Hey Gang,
A recent discussion on the CrossFit Games site was sparked by this question: “rank from 1 to 5 the importance of: Nutrition, Athletic background, Programming, Heart, and Genetics in terms of importance for success at the CrossFit Games”.
The full gamut of responses resulted and people got pretty into it for sure… So what do you think?
Is success in crossfit most related to getting your nutrition dialed in or is it having “heart” and giving it your all? Where would you rank these relative to one another?
Let’s hear your thoughts!
Turts.
Today’s Workout
Buy-in: Bulgarian Squats – 2 to 4 sets of 12/leg
- back leg elevated on low box or bench
- if your legs are feeling it from this week, keep it lighter and do 2 sets as opposed to 4
WOD: Clockers
Grab a partner and make a team name, “small furry animal” is the theme!
- This is an interval workout, where you will have 1 minute per station to accumulate reps.
- You and your partner combine your lowest reps from each station to get your score.
4 rounds of the following:
- burpee pullups
- kettlebell swings (35/55)
- step-down box jumps (20/24)
- rest
Zone 3: scale kettlebell to 25/40-45
Zone 2: scale kbs and box jumps as needed, do 2 burpees and 2 jumping pullups as a sub for 2 burpee pullups. Consider 2-3 rounds total.
Zone 1: scale as needed
Cash-Out: Easy walk around the block as a group
1. Athletic background – to me, this doesn’t have to refer to childhood, but what were you doing before CF? Emily Beers did gymnastics, basketball, and rowing, all at high levels, and dominates CF comps easily when she is healthy.
2. Genetics. You do the the best with what you got… some are born with more physical potential than others, in my opinion. That being said, a “born average” person can achieve a lot, and see success, but they have to work a lot harder and have more things dialed in than a born winner.
3. Programming. It’s hard to objectively say who’s got the best training plan, because all the top guys are different, but chances are none of them are doing stairmaster and hammer curls.
4. Nutrition. I’m biased into putting this lower in the list, because I think of nutrition differently than most people. I focus primarily on quantity of food – shoving as many calories down my face as I can. In terms of quality, a quote I’ve recently stolen from Dan John is, “eat like and adult.” not sure what that means exactly, but it has a nice ring to it. Just eat real food, and lots of it.
5. Heart. I put this last. It’s not unimportant, but I think of it this way: In rugby, I always believed that the championship game wasn’t won on the day of – it was won in the weeks and months of training leading up to the game. You can “want it” and be fired up as much as possible, with the biggest heart in the world, but if you haven’t done your prep and put in the hours, you ain’t gonna win.
If it takes heart to train for a year, then ya, heart matters. but the winner of the CF games will have already won it by the time the games start (barring any weird injury or accident).
1. Genetics. I think every person who is at the top level of a sport has genetics on their side. Just having talent or “athletic genes” doesn’t mean you will succeed at a sport, but it puts you a lot closer than someone “born average”, to use Lucas’ phrase.
2. Athletic background. I think I partly disagree with Lucas. I think childhood sports do matter, because that often sets the tone for what you do as an adult. I’m not sure that it matter which sports you did exactly, though obviously rowing, oly lifting, & gymnastics transfer well to CF. I think that you gain a lot just from being involved in sport, especially at a competitive level, that prepares you well to compete in CF.
3. Heart. While I would say the definition of “heart” is pretty elusive, I think of it as all the psychological elements. And to me, as someone who wants to study the psychology of sport for a career, I think that this is extremely important. I think the motivation and drive to win are crucial, but the ability to face challenges in your training day in & day out & come out on top of those is what really makes a difference in someone’s success. And your ability to have all your psychological ducks in a row when you get to competition is important too.
4. Programming. My first thought on this is that you can’t win the Games unless your body knows what it’s doing without conscious thought. But I think CF has got to be one of the hardest things to program for because you don’t know what you’ll have to do. So preparing for the unknown is a pretty tricky thing to do – especially without over-training.
5. Nutrition. I’ve likely been influenced by spending too much time with Lucas, but I imagine nutrition to have more impact on some people than others. Whether you’re eating strict Paleo/Zone or focusing on eating “real food”, I don’t know if it makes that much of difference. I would also so cheat meals & the occasional drink aren’t going to be such a big deal. My guess is none of the athletes that are competing in the Games are eating Micky D’s everyday.
A note on the choice of my order. I put things that you can’t control first. It maybe from too many years of doing statistical analyses, but you always account for the things you can’t change first. You can do everything else in the world, but if you don’t have the genes & the athletic background, it will be much harder to succeed in CF. Then I put the psychological component because I think in any sport, the mental side is much more important than the physical side. Everyone is physically prepared for what’s ahead…not everyone has the same level of mental preparation. Then I put the physical aspects, which are still important, but for me are the least important of this particular list of factors.
A final element that I think is EXTREMELY important for success is the environment around you/circumstances of your life. If you need to work 60 hrs a week to make ends meet & you’re dealing with 5 kids, 1 of whom is chronically sick, & you need to do things like clean your house, get the groceries, etc & your spouse travels a lot for work, I think it’s more difficult to succeed competitively at CF. The environment you’re in and the opportunities that present themselves are a huge factor in how well you do at anything in life.
Im gonna say,
Athletic background, Genetics, Heart, Programming, Nutrition
hmmm very interesting question, and interesting thoughts so far… a few thoughts of my own:
-the ordering of these factors would look different for the 2007 games, and will be a bit different for the 2015 games (as i think genetic potential is becoming more important, and i think programming will increase in importance as people’s exposure to CF is longer)
-athletic background vs genetic potential is a bit chicken-and-egg, as those athletes coming in with an impressive athletic resume are genetically gifted
-a definition of heart is certainly “elusive”, and i think lucas and linds thought of it a bit differently (heart on game day vs having the drive to train day after day), reflected in a different placement on their lists
with all those points in mind, here is the right answer to the question 😉
athletic background, genetics, heart, nutrition, programming
I’m going to say
Athletic Background- I think people who have a wide variety of sports at a young age are able to have a higher degree of coordination and body awareness. I think they have a more overall athletic ability. As for crossfit in particular, having a background in gymnastics and rowing would be highly benificial as those skills transfer directly into wods.
Genetics- Some people are just more geneticly gifted and have more suitable body types/ body compositions than others for highly competetive levels. That said, not everyone is able to tap into thier amazing genetics should they not have the heart perhaps.
– Which brings me to the questions nature versus nurture?
Programming- Bad programming can only get you so far, To be able to get to the top, I think you need to be more careful and more scientific about how it is approached in order to reach your highest levels.
Heart- I think you need heart and passion to succeed. If your hearts not in it, how are you supposed to be motivated enough to reach your potential?
nutrition- nutrition is important by all means, And I think you can screw things up alot if you have awful nutrition, but if you have decent nutrition I dont think being super precise about it will make you a better athlete than any of the above factors.
Hmmm good question tho, sure makes you think about what you can and cannot control.
—OPEN GYM—
Not sure if anyone with site privileges will make me a blog by tomorrow, but I’ll be holding an early bird open gym from 9am to 1030 ish. (SUNDAY)
Hope you can join me!
I thought it was interesting that genetics is most people’s 1st or second choice, and nutrition last. Considering that last articles I read about genetics talk about being able to turn some genes recessive or flick a recessive gene on… Depending on that persons lifestyle choices. However, For anyone going to the games, they have obviously found programing and nutrition that work. But if I could be incharge of everyone’s diet and programming starting now, I could destroy everyone (except Lucas) and genetics wouldnt matter.
My cop out answer is that the list would be different for each athlete.
1) Heart: AS stated in previous posts, heart is difficult to define, as it means different things to different people. In my opinion, you dont walk in the door of a crossfit gym without it. You dont wake up to run at 6am, spend hours of time training, stretching and pushing yourself beyond boundries you never knew you had without heart. therefore, it is my #1 factor simply because EVERY person Ive watched train and grind out wods at the CF Zone has “it” regardless of Genetics, Athletic background, Nutrition and Programming.
2) Genetics: This is the blueprint for what we are and what we will become in all aspects of our life. It determines our physical proportions, allotment of muscle fibers, metabolism and our mental & physical ablilities. I am purely a realist: no matter how much heart we have, most of us will never run a sub 10 second 100 metre,strict overhead press 300 pounds or win the crossfit games. Luckily for us, however, there are people who do. We only need look to the leaderboard at the Zone on a daily basis to get a dose of genetic reality.
3) Athletic Background: Most elite atheletes have been training and participating in a sport or athletic discipline from a young age. There is a sports medicine philosophy that came up with a number of 10,000 hours of training/practice for someone to evolve into an “elite” at a specific sport. This is proven to me when a good adult athlete straps on a pair of hockey skates for the first time in their 20’s and can’t understand why they can’t try out for the Canucks, no matter how many power skating classses they take. Athletic background at any level provides a fantastic base for Crossfit. However, its no secret that most of our elite CF Zone members have at one time participated in high level athletics.
4) Programming: We are lucky to have excellent day to day programming at the Zone. (sorry cant resist an opprotunity to brown-nose turts) All kidding aside, our programming allows for a great deal of variety to keep it interesting, challenging and most importantly, a wod rotation that allows for personal improvement. The other day the .com wod was 1-1-1-1-1-1 of weighted chin-ups, the Zones was an awesome 25 minute amrap. I love chins but really! For the average crossfitter programming is probably more important. For the elite crossfitter, they are at a point where it becomes the weaknesses that need improvement and or specific programming, not the strengths.
5) Nutrition: The reason I chose this factor last is that every other month there’s a new super diet designed to take you higher than ever before. Nutrition, good or bad differs depending on the flavour of the day. Your body does not know you are eating a Macdonald’s hamburger or a burger from an organically grown, classical music listening cow. Depending on the person’s metabolism, it simply breaks down the fat,carbs and protein your body needs to sustain daily operating systems. If you take in more than you need it is stored as fat, not enough and you waste away. Most elite athletes I know are more worried about just getting enough protein in the diet, not the how,what,where and when.