Joanne – 6:48 (20Kg)
Jeff – 8:57 (100Kg)
Keith 7:45 (20kg)
Kyle – 7:14 as rx’d
Lisa – 7:14 (20Kg)
Martin 6:00(25Kg)
Rob – 6:55 (3 rounds, 125Kg)
Robbie – 9:39 (60Kg)

Considering my 1 rep max is 140, happy enough although was hoping for closer to 10. Problems gripping the bar due to sweating and the bar itself (the ridged grippy things weren’t where i was holding really).

In re-reading my post I seem very dismissive of Lance Armstrong, which wasn’t my intent (seem to be doing that a lot today). So I should probably clarify a few points.

I think Armstrong is amazing and is deserving of the hero status applied to him and feel comfortable in saying that he is an elite level athlete that no crossfitter will likely achieve. Secondly, I think Glassman’s quote, while clever and quotable isn’t really true and is really elitist. I have no doubt that you could go into any Globo gym and find someone (or several someones) that could handily kick my ass at any WOD I throw at them.

The reason I mentioned Armstrong is because I had recently read an article on powerrunning.com explaining how chemotherapy actually helped him because he lost 15 lbs of upper body mass that he never gained back. At the time I thought, wow I would never want to be at a level of any sport where that would be true, and something I had heard where he had turned in a terrible time in a marathon or something (which of course was hearsay and is probably not true). There’s certainly no denying his mental toughness as well. Honestly I’d be really curious how many pushup or pullups he could bang out—that info’s got to be out there somewhere.

The problem with any sport is that to reach the elite level, you absolutely must specialize at the expense of all other areas. Amateur Olifters have been told they must stop crossfitting if they want to compete seriously.

What I do think, and what I should have said is that the average crossfitter will do better, on average, at a wide variety of physical endeavours that the average athlete. In a decathlon of the top 100 cyclists and the top 100 crossfitters, I think I’d put my money on the crossfitters.

In ‘Starting Strenght’ Rip talks a bit about genetic potential but if I recall correctly he argues that it is just one factor, and probably less important than diet (or as Rip puts it, how much the trainee eats).

My guess is that genetics is just one variable less important than others, for example whether or not the trainee has the mental fortitude required to turn up and train five days a week, and train hard, and train intelligently (i.e follow an intelligent programme like CrossFit).

I don’t know how you’d definitively prove any proposition about what makes CrossFit’s superstars so athletically successful either way, but for what it’s worth my impression from having trained martial arts longer than CrossFit as a sport is that of the people I’ve seen who became ridiculously good, only a few were ‘naturals’. Most of them were just hard workers who trained to the point where they could execute the basics very very well and had some degree of fitness. Thusfar in CrossFit based on the limited amount of people I’ve met I’d say the same thing. What the really fit ones all had in common was discipline and willpower in their training and diet. I didn’t meet any of them and think “hmmm this bastard was lucky with his genetics” or “hmmm must be the ‘roids”.

Personally I find this reassuring. There are no aspects of the way the top guys train that we cannot copy. It’s just the intensity we can’t match yet. I guess it goes back to that old line from Glassman about how the needs of elite athletes and ordinary people differ not in kind, only by degree.

Headstand against a wall

Freestanding Headstand

Handstand against a wall

Freestanding Handstand

Press to wall handstand

Press to freestanding handstand

Personally I can/could hold a handstand against a wall for over a minute easily and could hold a freestanding one (kicking off the wall) for about 5 or 6 seconds. Just curious as to what you meant Colm

So I really like the idea of adding gymnastics to the beginning of workouts and I’ve read a bit about muscle imbalances leading to injury so does it make sense to take two exercises—a pushing and pulling—and focus on them long enough to see progress, but short enough to work on other things? Maybe run them each twice a week on random days for a month or two?

Maybe something like handstand/L pullups; front lever/planche; muscle up/press to handstand; L-sit/one arm pullups or pistols? Thoughts? Colm—not trying to step on any toes if you already have a plan in mind but truth is I have been toying with the idea of doing something like this on my own for the last month or so I’ve been mulling over different methodologies…