The 2017 CrossFit Games Season began with a warning.
Director of the CrossFit Games Dave Castro posted a heap of dumbbells on Instagram next to a dead-eyed smiley face drawn in chalk like a serial killer’s signature. Cries of dismay resounded across the internet, but in truth, Castro was being generous, hinting at what athletes should have known from Day 1.
“Our toolbox contains gymnastics rings, barbells, bumper plates, dumbbells, parallel bars, pull-up bars, medicine balls, rope, mats, and some odds and ends like kettlebells, a giant tire, and sandbags,” wrote CrossFit Founder Greg Glassman in What Is CrossFit? Note the year it was published: 2004.
Dumbbells have appeared in CrossFit.com workouts consistently since then, and 2017 isn’t the first year they’ve graced the Regional floor either. There were dumbbell push presses, shoulder-to-overheads and farmers carries in 2010. There were heavy one-arm dumbbell snatches in 2012 and again in 2013. If you needed more warning, just last year Glassman proclaimed that “nobody’s doing enough with dumbbells.”
Perhaps Regional athletes weren’t so much surprised at the presence of dumbbells this year as they were left wanting by a distinct lack of steel.
“All last weekend I was waiting for Dave to bring the barbell out,” lamented two-time second-place Games finisher and Central transplant Sara Sigmundsdottir, who continued to train with heavy bars up until this week, hoping for a surprise Event 7 announcement.
“Barbell is my favorite thing,” she said.
Dan Bailey, a five-time CrossFit Games veteran, also thought Castro might surprise athletes with a barbell finale. But unlike Sigmundsdottir, he was glad he didn’t.
“The Regionals format (has always been) so set—you're at a certain venue, the floor is so big, there's only so many things you can do,” he said after taking second in Event 2, 21-15-9 reps for time of ring dips and 80-lb. alternating dumbbell snatches. “This is a great way to kind of test an unknowable factor at Regionals. (A surprise event) would have defeated the purpose, so I'm glad it's not in there.”
He noted CrossFit’s Theoretical Hierarchy of Development.
“I’m pretty sure gymnastics is before weightlifting, and Greg (Glassman) has always talked about dumbbells basically being a great thing to train you for gymnastics,” he said. “Overall I think it’s a great program.”
Two-time CrossFit Games athlete Sheila Barden said she never thought specifically about a Regional without a barbell, but she wasn’t surprised by it.
“Just like some day I think we’re gonna see swimming at Regionals,” she said. “It’s coming.”
While fans might miss the suspense of a 1-rep max effort, this is a test of fitness, not showmanship. Barden said preparing for the events this weekend reminded her of why we train in the first place.
“It's made me more aware of CrossFit’s roots, reminding me that this is supposed to be functional,” she said. “If I'm playing with my niece or nephew, they're shaped more like a sandbag than they are like a barbell, so I like that there's no barbells simply because it's more (like) real life.”
The reminder is useful for rookies as well as veterans. Though this is James Lancaster’s first Regional, he’s followed the competition for years.
“I think it just proves that just when you think you have CrossFit figured out as a sport, Dave Castro and the team completely flips it upside down,” he said. “I think it's a good thing. It keeps everybody on their toes.”
While athletes may have spent precious training hours before the Regional practicing their barbell cycling, for some, abandoning the barbell to prepare for the events paid off in the form of revelation. Dre Strohm, an individual competitor from CrossFit Mayhem, said the events forced him to reckon with his weaknesses.
“It definitely exposes which arm is weaker or is the dominant arm,” he said.
Sigmundsdottir could relate.
“You have to have good mobility on both sides, apparently,” she joked.
You wouldn’t have guessed that the single-arm movements are a weakness for Sigmundsdottir by watching her perform. She won Event 2 and stole the record from Camille Leblanc-Bazinet by 0.29 seconds, tossing the 55-lb. dumbbell from hand to hand overhead. Whether the single-arm overhead squats to come in Event 5 will pose a challenge or not remains to be seen.
That’s not to say that time spent on the barbell before the Regional was a waste. Kinsey Caldwell pointed out that the mechanics of a snatch and a dumbbell snatch, for example, are not entirely dissimilar.
“You just have one arm and you do the same movement,” she said. “It’s the same in your lower body and your hips to your shoulders, and you land with a straight arm. That movement itself is very similar, you're just holding a different piece of equipment.”
Athletes will face the dumbbell twice more before the weekend ends, but tomorrow they’ll wield something even more awkward:150- and 106-lb. kettlebells. They'll have to hold one heavy bell in each hand for ascending sets of double kettlebell deadlifts, interspersed with handstand walks and toes-to-bars. Will these implements affect the type of athlete who goes to Madison?
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bailey said. “Maybe in some of those fourth and fifth spots … but the top three people are going no matter what. It threw everybody probably for a little bit of a loop, but the best athletes adapt and just do it anyway.”
MEN
- R. Paul Castillo (171)
- Shane McBride (170)
- Luke Schafer (164)
- Alex Anderson (160)
- Scott Panchik (153)
WOMEN
- Jessica Griffith (195)
- Ragnheidur Sara Sigmundsdottir (185)
- Kristi Eramo (175)
- Katie Trombetta (165)
- Kelley Jackson (153)
TEAMS
- CrossFit Mayhem (200)
- OC3 Black (175)
- CrossFit 417 (175)
- Detour (165)
- Timberwolf CrossFit (165)
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