North Jax Knockout 2015

Last Saturday me and my friends from the gym competed in a indoor throw down competition in Jacksonville, hosted by North Jax Crossfit. This was the first competition held in their new box. It was a individual one day event, with Men`s/Women`s Elite, Men's/Women`s RX and Men`s/Women`s Scaled divisions. The day consisted of 3 WODs (workouts) and an additional floater, which were announced before the competition.

Six athletes represented Crossfit Key West, including myself, on this day :). Amanda was competing in Women`s Scaled division, Jeremy and Jamison in Men´s Scaled division, Taylor and I, in Women´s RX division and Josue in Men´s RX division.
This was Jeremy and Jamison´s first competition and Taylor´s and my first time competing as individuals. Josue had signed up for the Men´s Elite, but since there was no one else in that division, he competed with the RX men.

Our day literally started off with a "cold shock", lol. Living and working out in the heat of Key West, this felt really cold. Just because I´m from Finland, doesn´t mean I like the cold or enjoy working out in the cold. I have been in Florida long enough to forget how it feels. It really felt like early autumn back home. Cold has never been my thing.
So leaving the hotel we were all dressed warm, with sweatshirts and pants. Arriving at the gym, we were told that it had not been that cold in awhile. So we didn´t have to feel like outsiders after all, hah hah :).

Our first workout was going to be short and intense, all cardio. So we knew we had to warm up well to get our heart rates high before starting. I personally, knew I could go pretty hard on this one, though I´m not strong on wall balls. I also knew that this was gonna be a workout where you could feel the taste of blood in your mouth.  That was exactly what happened. We all could feel the cold. It felt as though your lungs were freezing, and afterwards we were coughing like we had been smoking cigarettes our whole lives.

WOD 1

8 min AMRAP

20 Wall Balls
10 Box Jump Overs

Elite:
WB - 30/20#
Box Jumps - 30/24"

Rx:
WB - 20/14#
Box Jumps - 24/20"

Scaled:
WB - 14/10#
Box Jumps - 24/20"

Standards for movements:
Wallballs - Hip crease below you knees. Wallball will make contact with target set at 10ft for men and 9ft for women.
Box Jump Overs - two feet take off (jump) and two feet land (on top of the box) for both Elite and RX divisions. Jumping off or stepping down will be allowed. Step ups will be allowed in the scaled division only. Both feet have to be on top of the box before stepping down.

In 8 mins I managed to do 6 rounds and 6 reps, which gave me a second place position. It went just as I knew it would. I could go hard with the box jump overs, and take a rest with the wall balls. It was hard. You got to a point where you couldn´t feel your legs anymore.

RX WOMEN AFTER WOD 1

Between workout one and two, we had to do the floater, which was a 500 m row for time. Again, a killer workout, especially after workout one.

WOD 2

The second workout was all about strength.

5 Min to establish: Shoulder to Overhead 3 RM

--Bars will be taken from the racks .
--Press , Push Press, or Push /Split Jerk .
--Feet must be under the hips and full lockout w/control must be shown for all three reps.
--If the bar is dropped on the ground, athlete will be responsible for replacing it in the rack before next attempt.

Here I was trying it out at the gym to know what weight to start out with. Came up to 3x145lbs. I´m happy to say that I did a 10lbs PR (personal record) at the competition. My final score was 150lbs, because I failed the third attempt with 155lbs. I had never gotten 155lbs overhead before, so I was so proud of myself when I achieved it twice :) :). I have been waiting for that 70kg for a long time. This now means that my 1RM must be more then that. I can not wait for those new pr´s ;).

RX WOMEN AFTER WOD 2

Then, workout 3, the one that we all had been "waiting" for. More bar work, which I honestly hate :D. 5 rounds for time. Time cap 15min.

5 Rounds for Time:

12 Power Cleans
9 Front Squats
6 Shoulder to Overhead
*15 minute time cap

Elite: 185/125
RX: 135/95
Scaled: 95/65

--Bars will be taken from the ground.
--For cleans, must be power - no squatting below parallel. Must have elbows under the bar and stand with the bar for the rep to count.
--For the front squats, must squat below parallel.
--Shoulder to Overhead = Press , Push Press, or Push /Split Jerk .
--Feet must be under the hips and full lockout w/control must be shown for all shoulder to overhead reps.

WOD 3

Here you had to be smart. You had to have a clear strategy how to break up the reps so you wouldn´t gas out. For me personally, I knew that I could have done the first round unbroken. After seeing Taylor workout in the first heat, and having her tell me to break up the power cleans, I knew she was right. There was a lot of power cleans which I knew would tire me out. I also knew that I had to go for unbroken front squats and shoulder to overheads. So every round I broke up the power cleans and did the front squats and shoulder to overhead unbroken as I had planned. This paid off really well. I finished first with the time 9:32min :). The workout was still no joke. Everybody had a really hard time finishing it. The boys literally died at the end. LOL! :D Still we´re proud of every one! :)

I was second over all after the three workouts, which took me to the finals. Five of us RX women competed in the last workout. The final workout was announced then and there.

FINAL WOD

3 x 3 Min AMRAP (30sec rest between sets)

3 Min AMRAP 1:

- 400m run 

- Handstand push ups the remaining time

30 sec REST

3 Min AMRAP 2:

- 400m run

- Chest-to-bar pull ups the remaining time

30 sec REST

3 Min AMRAP 3:

- 400m run

- Overhead squats the remaining time 95#

This did not make me excited to be honest. The only thing that made me happy was the handstand push ups, lol. So there was nothing else to do then to go hard on those and try my best on the rest. The first running portion of the workout was already hard. I thought I was going to kill the handstand push ups, but oh my God, they were hard. I got up to 27 reps. The second and third amrap was super hard, especially after a long day of workouts prior. I managed to complete 17 reps of chest-to-bar pull ups and only 7 overhead squats. I was DONE! Thank God it was over! ;) Now it was time to wait for the results.

SCOOOOOOOORE!!!!! ;) ;) ;) 2nd Place!!! 

I can say, I´m a happy girl. I made it to the podium :). My first individual competition in the RX women`s division. Not bad, not bad! :) Events like this just make you hungry for more competitions and drive you to want to get better. Here, you also see where you stand and what needs to be worked on more. For me it´s all about the strength, which I already knew. Still proud of my accomplishment. From here we can only go forward.

Amanda 10th place/12 athletes.

 

Jamison 6th place/9 athletes. Jeremy 8th place/9 athletes.

Our Crossfit Key West family did awesome! <3 We can be proud of our athletes in the Southernmost box! <3 Not only did we do well in Jacksonville, but two of our other athletes also hit podium the weekend before competing in Diesel Fit, Miami!!:)))) CONGRATULATIONS guys one more time!! :)

1st place goes out to Josue!!! :) This didn´t come as a surprise. Josue is an amazing athlete! We are thankful to have him as a friend, inspiration and coach! Congratulations! :)

THANK YOU North Jax Crossfit for a well organized event! You guys did awesome! :) Keep up the great work! Thank you also to the kind judges, and to all the strong athletes we competed side by side against. It was great meeting you all!:) I hope to compete with you another day! :) You are welcome to drop in and work out with us anytime at Crossfit Key West :).

Thank you Josue, Amanda, Jamison, Taylor and Jeremy for a great and fun weekend! You guys ROCK! Til next time! ;)

-Hanna-

P.S. More pictures from the links below.

Pictures

Pictures

Olympic weightlifting seminar with Daniel Camargo

Last Saturday my colleague and I drove up to Miami to participate in the olympic weightlifting seminar with Daniel Camargo, hosted by Crossfit Hardcore The Park.


Daniel is a former elite athlete and now high level coach.

Daniel Camargo, U.S. International Coach (USAW)
USA Weightlifting Coaching Certification Instructor
Crossfit Level 1 Trainer
Owner, Altamonte CrossFit
Owner, Camargo Oly Concepts
President, Florida Weightlifting Federation

Though the drive was long I´m so happy I decided to go. What an awesome day it was! :) As a Finnish girl you once again could experience the warm and welcoming atmosphere you get from people here in The States. Crossfit is specially known about the community and family. This was proven here again. The owners of the box, Neil Kanterman and Andrea Laxer Kanterman made us feel at home right away :). The group was intimate, with only 15 attendees. There were already certified crossfit coaches but also non certified people who wanted to learn more about the technique. Because of the small group we all could feel comfortable around each other. We already had that small family thing going on where everyone was cheering and being happy for the others success :).

Crossfit Hardcore- The Park

Finally having Daniel in the building, made the day even better. What an awesome person and incredible coach! That man really knew his stuff :). Not just that, but the way he approached people. He made everyone of us feel important.
Daniel started olympic weightlifting when he was 12 years old. At 21 years old, which was his final competitive year, and weighted 83 kg (182.6 lbs), Daniel lifted a 152.5 kg (334 lbs) snatch and 180 kg (396 lbs) in the clean & jerk. This was a Jr. American record. A year after that he started coaching. He has now been coaching for 17 years. So we knew we were in good hands :).

The day started off with the snatch. Daniel had us warm up in 5 min. and made us do snatches with 75% of our 1RM. At this time he and his intern walked around filming everyone. When we were ready with that we went through everyones videos looking at technique and form. WAU! That is all I can say!:) When we thought that peoples forms were quite good he just pointed out small things from here and there to fix. And BOOM! What happens? We go back and fix those small pointers and hit new personal records time after time :). It´s all about the small things, I guess.

We learned not to "hump" the bar, as many coaches use. We don´t "f#%&" the bar either. We hear coaches say, "open that hip". Yes, true. But the hip will open with that explosive jump. We need the triple extension, ankle-knee-hip. I myself had to work on speed. Once the bar leaves the floor it´s moving. I also had to remember to land with my feet flat at the same time my arms extended and trying to take my time in the jump. Not being in a hurry to drop too fast down under the bar. It just takes a lot of practice, patience and experience to learn all of this. But it´s super fun. Even I who really am not that big of a fan of lifting heavy, got inspired now even more :).

It´s all about the face too ;).

Tony had a quite good technique from the beginning. Here he´s warming up for his 1RM.

Here I´m doing a 75 lbs snatch. Later I got up to 95 lbs, which was my new personal record.

Tony´s snatch. He got a new Pr, 165 lbs. Good job my friend! Happy for you!
He even tried 175 lbs. Got it up but could´t keep it. It was so close though, next time.



These faces tell it all! So excited! We both PR:ed our snatches! :)

After the lunch break we moved on to the clean & jerk. Daniel had us work on a heavy clean & split jerk while he was filming us one by one again. After he gave us his feedback we continued on working up to our 1RM.

I learned again a lot about my own technique. With the split jerk I noticed that I have been putting the wrong foot in front. Yes, I´ve heard about the pushing method coaches use when they are trying to  find out which foot the athlete should put in front. But I have not thought about it that much more. Daniel sometimes uses this method but he likes more to ask the athlete to go in that position where he or she would go when starting a track and field run. The foot which goes in the back is the more dominate one. That is the more stronger foot, the leading foot in a split jerk. The one which keeps it stable and corrects the balance.
Of course! What have I been thinking? When I snowboard, my right foot is in the back. So why have I been putting it in the front went I do my split jerk? Here we go again, small things :).

When we´re standing up tall from that full clean, before we push it overhead, we have to remember to have that bar in a straight line with our hip, knee and ankle. To get that we put our weight on our heels by lifting our toes in our shoes. This does´t mean that we are lifting the foot from the floor. When coming up you also have time to adjust your hands if you need to. Here Daniel told me to have my elbows more in the front to have more contact with the bar. Before you drive the bar overhead you have to remember to lift your chin to have it out of the way. People were asking if the dip under have to be fast. No, the dip under doesn´t have to be fast but the drive overhead does. From here the bar has to move in a straight line up while you are jumping down in a split, staying in that same line with the bar. Meaning, when the bar travels up you should drop your hip down in that same line.
My split was quite good from the beginning, so I was happy with that :). But of course you get better time by time. You just have to keep on working.

Here I´m having my clean&jerk Pr, 140 lbs. Did the split jerk with my new foot in the front. Later I even tried 145 lbs. Pr:ed my clean with that but could´t get it overhead. Will leave it for next time.

                 

Over all, the day couldn´t have been more perfect! People were getting new Pr´s which of course made Daniel happy. It was nice to see how a person can be so excited and genuinely happy for others. You could really see how much Daniel loves his job. And that reflected on us too. We were excited to learn and practice more! :)
I want to thank Neil and Andrea for the great hospitality and the man of the day, Daniel Camargo! THIS WAS AWESOME!! :) :) THANK YOU!!

-Hanna-