After CrossFitting on and off for years, I finally stuck with it long enough in the past year to make enough strength and endurance gains to feel comfortable in a competition. And since I’m now going to competitions anyway as a vendor for my CrossFit clothing line, I figured why not. On top of all that, the event I attended, the Deep South Shootout, is organized by my home box CrossFit NOLA. I had a lot of questions going into it, and I’ll try to summarize my thoughts into a Q&A format.

How did you know it was time to compete?

On a regular basis my WOD scores were often within the top 3 in my class. This doesn’t include the really serious athletes, who either do a separate Competitors class or follow their own program.

Also, I had the time to train 4-5 days a week for 2 months leading up to the competition.

Finally, the movements and weights to be used in the competition were posted in advance (but NOT the workouts themselves), and I chose the Scaled division since I knew I could handle those weights with no problems (95 lb overhead squats, 185 lb deadlift, etc). While I’m technical enough to handle the movements in the RX division, there’s no way I could maintain the weights (165 lb squat snatches, 285 lb deadlifts) for multiple reps.

How did you train?

I had two months to train. I reasoned that endurance can be built much more quickly than strength, and started focusing primarily on WODs instead of power/olympic lifting.

3-4 days per week I would wake up, drink a large glass of water, and do a quick home workout. 3 sets of KB swings and either situps or pushups. Then a quick 1.25 mile run around my neighborhood. A quick 20 minutes.

Regular WOD classes 4-5 evenings per week. Sometimes if I were feeling beat up I would attend a powerlifting class instead of a WOD. I made sure to hit both squat and deadlift at least once a week because those are my biggest weaknesses.

Wallballs were another weakness. The competition weight was 14 pounds, but I trained with 20lbs. I did Karen (150 wallballs for time) several times. I got to the point where I could do the first 50 without stopping.

A few times I made up my own WODs based on the movements posted in advance. One was 21-15-9 overhead squats, russian KB swings, and hand release pushups. After each round of overhead squats there was also a long sandbag carry. That was a pretty brutal workout and I chose not to repeat it!

A week before the competition they posted the workouts themselves. Unfortunately I was on vacation and was only able to try one of them before the competition. Since I could only pick one, I went for the one I was most intimidated by. This way I could develop a strategy for completing it.

What was it like once you got there?

The event was in an a very large sheltered barn-like building. There was an early morning athlete meeting at 7:30am to go over the workouts and standards. The event was an hour away, meaning I had to leave home about 6:15am in order to make it there on time. There were four different spaces used for staging the five workouts.

I wasn’t sure what my competitors would be like given that I signed up for the Scaled division. It turns out some of the competitors were actually much bigger than me. That made me slightly concerned, but I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it then.

I expected the first workout to be my most challenging, and sure enough I bombed it by finishing 21st out of 30. The other four workouts were much easier for me, and I finished consistently between 8th and 10th.

What were the workouts?

The workouts for the Scaled division I participated in are listed here.

What did you eat and how did you maintain energy?

Typically the smaller events I’ve been to (several hundred competitors) don’t have a lot of food options. There’s usually a concession area selling nachos and other unhealthy fare, but not much else. If I were going to make it through five workouts, I had to plan ahead. I posted on reddit and got some feedback that was mainly along the lines of “don’t do anything unusual for you” and “eat stuff that metabolizes quickly."

I wound up packing a small ice cooler with 3 bottles of water, 2 electrolyte drinks, and 1 energy drink. I also packed a tupperware with mashed sweet potatoes and grilled brussel sprouts. I brought my normal bag of protein powder too.

The electrolyte drink (pictured below, right) and BCAA/caffeine energy drink (below, left) are definitely unusual for me. I rarely consume sugar, and these things are loaded with it. Was definitely a gamble, however I figured I might need all that fast-metabolizing sugar in order to stay energetic throughout the day.

I drank ½ of the sports drink immediately after each workout. Beginning with the second workout I drank ¼ of the red energy drink about 30 minutes prior to the next workout. This drink has plenty of aminos and a little caffeine. Drinking that little bit gives you a little pep, but I never felt jittery at all (I imagine I would if I drank it all at once, which the bottle clearly says not to). Also, Progenix was there giving out free samples of a recovery drink, and I sampled one of those after a particularly exhausting workout.

I ate my sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts at noon. It gave me a bit of a stomach ache, but by the time my next workout started an hour later I did not feel bad.

Throughout the day my energy levels were consistent, and I felt relatively good except for lots and lots of muscle tightness immediately after each workout (which was to be expected, obviously).

Is there anything else you wish you would have brought?

I brought my own jump rope because it’s such an essential piece of equipment to have customized. I also brought an extra t-shirt so I could change after I got crazy sweaty. In the morning it looked like it might rain during our running WOD, and I started to wish I had brought an extra pair of shorts in case I got wet. Also, I wish I would have brought a hoodie to stay warm.

Were you nervous?

Surprisingly not. I get very nervous in anticipation of speaking in front of large groups, but managed to resist that feeling while walking up to perform my workouts. I figured I would be more nervous. I give the credit to the fact that I spent a few hours (spaced over a week) meditating about the competition. I mentally walked through each workout several times, imagining where I would pause for a break, imagining what the burn would feel like and how I would deal with it. The mind is a very powerful thing. If you’re interested in reading more about how to use mental pictures to improve performance, check out the book Psycho Cybernetics.

How did you do?

I finished 9th overall out of 30 athletes. I’m happy with that considering it’s my first competition. Plus, there were no unpleasant surprises in that I knew exactly what my weak points were and I didn’t discover any new ones. To improve my placement in future competitions all I need to do is just work on those couple of weaknesses.

If there is one thing I wish I would have been more mindful of during the competition, it’s that every last rep counts. I discovered only after the competition was over that there was at least one workout where if I had completed just 3 more reps I could have moved up to 7th place in the overall rankings. I felt like I gave it my all, but perhaps if I had someone yell "3 more reps damnit” I would have gotten those too.

I talked with the athletes in my division many times throughout the day, and they were all very friendly and willing to share tips. It was competitive but friendly, and I loved that.

What’s next?

Now that the competition is over, I’m going to ramp down the cardio and begin focusing on strength again. My goal is to add 50 pounds to my squat and deadlift in the next 5 months, so I have plenty of work to do. If I can meet this goal then I’ll have much more success in competitions. Wish me luck!