CrossFit Presents the 2nd Annual CrossFit Games: July 5-6, 2008 in Aromas, CA

I said there were a couple exercises I did not want to see come out of the hopper...this would be one of them. Who is the masochist who drug this heavy beast out? I think I owe someone a kick to the crotch.... ;) Oh well, 3-2-1 GO!

For those of you looking up past "Grace" performances by the athletes, keep in mind that officially "Grace" does not specify a power clean or squat clean. Sunday's however, does.

Get some.

For those of you looking up past "Grace" performances by the athletes, keep in mind that officially "Grace" does not specify a power clean or squat clean. Sunday's however, does.

Get some.

I should be bodyweight clean and jerk. that way the 135 lb guy does 135 lbs, and the 225 lb guy does 225 lbs

My money's on the coach with the big CJ and the 90 sec Isabel. Squat cleans will add 2-4 min to everyones typical time

Competitors from ROGUE FITNESS of Columbus, you are ROCKIN' THE HOUSE!!

CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB WELL DONE -- WHAT A WAY TO REPRESENT

GOOD LUCK ON SUNDAY "YOU GOT THIS"

Peace,
Carolyn

Everyone at Rogue wishes you the best!!

I was going to say Josh Everett should kill this but then I remembered that he prefers split snatch because he has bad knees. Good luck to everyone!

Great form on the burpees SD. You are representing HC2 well. And nice shoes.

Stu

Go get em Rick....You deserve it bro!

Does anyone know why boz and amundson didn't compete..for that matter, is amudson alive?

Here comes Josh Everett! This could be a photo finish.

Congrats to all the competitors. Takes a LOT of heart.

What a great comp so far.

I was hoping to see a CFT for Sunday but the C&Js should be tough.

I wonder how different the results would be if the stronger guys had been allowed to increase the loads for their deads and had been awarded some time reduction for doing so: eg. for every extra 10lb used over the prescribed load they reduce their total time by 1 second per rep.

That way a guy like Welbourne, who is obviously going to be slower doing burpees than a light guy, could make up a bit of time with the load he was deadlifting.

A 345 dead rather than a 275 would give him 7 seconds off his time for each rep which would work out at a total time saving of 2 mins 55 sec (175 seconds). That would take his 06:30 time down to 03:35. Of course, as he would have taken longer to complete the workout, his adjusted time might have been more like 04:30. That would at least see him placed in the top 50 for that event.

Probably far too complicated to manage that for lots of different competitors but it would have given the big heavy guys more of a chance. The run is always going to favour the light guy - they are doing a lot less work.

Loi, wtf are you talking about? Spiel had to deadlift 2x his body weight. You make it sound like the heavier guys are at some kind of disadvantage here. Perhaps one day they will have age groups and weight classes. I hope not but who knows. Things balance out and the fittest person is the winner.

I wouldn't say for a moment that "light guys do less work" - but I would contend that moving a weight over a greater distance (like tall guys have to) takes longer...

... maybe if horsepower (or something that takes distance into account) was calculated, for example, we'd see things even out a bit.

Hey Joe, I'm not taking anything away from Spiel. That's not it at all. But if you just look at any performance charts, smaller guys invariably lift a greater proportion of their bodyweight. If you take the deadlift, a 160lb guy who is a good deadlifter might pull 400lb whereas a 300lb guy might pull 500lb (assuming a similar level of bodyfat). They would both be really good lifts. The lighter guy is lifting 2.5 x bw whereas the heavier guy is lifting 1.6 x bw.

That's all I'm saying. Spiel would still be at the top of the chart. He is an amazing athlete.

@Adam: Running up hill a heavier guy definitely has to do more work but his power output may well be much less if his time is slow compared to a lighter guy. Obviously for a comp like this it all gets a bit silly trying to produce a handicap table for each contestant and wouldn't be workable. However, a bit of analysis after the games for things like power output for each person would be interesting (although it would have to be an approximation).

I don't presume to be an expert on this at all and I trust the folks who put the games together have thought through it more than me. From my perspective it looks like they steered away from the longer events on Saturday like Filthy Fifty because it can create wider margins of time. It seems like they wanted Sunday to be a race of sorts and this is what they (and we) are getting. The Sunday workout certainly gives others the oppotuntity to make up big ground. Concerning the "big guys" in this competition...why in the world would they cater to any size or height by tipping the workouts in their favor...or anyone elses? The 4 workouts show a great display of power, endurance, stamina, speed, coordination, strength...does this sound familiar? It is CrossFit's definiton of fitness.

CF Omaha: keep it up, Ricky, Joe, and Libby! You don't even know how much I admire you guys!

When Dave Leys is in the second to last heat you know there is some ridiculous competition

I just want to know what happened to Murski. Reading the stats that the guy posted on his profile lead me to believe that he would dominate the comp. A 2:09 Fran, a 535-lb. deadlift, and a 5:00 mile -- this guy should be at the top.

I was pulling for him and figured he would be the guy to beat.

Good luck today Ricky, Libby, and Joe! You got this!!!!!

Great job Rogue Warriors! We are all proud of you back here in Columbus. Keep up the great work.

You have to like the design of the competition so far. The top athletes are at the top, and with the exception of Speal's insane time on the run (that's a solid time on a flat surface for 750M), there are only a few seconds separating the top men and women heading into sunday. Wish I'd planned in advance and gotten out there from Chicago.

Good Luck to all of the CrossFit Calgary athletes today. Hope you had a great rest. Can't begin to tell you guys how inspiring you are!!!

Best of luck, Ricky, Joe, and Libby! I expect a win!!!

Caity Matter from Rogue Fitness is a force to reckon with among the ladies of Crossfit -- way to go Caity, you are definitely ROCKIN' THE HOUSE!!!

CONTINUE TO HAVE FUN STAY FOCUSED -- GOOD LUCK TODAY ERIC, JONATHAN AND CAITY

Peace,
Carolyn-Rogue Fitness of Columbus

Get em' Rick!!

I was going to say this is a tough hopper draw for Speal since he's got to squat C&J more than his bodyweight 30x, but then again, he was only 8 seconds off the best time in the DL event where he was DL'ing 2x his bodyweight 25 times. Unbelievable. To have a full minute advantage against this group of athletes going into the finals is just incredible.

Awesome Work Team CrossFit Central!!! Jeremy - you are rockin' it!! Keep up the hard work - we're all rootin' for ya'll back in Texas ;)

GREAT JOB CROSSFIT CENTRAL!!!

Lisa Bender
Crystal McReynolds
Jeremy Thiel
Michael Gregory
Zachary Thiel
Roland Cantu
Richard White
Kris Kepler

Stay Strong Today, Fight to the Finish, & Rest when you're done!!!

Awesome Work CrossFit Central!

I am glad to see people are discussing the format for this competition as it relates to weight and size. I posted last night about that issue and was a little apprehensive when I submitted. I don't want to take anything away from the guys at the top, as they are obviously incredible athletes.
I've trained with Dutch for some time and have always been amazed by his numbers. I would have him on one side of me and Matt Murski on the other and always I would be struggling to finish within a minute of their times. The difference is Dutch is pulling 150 lbs to the bar and Matt 215 lbs. Same issue on the runs.
I'm just saying...we should have an honest discussion if we are saluting the "Best" athelete.

I am so lucky to be part of CF Omaha! Keep up the great work guys!!

The boulder trapping your friend doesn't care much about your weight and your heigth, and that hill you need to get over to take cover has even less regard for them. Remember this is crossfit, not oly lifting or boxing.

Absolutely amazing numbers! I wish I was there in person to cheer everyone on. GREAT WORK EVERYONE!!!

How about listing a competitor's stats alongside their final placing and time. That would be insightful. That way you could look at the results and immediately get a picture of how different sized athletes performed for the same tasks. Personally, I'd like to know how all the athletes at or above 210lb performed.

hopefully i'm asking for some people here, but what the heck does DNF, DNFT and those other acronyms mean?!?!?!?!

DNF - did not finish

I think when Josh Everett saw the sunday workout he was jumping up and down.

I would love to know why all of the "famous" CF'ers don't compete: Amundson, KStarr, Annie, Nicole, etc...

Josh Everett is probably going to be the new CrossFit Games champion. I wanna be like Josh when I grow up.

Some of these numbers are really shocking. I thought a couple of guys that I personally knew would be real contenders for this. Seeing them workout or following their logs and watching them kick my ass with amazing performances every day made me think they were going to be real contenders ... but none of them are in the top 10. These guys like Speal, Everett, Chan, Dutch, etc, are absolutely phenomenal.

That said, I agree that we should discuss whether the format of the Games this year is really the best way to find the best athlete -- although I'm not sure whether Coach follows these discussions too closely, and I imagine he's put quite a lot more thought into this than me. But, just to be argumentative...

It's my opinion that this competition is much more a test of stamina than anything else. That's not to say that agility/strength/balance/power are worthless, but I think you only need "decent" levels of them to be at the top. This is also not to say that the guys at the top wouldn't be there if they changed the comp around, either (the results would probably be pretty similar). But, honestly, I think things could be improved.

I think this competition favors lighter, shorter guys a good bit. With the exception of the run, the shorter guys had to do less Work (physics definition) in everything, and they weren't really disadvantaged in any way -- most of the lifts give them a leverage advantage.

And, none of the lifts are so heavy that a "top" lighter athlete can't do it. Yeah, 275 x 5 x 5 on deadlifts is pretty heavy (and very impresively heavy for someone like Spealler), but when we look at the world record -- 1003 lbs -- it's relatively do-able. But, it's not really reasonable for the heavier guys to compete with the lighter ones when they have to move all their extra weight around AND not really get extra credit for the extra strength that they have.

I'd like to discuss this more on the message board.

ricky, libby, and joe you are an inspiration to all of us back in omaha. great work! i am so happy to be able to work with the 3 of you. keep on keeping on!

Amnumdson just got married yesterday.

Congrats to Mallee and Greg Amundson on their wedding today!

http://www.crossfitsantacruzcentral.com/

Don't know why Annie, Nicole, Eva etc are not competing. I'm sure if you ask them they'd be happy to tell you why. I see Brendan Gillian in the top 20 and David Leys is there as well.

GET SOME Crossfit OMAHA!! Nice work Ricky, Joe, and Libby.

First off, I wish the best of luck to all the competitors, especially the CF Central team from Austin. Hook 'em, baby!

As for the advantage being "given" to the smaller guys, I think everything balances out in the end. Although they have a smaller lever arm to pull through deadlifts and the cleans, they're still having to pull more weight pound-for-pound.

CrossFit advocates a broad range of general fitness and I believe the Games are doing a good job of showing that. The only competition I was ever hoping for and expecting was Fran and she delivered. However, the rest of the competition could have been any number of different workouts. Maybe next year might be more endurance events like Linda or Murph, or maybe Coach could throw in a 10k run just to surprise everyone followed by a CFT. There's no point in complaining because we all know to expect the unexpected when it comes to CrossFit.

Thanks for putting up the WODs online Coach and for setting up this amazing organization that I'm proud to be a part of and share with friends!

Outstanding work Crossfit Omaha and especially Coach Frausto. Good Luck today.

A strong case could be made that the definition of fitness described by these events is skewed towards the Middle and Light Weights.

25 reps of a 275 Deadlift isn't trivial, but it doesn't afford enough advantage to the guy with a 600lb deadlift.

Unfortunately, something like Lol has suggested, allowing the athletes to adjust the weight and reps into different configuration as long as the work output remained the same, would be difficult to administer and would add an undesirable gamesmanship element to the event.

Upping the weight on the final event to 175, and then making the deep catch discretionary, is the next best thing I could come up with.

I think the CF Total added great balance to last years events, but this years clean and pure scoring system is a beautiful thing.

I do think there is room for improvement though.

When everyone competes in one big pool, yeah, the events all favor the smaller athlete. Pullups, burpees, deadlifts.."advantage" goes to the shorter guy. But, unless the judges are out there with a calculater and scaling every competitors load to proportion, that's just the way it is. Maybe someday the games will get enough competitors to allow weight divisions of some sort.

Re: favoring the lightweights

Speal = 134 lbs
J Everett = 185 lbs

Note that this last event, IMO, favors Everett heavily. He could definitely pull out the win.

As far as I can tell, from the stats that I know, is that in the top ten, the weight spread is fairly well rounded b/w 135-185. Dunno about the height.

2 other points:

1) We have been socialized/conditioned into believing larger people are better athletes because they "fit" the more popular sports more appropriately (football, basketball, etc). They are not necessarily more fit.

2) I'm sure there was a lot of careful thought and debate put into generating a fair & accurate event. It may, in fact, be a bit skewed. In that case it will only get better next year.

Breanne and Jason - well done making it into the final heat today! Leave it all on the bar. Light weight baby, light weight.

Already I can't wait until next year. Not going this year was a huge mistake on my part.

A 50lb difference between 1st and 2nd definitely testifies to the balance of the Games.

Some things everyone need to take into account is if you're taller you need to move through a longer ROM, plain and simply it will take longer. If you're heavier you may be physically stronger typically than a lighter guy but you are also moving the extra bodyweight which is a factor in calculating power output, which is why speal's 3:01 thruster/pull-up produced 225 watts and Josh's 3:29 produced 253 watts.

Personally I feel yes the DL was heavy but any advantage a bigger guy gains at this level would easily be lost in the burpee. Again in the thruster/pull-up any gain in the thruster is easily lost on the pull-up, the sprint is the one and only event that could benefit the taller guy otherwise same scenario, moving less weight over a distance.

Todays heavy clean and jerk is perfect because first of all the movement takes skill and the weight should give advantage to the heavier guy. By my calculation Thruster wod and DL wod slight advantage smaller guy, run advantage taller guy, CJ wod slight advantage bigger guy. Pretty Even and excellent choice of WOD's