No Mistakes: Daniel Tyminski

July 20, 2013

Keka Schermerhorn

“His Regional performance was good and bad. He did well, but a mistake cost him the weekend. We can't and won't have mistakes at the Games.”


 

Daniel Tyminski earned his invitation to the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games by finishing the 2013 North East Regional in second place behind Austin Malleolo. A mistake during Jackie cost him not just the event win, but a Regional win, as well.  

He made easy work of the 1,000-meter row, 50 empty bar thrusters and 29 pull-ups, and raced to the finish mat ahead of the others.

There, on the mat, he heard his judge calling him back to the pull-up rig.

“I couldn’t hear the judge count, so I was counting in my head,” Tyminski says. “And apparently ended up one short.” 

That one pull-up took mere seconds, but in that time three men got ahead. Tyminski hit the mat for the second time at 5:24, just four seconds behind the event winner Christian Harris (5:20) and two seconds behind Eric Magee and Austin Malleolo (5:22).

Although his miscount cost him the Event 1 win, he made up ground later in the weekend. He won Event 3 — 30 burpee muscle-ups for time in 4:49 — and Event 6, the grueling chipper of double-unders, handstand push-ups, toes-to-bars, shoulder-to-overheads with the fat axle bar and walking lunges with the axle in the front rack in 9:29.

Despite his two event wins, and top-six performances on every event, he ended the weekend one point away from first place.

“I really wanted first since I’ve come in second three years in a row now. I wanted to win that shit,” he says. “Everyone thought I was gonna take first at the Regional. But to be honest, I was nowhere near the conditioning level I was at last year. I had done a lot less met-cons and really focused on efficiency of movement. Now that the Regional is over, training has been very diverse, from long weighted runs, to swimming and triathlons, to super heavy lifting and a lot of odd objects.”  

On the road to his third consecutive trip to the CrossFit Games, Tyminski has encountered a few firsts. For the first time in his seven years of CrossFit, he has a coach. He is also no longer responsible for his own programming. After meeting Rudy Nielsen (Outlaw CrossFit) at a competition, Tyminski decided to give the Outlaw programming a try.   

“I met Rudy in December of 2012. We became instant friends and I had this weird feeling about me becoming one of his athletes,” Tyminski says. “I liked what was going on and his ideas, thoughts, wisdom and beard. I really wanted to excel, so I figured I would follow his programming.”

As luck would have it, Tyminski’s success in the sport despite his lack of coaching also intrigued Nielsen.

“I fell in love with him when he called his shot on a front squat and muscle-up workout, by telling me he would do the muscle-ups unbroken,” Nielsen says. “I wanted to coach him — partially because I simply liked him — when I watched his lifts and knowing the kind of gymnastics and cardio he already had. I knew that if we cleaned some stuff up that we’d see a ton of improvement. I love his attitude and thought it would be beyond fun to coach him. Luckily, I wasn’t wrong.”

The relationship quickly evolved and Tyminski became a member of the Outlaw team, joining Games veterans Elisabeth Akinwale and Brandon Swan, and newcomers Matt Hathcock and Natalie McLain.

“We are a team without a doubt, but we all know that this is a one-person show,” Tyminski says. “So we are ready at any moment to take each other out. We are all also very close, so to let that get in the way of our friendship is absurd. We know the deal and we will definitely help each other out and push each other to our full potential.”

Nielsen is happy with the improvements Tyminski has made so far. Their focus on efficiency of movement has paid off in a big way.

“He went from a guy that was inconsistent with the 225 to 245-lb. range on the snatch to a 290-lb. one-rep max and the ability to hit that 225 to 245-lb. range all day long,” Nielsen says. “Everything he was good at before has also gotten better along the way. A month or so ago he did 30 muscle-ups for time in 2:08, which as far as I know is the fastest time on video.”  

Tyminski has also been experimenting with pacing and planning how to approach a workout.

“I think (through the years) I have become a smarter athlete,” Tyminski says. “Rudy and I go back and forth about pacing. We both think it is super important to pace any workout properly, but he has added a whole new world for me with it. Using the metronome for 13.1 was very awesome for those burpees. And the 100s (Event) at Regionals — strict game plan with that workout that we both came up with.”

The time-cap for Event 4 was 25 minutes. Tyminski stuck to the plan and finished the Event in third place (24:43), with 17 seconds to spare.

“His Regional performance was good and bad. He did well, but a mistake cost him the weekend. We can’t and won’t have mistakes at the Games,” Nielsen says. “It was also our first time working together in a competition and I think we learned a lot about each other.”

In 2011, his first trip to the Games, Tyminski finished the weekend in 25th place. In 2012, he moved up 11 spots to finish in 14th place. He has high expectations for himself at the Games this year. Nielsen just wants to see him reach his potential.  

“My expectations for him at the Games aren’t really based in position,” Nielsen says. “I know how good Dan is. I know what he can do in comparison to the best men in the sport. If he performs at his best, I’ll be happy with the final outcome, no matter where he falls on the Leaderboard.”

While Tyminski is training under a strict loading schedule to ensure he is at his peak at the Games, his eating hasn’t been as constricted.

“I’ve been eating a lot of donuts lately,” Tyminski says. “They are amazing and make me feel really good inside!”