“When will we start doing CrossFit?”
I won’t name the athlete who said that at a previous edition of the CrossFit Games, but the comment is somewhat legendary in behind-the-scenes lore.
The athlete, clearly displeased with the programming that year, hoped for more common fare: barbells, gymnastics, couplets and triplets, and chippers. Not monkey bars, wheelbarrows, sledgehammers, Pigs, logs or other odd objects.
But that’s not the deal at the big show, and I kind of enjoy seeing great “Semifinals athletes” get destroyed by the odd tests Dave Castro creates when he has the freedom to get creative. Conversely, I also love seeing some of the athletes who squeaked through qualification dominate when stuff gets weird.
Because let’s be real: CrossFit prepares you for “the unknown and unknowable,” so when crowning the fittest in Earth, literally every physical task is fair game. (Noah Ohlsen agrees with me.)
“I went to college so I didn’t have to do manual labor,” Josh Everett quipped after after the row-sledgehammer event at the 2009 CrossFit Games at The Ranch in Aromas. Everett, who was expected to contend for the overall title, had not done well. He finished 57th in the event.
Others had also been tripped up when asked to drive a metal rod into packed ground with a sledgehammer. People were bleeding, and the pile of snapped sledges prompted event co-director Tony Budding to franticly tell a staff member to go to the hardware store and come back with every sledge available.
Tommy Hackenbruck, a former construction worker, won the event. I think he had the stake buried to the requisite distance in very short order. Firefighters, farm kids and people who had swung a lot of tools on the job site closely followed him.
The event was actually the brainchild of CrossFit founder Greg Glassman, who came up with the idea after having a miserable time driving a rod into the ground at his home. Those who know Greg will appreciate his philosophy that something physically miserably should be attempted with intensity by a much larger group of people.
In the barn at Aromas, I heard some grumbling about the sledgehammer event—it was dumb, the ground had rocks in it, the ground’s resistance varied from station to station. And so on. I seem to recall a geologist chimed in online at one point with expert analysis.
But all the complaining rang hollow. It was a physical test, and some people failed it simply because they were crap at swinging implements.
We’re Just Getting Started
“Why is Tommy good at all the weird shit?”
Matt Chan said that in 2010 after Hackenbruck won an event that had competitors using a wheelbarrow to move sandbags across the floor of the tennis stadium at what was then called the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.
Answer: Tommy is good at because he learned to use all kinds of implements to solve problems outside competition.
Having a Ball in 2011
Annie Thorisdottir and Jason Khalipa are both CrossFit Games champions.
Both were very poor at throwing a softball when asked to do so for distance.
As I watched them warm up for the skills event at the Games in 2011, Khalipa and Thorisdottir looked like they were performing some odd version of the shot put. It was surreal given their physical capabilities with just about every other movement.
Lindsey Smith, on the other hand, looked like she could throw a slider on the outside corner at 90 miles an hour if you asked her to. The contrast was striking.
And then we had the Killer Cage, which definitely highlighted those who didn’t spend much time messing around on the playground as kids. (I have no numbers to support it, but I think the cage was likely the Games’ most expensive piece of equipment that was used for the least amount of time.)
To the Water!
2011 also introduced competitors to swimming events, which are now considered standard fare at the Games.
Observation: Many competitors are terrible at swimming, which isn’t really a rare skill.
Others are pretty bad at cycling, which first appeared in 2012. Again, bikes are fairly common all over the world.
Also new in 2012: An obstacle course, which completely derailed some athletes who couldn’t seem to clear horizontal logs with any speed. Spencer Hendel, the son of a Miami Dolphins linebacker and an amazing all-around athlete, made the course look like child’s play.
And the sledgehammer returned to mess with athletes in the Double Banger event. Yes, some athletes employed a questionable “pushing” technique instead of pounding away, but again, the event highlighted people who were really bad at manipulating implements.
And, for good measure, GHD sit-ups and medicine balls were combined in a memorable one-off event that might be the weirdest thing ever seen at the Games:
Row Your Butt Off—Literally
In 2013, swimming returned—this time sprint style—and athletes were forced to grind their tailbones off in a half-marathon row. A great test of fitness, the event was a true suffer-fest, both for athletes and spectators. And it was a surprise.
I’d guess no competitor had ever rowed that far in training—which was probably the point.
2013 also featured the Burden Run, a cool event that included a giant hunk of metal for flipping and a heavy log for carrying.
What’s Next?
I’ll stop at that and leave the oddities of the latter years of the Games to you.
I’ll only make the point that weird is CrossFit and CrossFit is weird. That’s always been the case—at least starting in 2009 when the Games had a bit more cash to throw around.
Maybe 2021 will be different. Maybe Castro will go with a sea of Girl and Hero workouts and leave the strange stuff back at The Ranch.
And maybe Fran will get easier one day, too.
