Ninjas beware. The new and improved "big man" is coming for you.
Even the most elite CrossFitters suffer from nerves.
Courtney Wuistinger, atop the South Central Leaderboard after week three, is used to feeling nervous in a competitive atmosphere, but the anxiety always passes within five to 10 minutes of the workout’s start.
Last Friday, on the cusp of tackling 13.3, Wuistinger couldn’t shake the nerves. The veteran, a seventh-place finisher at Regionals last year, says he let high expectations get the better of him.
At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, he didn’t worry about the first two components of 13.3. But he wanted desperately to get through a round of muscle-ups and back to the wall ball. In the last year, he’d worked hard on high-skill gymnastics movements such as muscle-ups and toes-to-bars, which are often a challenge for athletes his size. What’s more, the professional engineer and self-professed nerd had strategized the workout to deliver, with precision, the score he wanted.
Despite feeling “wrong,” Wuistinger went anyway, smashing Karen in a time of 5:05. He broke the double-unders into three manageable sets and started the muscle-ups with his strategy firmly in mind.
“I had planned on doing five-by-three, then some singles to recover and doubles to finish,” he says. “But that plan didn’t work at all.”
Wuistinger struggled through five minutes of muscle ups, failing on at least six reps, which — as many CrossFitters will tell you — takes both a physical and psychological toll.
With a full 10 seconds left in the workout, Wuistinger walked away from the rings in disgust. His 259 reps were three fewer than his score from last year.
While he is not a fan of re-doing Open workouts — “I think repeats are copouts, especially since CrossFit is all about unknown/unknowable and variable fitness,” he says.
However, he made an exception with 13.3, viewing the workout as a personal challenge that needed to be met.
“I needed to prove to everyone and myself that I’m better than that, especially for a Games hopeful,” he says.
On Sunday, he felt no calmer, but a friend named Robyn — a friend and fellow athlete at CrossFit BOLT in Coppell, Texas — delivered a message that made all the difference in the world.
“She looked me in the eyes, and told me this: ‘Court, we don’t care. We don’t care! We love you anyway, no matter what. I love you. Your wife loves you. Matt (McCraney, his coach and owner of CrossFit BOLT), your friends, your family, we all love you. And God loves you. You’ve done so much for all of us, more than anyone expects you to do. And we love you for that. That’s all that matters.’”
Despite soreness and knee pain, Wuistinger finished Karen in less than five minutes. Double-unders were not a problem, and then it was time to confront the rings again. Wuistinger “felt great” after four sets of three. Four sets of doubles followed before he switched to singles. He went on to fail on two singles, but ended with 29 muscle-ups total, a marked improvement over his first attempt.
“Was I happy? Yes and no,” he says. “I knew I could get back to the wall. Had I not had the two misses, I would have had an additional 40 seconds at the wall, where I probably could have gotten 20 to 25 extra wall balls.”
Still, the effort — 269 reps — was good enough to land Wuistinger at the top of the region’s Leaderboard. Not shabby for a big guy in an Open competition that arguably favors the smaller “ninja” athletes who are proficient with light to moderate loads and gymnastics/bodyweight movements.
Wuistinger is quick to attribute his success to McCraney and the community at CrossFit BOLT.
“Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own heads, with our high expectations not only of our own performance, but at how that performance is viewed by others, that we lose sight of what really matters in life,” he says. “Thankfully, I’m surrounded by some of the best friends (whom I consider family) anyone could have. I hope everyone is so lucky. Compete for the things and people that really matter.”
As for the Open, he’s happy to be at the top, but is looking forward to Regionals where the workouts — if last year is any measure — should play to his strength.
Wuistinger has always been good at moving weight around and quickly, but in the last year he’s focused on technique and efficiency. Add these improvements to the huge strides he’s made in the arena of gymnastics — though he readily admits that pistols still hurt both his body and soul — and Wuistinger makes a good bet for the podium at Regionals in May.
Ninjas beware. The new and improved “big man” is coming for you.
