USA Weightlifting and CrossFit have combined forces to create a mixture of a lifting meet and a CrossFit conditioning workout. The CrossFit/USAW Open will be in Colorado Springs, CO on October 1st through the 3rd. This competition will begin with a normal Olympic weightlifting meet (for the new folk, the snatch is contested first, followed by the clean and jerk) and end with what is being referred to as “the triplet”. The conditioning workout will consist of as many rounds as possible of six squat cleans (55kg men / 30kg women), 12 pull-ups and 24 double unders.

Before I talk about what I think about this endeavor, let me clear a few things up. There are folk that read this site that primarily workout in a CrossFit facility. There are folk that read this site that don’t have anything to do with CrossFit. Subsequently, there are people that read the site that both do and do not like CrossFit for various reasons.



Gant and I, for some ungodly reason I’m sure we can’t fathom, have to defend ourselves whenever a joke is make about CrossFit. I’ll clarify this issue once again. I am doing what I’m doing indirectly because of CrossFit. I hated bodybuilding style training after I stopped playing football in college, started doing power/agility/strength training, and got into a bit o’ CrossFit. I co-owned a facility in southern Georgia. I was probably the youngest person certified as a ‘Level II CrossFit Trainer’. Doing all of that led to me getting in contact with Mark Rippetoe, and then it led to me moving to Wichita Falls to run CF style stuff. I had been playing around with strength related programming, and implemented and improved it in Wichita Falls. Throughout my time living there, I mainly got stronger (no conditioning). I coached barbell training in the gym and at seminars, and also started competing in Olympic weightlifting. I also started a joke and training philosophy with my friends that evolved into this website.

So there you have it, CrossFit was the inception that turned me onto the things I do now. I have a very clear understanding of what CrossFit is and have been around and have had discussions with people who run the company. I have met tons of great people through CrossFit, and I don’t regret any of it. My philisophical difference generally lies with an emphasis on barbell training for strength with conditioning to get conditioned for whatever the goal is. CrossFit style workouts are a tool but not used in every situation, although its principles are valuable. Another difference is that I feel better when skinny guys become stronger and bigger, primarily because they can usually do whatever it is that they want to do better with few exceptions. And lastly I believe there is value in competing in sanctioned sports that can improve the vigor of an individual and reverberate throughout their life. This brings us back full circle to the CrossFit/USAW Open.

Frankly, I think it’s a good idea.

Pros

USAW has around 6,000 members including lifters, coaches, judges, and volunteers. That ain’t much, folks. CrossFit itself has…I dunno how many people, but they have over 1,000 affiliates. The majority of those facilities have bumper plates in them. Prior to this CrossFit explosion, you probably had to go to select Olympic weightlifting gyms in order to train the Olympic lifts (unless you had your own equipment). Now you can probably talk a local affiliate into letting you train there if you’re an experienced lifter. Furthermore, most of these facilities have people teaching people how to do the Olympic lifts. Now, the quality of coaching is going to vary drastically, but the point is there are a lot more people that have access to the sport of Olympic lifting as well as a lot more people actually doing the lifts, correctly or not. CrossFit is going to increase the number of lifters in USAW.

This does a number of good things. If the number of registered USAW lifters increases immediately and continues to do so over time, that means we have a larger talent pool of people who might be successful. I’ve heard rumors of China having one MILLION people in their lifting federation. If that’s even remotely true, they are destroying us on sheer volume. USAW might get some pretty decent lifters out of this CrossFit partnership.

This will also bring more money to USAW. I don’t really have an opinion on this either way, but maybe USAW can offer me more services, better discounts, or some other perk due to the increase in members and revenue. Hell, I don’t know. At the very least it will mean more people will try Olympic lifting, and that means I might get more business out of it. In either case, it’s about time USAW has taken advantage of the fact that CrossFit has tons of people throwing around barbells with bumper plates.
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Cons

I guess the idea is that more people will try out CrossFit and become involved in it. I honestly don’t see this happening. The CrossFit money making machine will still roll with or without USAW (They have 19 Level I seminars in August. If 30 people attend each one — and sometimes it’s more — that’s 570 people at $1k each…and…that’s a lot of fucking money. And that’s only the Level I.). I don’t see USAW members as likely to try or at least stick with CrossFit, but it still opens that market up to CrossFit. From what I’ve seen online, I just don’t know how much of the hardcore weightlifters will try a conditioning workout, and I suspect that the majority of participants in this CrossFit/USAW Open will be people coming from CrossFit. And there’s nothing wrong with that because it brings more people into a sport that needs exposure.

Now, the actual conditioning workout itself could be tweaked. To recap, it consists of six squat cleans (55kg men / 30kg women), 12 pull-ups and 24 double unders. Now, let me clarify that I’m probably not gonna compete in this thing because I’m poor and will be more concerned with a local meet and preparing for the American Open. Personally I think this is biased towards the CrossFitter just a bit. The weightlifter doesn’t incorporate kipping pull-ups of any kind into his training because they aren’t very useful. The CrossFitter stereotypically does a shit load of them. Furthermore, if someone were going to get 10 rounds of this workout in, they’d be doing 120 pull-ups, which the weightlifter would never bother with. Hands will be ripping and DOMS will be almost as prevalent as the internet insults that will follow the hand rippage. I don’t really care that this is biased, but it is objectively biased nonetheless.

Instead, I would have switched the cleans and the pull-ups. 6 pull-ups followed by 12 cleans would be more appropriate. The limiting factor wouldn’t be grip strength on the bar or skin remaining on the hand. I could do 55kg cleans all day long — as any man should. I don’t think that this would have tilted the bias more in the weightlifter’s favor since a CrossFitter is supposed to be doing cleans anyway, regardless of a lifting meet. And it’s so damn light that they would be fine anyway.

Summary

Overall, I thin this partnership is a damn good idea and way overdue. More CrossFitters will try Olympic lifting. Some of them may compete in it on a regular basis and I don’t see this as a bad thing. As for the event itself, I think that “the triplet” could have been designed better, but at least it wasn’t one of the awfully contrived workouts that pop up every now and then on CrossFit’s website.

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A few more thoughts

Justin asked for my thoughts on this, so here they are. I think this idea sucks. The USAW will have to sign an extra Crossfitter up because I won’t be renewing my membership.

There are a lot of good people who operate and train in CF gyms who work hard and do well. That’s not the issue (let this soak in before you accuse me of being anti-CF). My beef with this is USAW’s catering to CF and CF’s refusal to acclimate and compete in an actual sport. Glassman claimed, in one of his hyperbolic declarations, “we can do your stuff almost as well as you can.” Really? Here was your chance! But instead of doing someone else’s stuff, you had to make this look like your stuff. Keep moving those goalposts up until they hit you right in the face.

There is no reason they couldn’t have hosted an all-CF weightlifting meet. Enforce the rules and use actual judging standards. Sure, you might have a lot of guys pressing out jerks, making AC Jumps, and going 3-for-6. That’s part of learning. Those same lifters will be there next time going 5-for-6 and getting 3 PRs. They jettisoned an outstanding opportunity to learn and grow so they could take their shirts off and sling some 55kg cleans (WTF, we’re not even into the blues?!).

So yeah, I think this cheapens both organizations. This will sell a few more USAW memberships, but it won’t do anything to improve America’s weightlifting prospects. The next Kendrick Farris isn’t doing Fran in some Crossfit box.

Hopefully NASGA won’t have me doing burpees after throwing a PVC caber.

-Gant