu and her husband Mike Canales.
“I just wanted to put more emphasis on gymnastics,” Foucher said. “I was good at regular CrossFit gymnastic stuff, but as soon as something a little different came up, I failed. Like the parallettes in 2012.”
The splinter lodged just beneath the skin that Foucher remembers was the MedBall Handstand Push-up Event. Foucher, then in first place above two-time CrossFit Games champion Annie Thorisdottir, reached for the parallettes and kicked upside down. She lowered until the top of her head came to rest on three yellow plates sitting just inches below her hands. She violently and repeatedly thrust her hips, paused, splayed her legs into a “V” and arched her back, paused again at halfway … then fell. No rep.
She finished the event in 27th place, failing to complete it within the 10-minute cap.
“For gymnastics, you need someone right there for immediate feedback,” she said about the added value of hands-on corrections.
To warm-up, Moceanu and Canales have Foucher do some light tumbling—forward and backward rolls—and cartwheels. It sounds simple enough, but “it’s great for body awareness,” Foucher said. “They make you dizzy and help set your equilibrium.”
After that, they practice various techniques meant to enhance Foucher’s overall performance.
“Gymnastics is the most fundamental of sports,” Moceanu said. “Quite simply, when one trains in gymnastics, they become a better athlete.”
No matter what they do, however, handstand push-ups are never forgotten.
“She came to us wanting to improve the stability of her handstand, increase her body awareness, and become more flexible,” Moceanu said. “Most of all she aimed to improve her strength (and) confidence in the deficit handstand push-ups as it cost her the 2012 CrossFit Games championship. Julie has never been more comfortable in the uncomfortable, and I can assure you that her gymnastics and overall fitness has never been stronger.”
Foucher never argues with her coaches. She just does the work.
“It is Julie’s conviction in our gymnastics training plan that has set her apart,” Moceanu said. “During a training cycle, it is inevitable for an athlete to waver in their confidence of the plan. However, Julie has never questioned our tactics. She’s convinced that we’re progressing in a manner that will convert into what we call the “CrossFit Currency.”
The former Olympian said CrossFit has brought a new level of visibility to the sport of gymnastics. Athletes who might never have experienced gymnastics before, because of CrossFit, find themselves learning the basics of body movement.
There is a lot to learn and never enough time. But when cornered, Moceanu said drills are a good place to start … and a great place to stay.
“I'd recommend handstands with one's stomach against the wall while opening one’s shoulder angle with a flat hip position, without a pike in body line,” she said. “Three 30-second handstands against the wall can be performed daily and can improve one’s handstand and overall fitness within weeks.”
The Open and Beyond
In 2013, Foucher competed in the Open with no intention to advance to the next stage of the competition. After five workouts, she ended in a two-way tie for 14th place in the Central East Region.
At the close of the 2014 Open, she’s third in the Central East, just behind Games competitors Jennifer Smith and Michelle Kinney, and 14th worldwide.
“The Open was good,” she said. “It wasn’t 100 percent of what I hoped it would be, but I learned from it.”
So far, her most memorable moment of the season came during the snatches and double-unders of 14.1. When the workout was announced, Foucher was buckled and bedridden fighting a stomach bug. She rested for a few days, barely ate anything and finally attempted it on Monday.
When she hit the point of no return—that spot in a workout where you know there’s more to give but it’s gonna hurt if you give it—she realized just how weak she still was and uncharacteristically hesitated.
“I just held back a lot,” she said. “It just reminded me that to be successful, I need to walk away feeling like I’ve given all I have. I didn’t feel like that.”
By the time the Open ended, she said she was thankful for the couplet that was more bullwhip than season opener. For Foucher, the Open isn’t just about the next stage. It’s about getting to the next stage with the right mindset.
“As long as you're in the top 48, you’re all in the same field at regionals,” she said. “But if you struggle in the Open it can affect you at regionals. It’s more a mental thing.”
In the year Foucher took off, the competition got stronger. And while she may have anxiously watched from the sidelines, she got something no other competitor received. A chance to sit back and remember just how much she wanted to compete.
“My goal is to be confident going into every workout,” she said, “and walk away knowing I gave everything I had."
