"Our goal is to win and have a blast."
On one hand, you could say Reebok CrossFit One’s affiliate team members face familiar challenges: balancing a full-time job, family and training.
But for the affiliate of the company partnered with CrossFit, there are some uncommon obstacles: All its members are Reebok employees. And with it being one of the busiest times of the year for the organization — Games season — RCF1 team members sometimes find themselves pulling double duty.
Among the team members are the vice president of global footwear design, the director of sports marketing fitness and training, as well as three RCF1 trainers.
Still, team workouts take precedence.
“The coaches make sure we don’t have meetings during this time,” RCF1 coach Lindsey Johnson says. “It’s literally part of our job to make sure we’re doing what we can … to be on the team.”
The box finished this year’s Open in 4th place in the North East Region.
The competition earlier this year was a big event at the affiliate.
The five weeks were a tryout period for those who wanted to be on the team. Competitors were chosen not only by placement in the Open, but by taking into consideration who would work best together, says Austin Malleolo, RCF1 head coach, 2011 North East Regional winner and HQ Trainer.
“You can have a very average team do better than a very good team in terms of athletes because they work better as a team,” Johnson says.
This was even easier to see after the start of RCF1’s competitor’s class about six months ago. The 7:30 a.m. weekday session is designed for those with aspirations of competing at any level of CrossFit. Some participants do workouts as Rx’d, others don’t, but all seek to push themselves to be better.
“(They) like the intensity of competing,” team captain Chad Wittman says.
Right now, the team’s programming is done by Malleolo and geared specifically toward peaking at the Regional.
The workouts are similar to what he was doing as an individual competitor, Malleolo explains. “Maybe changing some of the volume for what we were doing,” he says. “A little more higher skill, more centric to what our weaknesses were, but throwing in auxiliary work — stuff like that.”
The team also spends two days a week with HQ Trainer EC Synkowski, focusing on the Olympic lifts.
Team members are training with their eyes on making a splash at the Regional and with hopes to make it to this year’s Games.
“Our goal is to win and to have a blast,” he says. “In 2012 we look to show that Reebok CrossFit ONE is a strong team and here to stay.”
