No excuses at the Reebok CrossFit Games!
As many of you know I spent the last week judging at the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games. While it may look glamorous on tv as I’m walking next to Kara Webb in the final heat
; there is a ton of stress involved and that’s not just making sure I’m making the right call. Early morning, late nights, with lots of hurry up and wait mixed in.
It’s an opportune time to just say “f*ck it” to your nutrition and training, and quite honestly that’s what most people do. I heard someone else say, “I just know the week of the CrossFit Games my nutrition will be sh*t and I won’t train.” It’s hard to fault that person, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
The judges area is filled with all sorts of delicious snacks, cookies, chex mix, red vines, and everyone’s favorite, peanut m&ms. As I watch people approach the snack table it’s apparent it’s not because they are hungry, it’s because they are tired or bored, it’s often just mindless grazing, I’ve been there before, I get it, and once you start it’s very hard to stop. We did get 2-3 solid meals each day from Trifecta and they truly were delicious, steak, rice, beans, chicken, it was like having Chipotle delivered to you.
This was my 5th year at the CrossFit Games I knew what to expect, so I came in with a plan. My number one rule was track everything…ABT…always be tracking. I knew grabbing handfuls of m&ms and other snacks would make this rule a challenge, so my second rule was stay away from those “gateway” snack. I focused on the main meals we received and although I wasn’t 100% accurate with them, I did my best to guesstimate serving sizes and find something comparable in My Fitness Pal.
There were days I was over and days I was under. Like I said we were up early and on our feet all day, easily walking 7+ miles, I wasn’t too worried, my biggest focus was tracking. I also made a strong effort to get plenty of water. You wind up drinking a ton of coffee and FitAid, so I knew I had to get in at least a gallon of water each day, which I always did.
As far as training, time was definitely the limiting factor. With 5am wake-up calls, the option of working out first thing just wasn’t happening, I knew sleep was just as valuable as my fitness. So, I found an accountability buddy. My good friend Melody, owner of CrossFit MPH decided on Day one to try to find time every day to do “something” and we were successful, 5 out of 5 days we made it happen. Regardless of how busy we were we snuck something in. While others took the opportunity to go to vendor village, watch some completion, or take a nap, we took our shirts off and hit a workout!
Here is what we did:
Wednesday
20 minute EMOM:
5 DB Deadlifts – 5 DB Hang Power Cleans – 5 DB Thrusters
I used 35lbs in each hand and this one got spicy. The first 10 minutes were pretty easy, but that second half came at me hard and I was looking forward to that last minute.
Thursday
100 Burpees for time.
I finished in 5:11, not my all time best, but for doing it in the lobby just outside of our judges room with most of my buddies watching on and talking trash, I was pleased.
Friday
50-40-30-20-10
Lunges and Pushups, we did the lunges on each side so 100 total, 80, etc.
My time was 16:07. We found a small area outside of the arena which turns out was for VIPS and as we were wrapping up the WOD, Coach Glassman came out and cheered us on…pretty cool.
Saturday
Sandbag Run and Squats
This was the coolest workout we did. After two days of bodyweight movements Mel and I were on the prowl for some weight…but funny enough at the CrossFit Games we couldn’t find any…well, any we were allowed to use. So Mel came up with the genius idea of using sandbags, not Rogue sandbags…real sandbags that were being used to hold down a fence around the perimeter. Old school, classic down and dirty fitness and it was a blast!
We set a distance, ran there with the sandbag and then back and hit 25 squats with the sandbag, 5 rounds of this was perfect, just over 11 minutes.
Sunday
100 DB Snatches @ 50lbs. alternating arm.
Top of every minute 5 strict pull-ups.
I finished in 9:55
We did this right after the Games in the hotel. We didn’t go back to our room as we knew any stop would make our completion of this highly unlikely.
It should be noted, we did not warm-up for any of these, which definitely does not help your performance, but with limited time, you do what you can.
What was super cool was almost every day we were able to rope someone else into joining us and the collective thought was, “we now feel so much better!” It doesn’t take much but my body always felt better after moving.
The point is, you don’t have to be perfect. My nutrition wasn’t completely dialed in and my training was limited, but after an entire week, I still look and feel great. Roz has even commented that I look leaner, so that’s a win!
I hope this inspires you to stay focused next time you are on the road or life gets a bit busy. Done is better than perfect.