The main workout was one of the 5 fitness tests from crossfit days past. These tests were outlined in the CrossFit journal in April of 2003, and some of the named girls workouts came out of this testing. We did test number 5 tonight which was:
800m run
21 thrusters (75#)
21 L-pullups
After the workout I ran down to Fort Point and back which works out to 2.5mi. I know what playlist I used on my iPod and totalled the song lengths from the beginning until where I stopped and figured I did it in 18:32. That works out to a 7:24/mi pace if my math is right.
Scoring slower than six minutes gets you zero points. I got zero points. The tests are described below.
Looking at the ten general physical adaptations to exercise (cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, stamina, power, speed, flexibility, agility, accuracy, coordination, and balance) we saw that advanced calisthenic and weightlifting movements present an excellent opportunity to advance neurological skills like agility, accuracy, coordination, and balance. We realized early that any test that pushed the envelope for gymnastics movements was going to eliminate a large segment of the exercising public and indeed some of our dedicated athletes.
In the end we decided that improving these neurological skills and thereby encouraging a greater level of fitness in our participants was more important than offering a test that was universally inclusive. We are, ultimately, a program of elite fitness, and any test of elite fitness will contain elements that cannot be performed by everyone. We also felt that many of our best athletes while among the fittest people on earth needed additional motivation for improvements in absolute strength, relative strength, and gymnastic foundations.
While we make no apologies for offering a fitness test that best serves the already very fit, we have developed several strategies whereby others can participate and, more importantly, benefit from practicing for and working towards completion of the test. For every phase of our test we have suggested adaptations for women, juniors, seniors, or anyone else who may not yet be able to complete all of this competition.
Similarly vexing was the difficulty of testing for various capacities simultaneously rather than separately. The origins of this concern arise, you may have guessed, from our oft-repeated contention that the blending and mixing of demands most clearly replicates the demands of nature.
One aspect of athlete testing that remains tricky is balancing elements favorable to larger and smaller athletes. We referee debates between our bigger and smaller athletes almost daily. The big guys want to deadlift, bench press, and throw. The smaller guys want to run, jump, and do pull-ups.
Our design requirements included but were not limited to the following: quantifiable results; consistency with the CrossFit fitness concept; raising our commitment to improving absolute strength, relative strength and gymnastic foundations; balancing intrinsic abilities of smaller and larger athletes; emphasizing exercises critical to and foundational to advanced training; mixing training demands within each test and, of course, over the total competition; a design that would identify an athlete’s weaknesses and possibly stand as a workout plan for improving overall fitness; and, finally, we wanted to design a competition that would be “hard as hell.”
The competition that we’ve designed is comprised of five tests. One test is performed for each of five days in the order given.
We’ve listed within each test description a possible workout that would test for and consequently improve the performance of that test. We asked ourselves while designing each test, what kind of fitness might develop from turning the tests into workouts that were repeated to the exclusion of other work and with the sole purpose of improving the tests? The answer in the case of this final product is “elite fitness.”
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