“We feel like we have some unfinished business at the Games.” ~Justin Cotler
One year after winning the North East Regional, the team from CrossFit Dynamix in Astoria, New York, proved Team Dynamix Strength is not a throwaway moniker.
The physically strong athletes, backed by raucous fan base, powered their way back to the top of the podium for a shot at the Affiliate Cup at the 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games.
Team Dynamix Strength won four of the eight events, and grabbed second place in two others in its third straight appearance at the North East Regional. The team, which returned five of the six athletes who finished fifth at the 2013 Games, benefited from a heavy, high-skill regional schedule.
“We wish every competition would be heavier and we wish everything would be as complex as possible,” team member Christopher Clyde said.
Clyde, along with David Charbonneau, Joel Willis, Kylee Claxton and Michelle Kercado will make a return trip to Carson, California, in July. Heather Soukas replaced Christina Gloger, who missed the 2014 season with a torn rotator cuff.
Justin Cotler, owner of CrossFit Dynamix and team coach, has continued to program heavier weights and tougher skills—like the handstand walks he used long before they were part of this year’s regionals—with an eye on glory in the golden state.
“We feel like we have some unfinished business at the Games,” Cotler said.
Team Dynamix Strength has been looking to the Games all season. Cotler said their goal has always been a 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games title, not just a repeat regional nod.
Besides experience, the team had a confidence-building three days in Canton, Massachusetts. That all started with preparation, which was longer this year because the North East moved from the first regional weekend to the last.
“My philosophy was make sure we knew these workouts and the transitions like the back of our hands,” Cotler said.
The weekend before the regional, Cotler shut down the box, brought in judges and ran the regional events down to the second, as would be operated in Canton on May 30 through June 1. Cotler programmed the weekend with the same start times and the same breaks.
While the team generally owned the weekend, the first event—a combination of muscle-ups and clean and jerks—was a rare hiccup. With a time of 9:18, the team finished considerably slower than the dry run seven days earlier. CrossFit King of Island Park won the event with a time of 7:44, taking a cushion into the rest of the morning.
The eventual winners didn’t take long to make a push toward the podium, winning the next two events on Day 1.
The quick turnaround began with a team total of 1,145 lb. on the 1-rep-max hang squat snatch. While the team is well rounded, Event 2 played to the passionate lifters in the group like Charbonneau.
“I’m a big fan of weightlifting,” Charbonneau said. “I was happy to show out on the hang snatch.”
Claxton, Soukas and Kercado led the charge, all locking in 150-lb. snatches. While two of the women could have hit 170 lb., Cotler instituted a more conservative strategy: All the women attempted 140 lb., then 150 lb.
The females of Team Dynamix Strength secured their third first-place finish of the weekend in Event 4, which featured a three-woman weave through 135-lb. thrusters and rope climbs. With a time of 8:48, the team took 15 seconds off its personal best time.
“That was the one I was most anxious about,” Claxton said.
But the nerves didn’t show. With sequences of 50, 40 and 30 thrusters, interspersed between sets of 10, 8 and 6 rope climbs, teams had the challenge of developing a rep scheme that incorporated enough rest and played to each athlete’s strengths.
For Claxton, the strategy meant more rope climbs than her teammates. Cotler set the right game plan and both the women and men, who took on the same workout in Event 5, wrote the order in ink on their arms to keep it straight.
“All we had to do was execute (the plan),” Claxton said.
Team Dynamix Strength is a close-knit bunch with half the team coaching at CrossFit Dynamix and everyone attending regular group training sessions.
“I love them like my family,” Charbonneau said.
Claxton, who finished sixth as an individual at the 2011 North East Regional, transitioned to team competition in 2012 with CrossFit Dynamix. This helped the often nerve-laden Claxton focus and be more motivated.
The same is true for Clyde, who replaced Cotler in 2013 after the owner decided to step away from competition to run the box and focus on coaching.
“I refuse to let the other five people down,” Clyde said.
The camaraderie among the team extends beyond training and hanging out. On the competition floor, the athletes know how to compose their friends. While certain events can be hectic and close races can breed a frenzied crowd, Team Dynamix Strength puts a premium on staying calm in the moment.
“We’re always telling the other person to relax,” Claxton said. “It can be frantic. Our biggest thing is to keep each other calm.”
Communication was an essential element in the first event of Day 3, which asked male/female pairs to alternate through a 500-m row and 125 double-unders, 50 deadlifts while the partner holds the top of a deadlift, and 50 toes-to-bars while the partner hangs.
In practice, Claxton recalls being completely drained after Event 7 and needing 20 minutes of resting with her eyes closed just to recover. After the real competition, she said she never felt better, and that was at a world-record pace of 15:18, 30 seconds ahead of the team’s best run-through.
Claxton and Willis anchored the stellar effort.
“It’s an all out sprint,” said Claxton, who alternated with Willis on keeping track of rest time between sets.
While the team tries to stay relaxed during competition, it gets a burst from its faithful fans. More than 100 people took the journey up I-95 from Astoria to Canton to cheer on the defending champs. The strong supporters donned blue Dynamix T-shirts and could often be heard belting out a three-syllable “Dy-nam-ix” chant.
“There’s nothing better than the feeling we get from our sea of blue,” Clyde said. “They’re so amazing, so loud. We hear every word when we’re out on the floor.”
While the box isn’t a massive establishment, Cotler has cultivated a close and caring environment that extends from elite athletes to beginners.
“Dynamix is a special community,” Cotler said. “It’s something everyone keeps close to their hearts.”
While the Games will require the sea of blue to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Cotler said he thinks between 30 to 50 fans will also make the trek. Despite their smaller number, Cotler doesn’t expect their decibel level to dip at the big event.
“They’ll be loud as hell,” Cotler said.
Charbonneau admitted the team was a bit “star struck” at their first CrossFit Games. The weekend had some high-pressure moments for the team that had never competed at that level. After squaring off against the top athletes and the deafening crowd noise, they finished fifth in 2013 and have that experience to fall back on this time around.
Recently, the team has added running and swimming to its training schedule and increased its weights. Cotler said he knows anything is possible at the CrossFit Games, and he’s preparing his team for it.
Team Dynamix Strength hopes to combine their preparation, passion and patience to prove they are the strongest CrossFit team in the world.
“Look for us to be at the top of the podium at the Games,” Charbonneau said.
