Snatch grip shoulder press 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5
Snatch balance 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3
Overhead squat 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1
Post loads to comments and BTWB
Congratulations to all our Verve Master’s Athletes who participated in the Open! We are so proud of James, Linda, M.C. and everyone else who pushed pushed their limits in their first or latest CrossFit Games Open. A special congratulations to Jim Duwve and Eric Kiker who not only advanced to their respective age groups in the Master’s Qualifier’s but who also posted new PR’s and moved up substantially. Jim finished 60th in the 50-54 age group and Eric finished 80th in the 55-59 age group. We can’t wait to see what you all do next year with good health and a solid year of training at Verve.
While scrolling through my latest Facebook page updates I came across this quote in CrossFit’s status bar: “We walk around every day not knowing the exact level of risk and benefit associated with most of our actions, yet it remains our responsibility to decide what’s worth pursuing.” The quote was made by Julie Foucher, medical student, CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff member and three-time CrossFit Games competitor. And under this quote was a link to an article written by Julie On CrossFit and Risk. I will cut and paste some highlights of said article but trust me when I say it will do the article no justice. You need to read it. Last week I discussed the CrossFit nay sayer. Again, my belief is that this nay saying comes from a lack of understanding what CrossFit truly is.
“The benefits of CrossFit are incontrovertible: increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains, in other words, increased fitness. Whether measuring fitness with a maximal effort treadmill test or the ability to stand from a seated position on the floor, it is well-established that increased fitness reduces one’s risk of death. In fact, having a better level of fitness decreases your risk of death more than controlling other risk factors such as your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. Quite simply, performing constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity (aka CrossFit) will result in increased fitness, and therefore better your chances of living a longer, healthier, more functional life.”
Do people get injured while participating in CrossFit? Yes. Do people get injured tripping on a rug in their home while walking from the living room to the bathroom? Yes.
“. . . there is a certain amount of risk associated with doing just about anything in life. The responsibility falls on each one of us to evaluate and decide how much risk we are willing to take on in order to reap the potential rewards of our actions.”
CrossFit has it’s risks but it also has it’s rewards. For some of us we know those rewards to be so great we may actually call them life changing, maybe even life saving. The risks associated with CrossFit, or any physical activity we may choose to participate in, increases with the increase in our involvement. Meaning if I want to win the CrossFit Games in 2015 and I get to work now, that increase in my training, coupled with my drive to push my body, possible beyond it’s limits, to achieve this goal will put me at greater risk of injuring myself. To me though, the reward of winning the Games is well worth that risk. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do it.
“The rewards we reap in the pursuit of peak fitness are too great to abandon for a small risk of a catastrophic event over which we have very little control. In fact, the rewards of improved functional physical capacity are exactly those which best prepare us to endure and recover from such an injury.”
Point being, as adults we have choices to make. Before we choose we can weigh the risk versus benefit of our choice and proceed accordingly. This doesn’t just apply to our choice of physical activity, this is true for any decision made in life. Take the time, if possible to educate yourself, ask questions, be informed, and then decide for yourself what works for you. What rewards do you seek and what risk is acceptable for you to take.
*We will be hosting an in-house team competition Saturday May 10th. 2 guys/ 2 girls, 3 WODs, $60 per team. Prizes will be on site. This competition is to help raise money to send Verve’s regional qualifying team to Utah. All the details will be on Monday’s blog.
