June 2, 2013
Spontaneous Combustion: Alex Nettey

Side-by-side with veteran competitors, Alex Nettey took off.

"I was in a good groove," he says.

On his last couple box jumps, he got the yipps. Stutter jumping in front of the box, he lost a couple of seconds. Smiling to regain his composure, he finished the last two reps and jumped onto the finish mat.

With a time of 4:04, he won Event 5 at the 2013 North Central Regional. The 1st place finish shifted him from 4th to 2nd overall at the close of Day 2.

"I could hear my box mates cheering me on. And I used their energy, definitely in those middle set when it was starting to get tough. I felt their energy, and I was just using it. And when I hit the pad, it just exploded," he says.

"Just one of those spontaneous combustion types of moments, you know. That's what we train for. You don't hit that zone very often. I planned to break the deadlifts up several times and I just lost it and got them all. So, I can't explain it. I wish you could bottle that up and use it whenever you want to, but it came out when I needed it which was helpful."