By: Leo Fontana
Today was the last day that Melanie (one of our Midtown members) and I had to our Welded Team Series workouts. This is a team competition that you and a partner have 4 workouts complete in one weekend for two weeks in a row. The workouts are done at your own gym and scores are submitted online, very similar to the Crossfit Open but as a team. It was a great time and both of us and we pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zone, with that many PRs came along.
Competition can push you to do things you never imagined to be possible.
For example, one of our workouts was:
21-15-9
synchronized DB snatches
synchronized bar muscle ups
Melanie had never done a bar muscle up, let alone 45 of them for time. Knowing that if she was to get at least 1 muscle up it would be huge for our score. She came in that day and told herself she was going to get one because she had no choice. She walked up to the pull up bar, chalked up, attempted one, and she got it! Then, afraid of not being able to get any more we started our work out. It was a 30 minute time cap and long story short she completed 35 muscle ups that work out. All because she jumped out of her comfor zone by doing a competition with someone more experienced than her and knowing she had no other option.
Competing can bring the best out of people. It’s easy to come in and take it slow most days in class for whatever reason, but when you have a teammate depending on you, people going fast next to you and knowing that your score counts for something, makes you move much faster, bringing out your true “red line” of fitness and making you feel like the only thing you want to do is curl up into a ball because your lungs are burning and your legs can’t take your body weight anymore, haha. On the other hand it can make you do your first muscle up or have you finally figure out double unders, never done chest to bar pull ups? Well, competition can help you kip just a little higher too.
If you have never competed before in Welded and you have been thinking about it, don’t think any longer, ask one of the coaches and we will be happy to find a competition near us that you can give it a go. It doesn’t matter if it’s Rx or scaled, all that matters is that you find a lot of new limits to your body.
On that note, there are still 4 spots left for girl teams to sign up for Metcon 4 Hope, a perfect opportunity to compete for the first time. If you are not signing up, try to come watch and support the teams competing.