Lucas Parker Workout

“Parker wants to be the fittest man in the world”

Photo by Travis Paterson – Victoria News

Yippee!!! Our boy Scoots was in the Saanich News last week.  Here is a few snippets from the article.  If you have not read the full article, you can check it out at

Is this the world’s fittest man?

By Travis Paterson – Victoria News
Published: June 24, 2011 9:00 AM

Lucas Parker has a knack for extreme fitness

Outside, it’s sunny and hot but Lucas Parker is keeping cool in a dark gym.

A single window spreads its light across the room as Parker power lifts 255 pounds above his head.

“I guess it’s more of a dungeon in here than a health spa,” he says between reps.

The 21-year-old calmly works his way through a dozen power lifts, adding weights as he moves through the first of a three-day CrossFit workout regimen.

He’s also the only person in the Herald Street gym known as CrossFit Zone (it’s really not a health spa).

That he’s alone now is symbolic: Parker wants to be the fittest man in the world.

And he just could be.

He’ll get his chance to find out at the CrossFit Games, a sporting event that is coming out of the shadows.

“Essentially CrossFit is like yoga, or any other fitness discipline,” he explains, in that, like yoga, CrossFit can happen anywhere, as long as you follow its method and principles.

Since it grew in popularity from California earlier this decade, the boot-camp-type high-performance regimen has started popping up in gyms and community recreation centres. It combines gymnastics, cardio and weightlifting with speed, endurance, strength and balance.

“It’s tailored to everyone’s strength,” says Parker, a CrossFit instructor at the gym.

The St. Michaels University School graduate also patrols his old high school gym as an instructor, and studies kinesiology at the University of Victoria.

When it comes to the CrossFit Games, the regimen is as intense as any high performance sport going.

“You think of the fittest person in the world and most might say an (Ironman) triathlete,”

In terms of long distance, yes.

In terms of pound-for-pound strength and endurance, you’d be hard pressed to top a CrossFit Games champion.

Competitors at the regional and world games earn points for performing a variety of challenging workouts in short window of time.

“Everything from dead-lifts to (giant) tire flips.”

Earlier this month, Parker won the Canada West CrossFit Regionals in Vancouver. With it he won $3,000 and earned a spot in the upcoming world Crossfit Games, July 29 to 31 in Carson, Calif.

The winner nets $250,000.

An accomplished rugby player and weightlifter from Oak Bay, Parker chose to focus on the CrossFit Games over other aspirations, including an invite to the Canadian bobsled team’s training camp last year.

“I still feel I’ve got a few years to suss out exactly what sport I want to focus on.”

Winning a quarter-million could help him make up his mind.

Today’s Workout

Buy-in:  Clean Technique – 3 rounds: 3 power clean, 3 hang squat clean, 3 squat clean

• coach demo then once with bar and working up in weight each round

WOD:  Team Awesomeness

• Get in a team of 3, preferably all using the same weight/difficulty scaling
• Theme for names is Astronauts!

5 rounds for time of:

• 5 cleans (95/135)
• 20 double unders
• 20 box jumps (20/24)
• 10 wallballs (14/20)
• 400m run
• go in relay style – team member 1 does 5 cleans then rests while the next two do their cleans, same with the double unders, box jumps and wallballs. 
• run as a team, can’t start the cleans until everyone is back in the gym

Zone 4:  scale bar weight to 75/115

Zone 3:  scale bar weight to 55/95

Zone 2: scale bar weight, box height, and double unders as needed, wallballs to 10/14, run distance to 300m

Zone 1:  scale wod as needed

Cash-Out:  Vote on the best team name!  Tally scores on the daily leaderboard