Just FYI, jasmincar is known for this attitude around here - for example, in a previous thread he has said that Hafthor Bjornsson is unimpressive, and twisted that to degrade the entire sport of Strongman with the backwards logic that “if Thor can place in the top 3 in the world, then Strongman must not be that hard” - so it’s not entirely surprising that he would post Froning’s lifts (which are quite impressive for anyone short of “competitive powerlifter / weightlifter / strongman”) and try the “If this guy can win 4 straight titles, the sport must not be that hard, huh?” tack.
Anyway, he’s not worth your time. Let us deal with him
“STEP RIGHT UP! HURRAY, HURRAY! WIN YA FREE TUB OF PROTEIN RIGHT HERE! JUST GUESS THIS GUY’S BODY FAT AS IF IT IS GOING TO DO HIM ANY GOOD AND WIN THE PRIZE!”
For Dani Shugart, I don’t mind any of this, it’s normal for biotest to go reach out for the most people.
Crossfit is a sub par way of training, it’s not much more valid to me than juggling while doing 1 leg squats. I still wouldn’t care about 1 leg juggling even if tons of people were doing and the best was earning 300 000$
Conflating the crossfit games with crossfit training is like saying powerlifting is a dumb way to train because you need more than singles to get bigger and stronger.
The crossfit games are the sport of crossfit; not a crossfit WOD.
And yet, you cared enough about CrossFit to pop into this thread, do a search for the 4-time champion’s stats, and post them in a thread about this year’s CrossFit games while saying “I do not understand how this is good.”
For not-caring, you have an interesting way of showing it.
We watched the “Amanda 45” events tonight. Brutal… and that was after “run, swim, run” and cyclocross earlier in the day. The accumulated volume is incredible.
Personally wouldn’t like to train the way they do but seeing the top guys go at it is cool, no doubt! As well as Mat Frasers weightlifting history you’ve got Tia-Clair Toomey in the women’s individual who competed at the last Olympics. Even the top women would kick a lot of guys asses at most gyms
Mainstream sports, sure. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc; top athletes in any long-established pro sport on television are going to make more money. I doubt that anyone will dream of being a CrossFitter instead of being a professional football player.
Then again, let’s compare CrossFit to the strength sports, which are more “peers” than the NFL and NBA. Has any powerlifter, weightlifter, strongman, or bodybuilder ever earned $1 million from competition prizes alone (not counting endorsements)?
One other tangential observation: the “sport” is only 10 years old, but it’s almost funny to look at videos from the 2007, 2008, 2009 games in comparison to the 2015, 2016, 2017 games & see how much the caliber of athlete in CrossFit has risen dramatically in those 10 years. A few of the strongest guys on here probably could have gritted their way to the 2007 or 2008 Games on their brute strength alone if they could have survived the metcons; these days, an athlete at the Games can have virtually no holes. Sure, there are a handful of guys bouncing around with lifts that match/exceed top CF athletes, but if you can’t also do an quarter-mile open-ocean swim and a 60-foot unbroken handstand walk, you’re probably toast.
Coming back to jasmincar’s earlier (laughable) post with Froning’s lifts and “I don’t see how this guy is good” - the degree of training required to take an athlete from “strong amateur” to “borderline elite” in one particular skill (i.e. take that 545 deadlift to 675, for example, or take that 20-minute 5K to a 15-minute 5K) would be a poor use of training capital that they need to invest in bringing up their weaknesses. The way the CrossFit Games are scored, you’re better off consistently finishing in the top 10 than going boom-and-bust; if you win one event but finish dead last in the next, you’ll get crushed on the scoreboard.
The sport seems to favor a 5’9" to 5’11" / 180 to 195-pound male the most, given the need to be able to run, jump, do muscle-ups, and perform heavy barbell movements. Very tall athletes tend to struggle in the calisthenics and some of the metcons that require a big ROM (Aja Barto, a few years ago, checked in at 6’5" and 225, and won the 1RM clean & jerk event, but was way down the overall leaderboard due to some other events that killed him); very short athletes have struggled with events dependent on high-end limit strength (Josh Bridges, for example, struggled to complete an event with three sets of 5 reps of 405-pound deadlifts mixed with pistol squats because the 405 deadlift was relatively near his deadlift 1RM, and asking to deadlift your 1RM for 5 reps after a couple dozen pistol squats is, well, hard). The best guys like Froning and Fraser are in that sweet spot at 5’10" ish and 195 ish where they can still put up good strength numbers without being so big that their bodyweight skills suffer.
I’m not surprised to see the average age of the males is younger than the female competitors; when I looked at the list of qualifiers this year, I recall being surprised to see that I recognized virtually all of the female athletes’ names (most of them are multiple-time qualifiers) but that many of the male names were unfamiliar to me.
Obstacle course race was fun – a little retro American Ninja Warrior action in this year’s Games. Then 1 RMs got their turn, snatches for individuals, clean & jerks for teams. Also some 500 pound “worm” squats for teams. And finally that nasty chipper you saw in the schedule posted above. Also watched KB expert Jeff Martone do a mini-seminar at the expo.
Love or hate CrossFit, it has lead to a stadium of people paying to watch athletes do 1RM Olympic lifts. Not bad.
Spend some time with Greg Glassman (cue Darth Vader entrance music) too.
One of the things that keeps hitting me is how well CrossFit has been able to “game-ify” the events. The way everything is set up makes it easy to follow along even for the non-CF spectator, and it makes the events exciting. It’s not that easy to make 1RM clean and jerks exciting, but CF has managed to do it through clever equipment layout and “game-ification.” Gotta give them props there.
Yesterday started with “strongman’s fear” – Move yoke, farmers log and sled 150 ft. across field. Handstand walk when moving back. 500 pound yoke, 200 pound logs, 400 pound sled. It’s everything you love about strongman in a more spectator-rousing, fun setup. And walk on your hands between the heavy shit. Why? Because CrossFit.
Got there a bit late, so I had to watch it on one of the big screens mostly. Massive crowds. Then two more events followed for the individuals (see schedule above). It almost becomes a survival thing: who can perform AND be resilient after 10 events.
