“Going into the Regionals I’ll just continue with my training and then when the workouts come up, hopefully I get a good one for me. You know everyone needs a little bit of luck.”
Photos by: Maria Hogan
After finishing 22nd in Australia in this year’s Open, Chris Hogan is preparing for his fifth straight Regional event in Wollongong next month.
“Coming into the Open you always wonder if it has passed you by, but the longer the Open went on, the better I felt about it,” Hogan says. “I felt fit, I felt strong and my scores were competitive, and I was happy with that.”
Despite not being the biggest fan of the Open, Hogan was happy with the five workouts this year.
“I've never been a huge fan of the (Open), but I enjoyed this year’s first workout much better than I did last year’s first two, and I thought for the most part, they were really good, fun workouts,” he says. “They kept everyone involved, which was really good.”
It isn’t the concept of the Open Hogan isn’t thrilled with, but rather the negative vibe that emerges from it.
“I think the (Open) brings out the best and the worst in the CrossFit community,” he explains. “I think people getting their first chest-to-bar pull-up, or their first muscle-up or lifting a weight they've never lifted before is awesome. I love the Open side of it but I hate the Facebook accusations and the banter that goes on with it.”
After three previous appearances at the CrossFit Games, the 27-year-old placed seventh at last year’s Australia Regional.
“Last year was a year off for me in the sense that I'd told my wife, I'd told my brother and I'd told my coach that it's not the year that I'm going to go to the Games, I’m just going to go to Regionals and have some fun. So I didn't do a whole lot of training,” Hogan says.
“I had a lot of other stuff on that was taking a lot of my time and I had a ball at Regionals. They were great workouts and the guys who finished ahead of me were fitter and better prepared than me and they thoroughly deserved it.”
Heading into the 2013 Australia Regional, Hogan feels more settled.
“This year with my life having settled down a bit — I moved house twice last year and got married, went on my honeymoon and started my own gym. I've got none of that and no excuses now, so my training's been much more settled and much more consistent,” he says.
After the Open, he feels confident.
“Going into the Regionals I’ll just continue with my training and then when the workouts come up, hopefully I get a good one for me. You know everyone needs a little bit of luck,” he says.
For Hogan, that lucky workout would be long and full of overhead movements.
“I'm not a fast starter by any stretch so I need a little bit of time to work into it. You know, 20 minutes is good, 15-20 minutes, probably 30 minutes is even better,” Hogan says. “I doubt we'll get 30 minutes, but I like the longer ones. Lets me grind ‘em out a little bit.”
The long chipper at the 2012 Regionals was his favorite workout.
“I didn't finish it and I was a little upset about that, but I had no right to finish it,” Hogan says. “I wasn't fit enough to do it but I had a ball. It was really good. I'd love to see something like that again. That was just a cool concept.”
Knowing he’s fitter this year puts Hogan in a good position to aim for a podium finish and his fourth trip to the Games.
“At the CrossFit Games you get to do some stuff that you can't replicate anywhere else in the world. The workouts they do and the experience they get is just amazing,” he says.
At the end of the day, Hogan will just enjoy Regionals and anything else is a bonus.
“I don't live and die by the sword,” he says. “I've been really lucky to be there three times so I'll go to Regionals and I'll give it everything I've got, and if I make it that's great, and if I don't, that's fine, as well.”
