ON THE BIG TIME THROWDOWN

SWEAT RX CHAMPIONSHIPS
& OUTLAW INVITATIONAL
AUGUST 16, 17, & 18, 2013

The 2013 SWEAT RX Canadian Championships is back! – BIG TIME THROWDOWN presented by Element CrossFit! We are going into our 3rd year of throwing down the LARGEST independent fitness competition in Canada. If you missed last year’s event- smarten up cause you won’t want to be scaled down to a spectator this year. BIG Competition, BIG Prizes, BIG Venue – BIG TIME THROWDOWN!

The venue will once again be the eminent Metro Toronto Convention Centre where we have secured our very own 25,000 sq ft professional indoor space, equipped with bleacher seating, athlete pavilion, large video monitors, lights – cameras and lots of action. The perfect atmosphere to match the magnitude of our 2013 championships.

This year’s expansion includes the inclusion of our new Outlaw Invitational Pro Division – hosted by Outlaw CrossFit and programmed by Rudy Nielsen. Top Games and Regional competitors, will vie for a $15,000 + cash purse- the largest prize in Canadian competitions.

Not to be missed the 911 first Responders Challenge- witness Police Officers, Fire fighters and EMS first responders battle it out to see who has the fittest force. By special request we will extend an invitation to our local forces to come and test their fitness and raise money for their collective charities.

The SWEAT RX Championships will be a 3 DAY event. The workouts will be varied and constitute a thorough test of fitness for individuals and teams. In other words, expect to be confronted with a series of workouts that will challenge your physical and mental fortitude, and test your mettle. Bruised egos and torn hands are not to be discounted.

Outlaw Invitational

By invitation only! A select group of the top CrossFit athletes from around the world have been invited and will battle it out in a thorough and challenging test of true fitness to see who will reign victorious in one of the most demanding Throwdowns Canada has ever seen.

RX’D

Athletes who choose to compete in this category show high levels of work capacity. You are a seasoned CrossFitter. You complete all CF Benchmark work outs as prescribed, have all of your gymnastic skills (Muscle ups, HSPU, HS Walks, Double Unders, Rope Climbs, etc.) and lift heavy stuff. You are either a CF Games athlete or a Regional Qualifier. Be prepared to be tested!

Amateur Division

Amateur does not mean “beginner” nor does it mean “easy”. While the Amateur division will not be doing the same WODs as the Pros rest assured that the WODs will be challenging and you will need a high level of fitness across broad time and modal domains. Athletes of all abilities will be challenged to the edge of their fitness throughout this event. Both fun and grueling this year’s amateur division will be a true measure of fitness.

Affiliate Throw Down “REP YOUR BOX”

Affiliates teams of 4 (2 men and 2 woman) from across Canada will heed the call to battle for the chance to be declared the ‘the Fittest Affiliate’. This competition will have two divisions: an RX’d for the fire breathers and an Amateur for the fit and furious, allowing for an all-inclusive challenging experience. Last year’s RX’d team champions CrossFit Select won the ultimate prize of an all expenses paid team trip to California to watch the 2013 CrossFit Games. Who will lay claim to the title this year?

Masters Mettle

Young at heart, Masters athletes 40 + will step up to prove their fitness in the “Masters Mettle” Division- hosted by Transition CrossFit. The fittest masters in our community will go head to head and test their mettle for a top spot on the podium. Not to be out done or out rewarded by the young guns, top masters placers will be awarded cash prizing.

If you don’t plan to compete, this is going to be a great weekend. Come out and support your fellow athletes and friends, pick up some new gear; and join us for an after party Saturday night!

The SWEAT RX Championships is a local fitness competition hosted by Element CrossFit. Our goal is to produce events that draw athletes who want to showcase their growth in the sport of fitness and celebrate the great community.

* STAY TUNED TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE FOR THE LATESEST UPDATES ON CONFIRMED ATHLETES AND ADDITIONAL PRIZING. Facebook://Sweat RX Championships

FOR ALL QUESTIONS AND UPDATES ON THE 2013 SWEAT RX CANDADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS- BIG TIME THROWDOWN, VISIT www.sweatrxchampionships.com or contact
fred@sweatrxchampionships.com / alex@elementcrossfit.com

Please note on the article – Photos by letusgophoto.ca

4 minute AMRAP

(Unless you finish 90 reps, then your new time-cap is 8 min, unless you finish 180 reps, then your time-cap is 12 min……..etc.)

15 thrusters (100/65)

15 chest-to-bar pull-ups

First, an aside: this workout provides rather a large body of evidence (not that we needed it) with which we might counter the recent article in the New York Times, entitled “Why Women Can’t do Pull-ups” (disclaimer: google this only if you feel like become enraged). Obviously, women can. If you’re Brit Holmberg (pictured here), you do 13.5 for kicks in your firefighter suit and still get a better score than most of us mortals (somewhere in the vicinity of 80 reps…lots of pull-ups).

Now that we’ve corrected that silliness, let’s talk about Forever Fran (perhaps more aptly named Indefinite Fran). I certainly wasn’t at risk of completing my 90 reps, but those who did so with sufficient speed were rewarded with the opportunity to do it all over again. This week’s WOD may have been a new cover of an over-played song, but I would argue that it was a test of fitness the likes of which CrossFit has never seen. Given the option of completing Fran indefinitely I’d rather be tossed into the inferno with Dante.  But those who were able (and who elected) to do so were faced with a unique mental and physical challenge: what are you capable of giving when you’ve already given it all?

CrossFit may be constantly varied but it is, I think, easy to become complacent with the mental component of the game. We become sufficiently familiar with the movements and with our abilities to carry certain weights that we begin to strategize. We know roughly how long a squat will take, how we will feel when we do 30 of them, and we can manage our rest accordingly. With 13.5 there was not a lot of time for strategy in the first four minutes, and certainly none beyond that.  But this is real life; you can’t always strategize. What do you do when the universe throws the proverbial curve ball at you, and you finally outrun it just to turn the corner and find another waiting for you? You run again, that’s what.

The concept has me thinking about the whole format of the Open; with 4 days to complete the workout, do-overs have become a huge part of the game and I feel like we’re missing the point. Can you truly give your best effort when you know it’s not your only shot? If you redo it and happen to one-up your competitor, you have out-strategized them, but are you really any fitter for it? I obsessively watch the leaderboard as much as the next person, but I’ve often wondered if it wouldn’t be just as exciting, and perhaps more fair, if scores were kept secret (unknown and unknowable!) until Sunday night. Do the WOD once, do your best, and then wait to see how your best stacks up. No gaming the system, no one-uping, no do-overs, just you against yourself and the workout.

My toes to bar abilities have improved dramatically relative to two years ago, but I am still embarrassingly slow at them, and I must admit that the skill has become something I dread.  It is one of my dearest ambitions to be able to link toes to bar together smoothly, instead of taking thrice as long on each rep to do the awkward “kip-swing-dangle-swing-kip”.

Last year, the toes to bar in 12.3 nearly undid me, mentally; I began failing reps over and over and had to watch as the last of the 18 minutes ticked by. This year was less devastating but, once again, I found myself 4 failed reps short of reaching the goal I’d set for myself.

The Open has a knack for revealing your weaknesses. It forces you to face skills that you haven’t worked up the courage to try, as well as those that you may have been neglecting since last year. You can’t skip going in that day because you don’t like what was posted, and you can’t “just pretend” you completed the rep. By the end of the Open the long list of “things I suck at” can be daunting and discouraging.

But as I watched others at my box experience the jubilation of their first toes to bar, not to mention the many folk who got 95 or 135 lbs overhead for the first time, I was reminded of the rewards of a concentrated effort and a lot of perseverance. I was also reminded of how far I have come and how many firsts I have experienced in the last two years.

That first toes to bar was a defining moment for me; I stopped working out just to get my calorie burn, and began to get a little competitive, both with others and with myself, and to really concentrate on improving my strength, skill, and fitness. After a little stroll through my journal of firsts (if you don’t keep one, you should!), I’m feeling refocused and rededicated to the task of self improvement.  The firsts may be fewer and far between these days, but I know I have many more to come.

In its first two years of existence, the OC Throwdown opened its doors to anyone and everyone who wanted to compete. 2010 saw a promising beginning, with 125 athletes and about 400 spectators. Competitors performed just four WODs. In 2011 two more WODs were added, and the number of athletes and spectators more than doubled to 275 and over 1000, respectively. Justin Flynn, owner of Orange Coast CrossFit and mastermind of the OC Throwdown, was onto something.

The event generated so much interest that in 2012 an online qualifier was initiated, and 1100 hardy souls ponied up to participate, logging their data on three WODs over as many weeks. The top 150 men and 100 women earned the right to throw it down for a live crowd in the name of “Fittest in SoCal.”

This year’s event promised to be the biggest and best yet, and it delivered. Over 2800 die-hard CF fans poured into The Hangar at the OC Fair and Event Center, eager to see their hometown heroes and a few invited CF celebs (including Tommy “Hack’s Pack” Hackenbruck, Kenneth Leverich, and Neal Maddox on the men’s side, and feisty females like Kris Clever, Lindsey Valenzuela, and Talayna Fortunato). The stage was set for excitement, and the six workouts offered a pleasing variety of punishments for the crowd to witness.

Athletes were off and running (literally) in WOD 1. The 7K run was divided into 3 legs, the second of which was made more interesting with the addition of 70 pounds of sandbags (45 for women). Ben Wise, who didn’t make it through the final elimination round, still went home with an event win by completing the run in just under 36 minutes. Andrea Ager was the women’s winner, finishing 6th overall.

WOD 2 began with 10 Muscle-Ups and then proceeded to 4 rounds of 12 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups with 8 Box Jumps, followed by 10 more Muscle-Ups. Three of the men’s competitors finished in under 5 minutes: Noah Olsen (Peak360 CrossFit) was the men’s winner, with Ken Leverich and Brian Miller close behind. In the women’s division, where the number of reps was lower, Taylor Richards-Lindsay took first and finished 14^th overall, while women’s 2010 Games champ Kris Clever finished 4 seconds later to claim second.

WOD 3 continued the arm-ageddon and added a bountiful helping of hurt to the thighs with 3 rounds of 8 Shoulder-to-Overhead (190 pounds for the men; 125 for the women) and 14 Pistol Squats, then 3 rounds of 8 Front Squats (190/125) with 16 GHD Sit-Ups. The fun didn’t stop there; competitors cranked out a final 3 rounds of 4 Ground-to-Overhead (190/125) with two 20-foot rope climbs. Lindsey Valenzuela took her first WOD win here, finishing in 13:26, with Kris Clever still knocking on her back door for second. Neal Maddox saw his first of three WOD wins, with a time of just over 12:25.

WOD 4 was a Clean Ladder, with the bar starting at 245 pounds (185 for women) and increasing in 10-pound increments to 375 pounds (245 for women). Athletes could sneak in some Double-Unders for tie-breaking points, although this turned out to be moot for both the women and the men. Lindsey Valenzuela was the only one in her division to hit the 245 lift, taking her second win of the day. Unaffiliated competitor Danny Nicholas was the only man to make the 375 mark, resulting in a WOD 4 win. However, unlike Valenzuela, who was eventually crowned overall winner, Nicholas was shut out in the elimination round.

Event 5 alternated 30 Wall Balls (20/14) with a series of ascending Power Snatches (first round at 135/95, followed by 155/105, then 185/125). Neal Maddox snatched his way to another win in 7:16, comfortably ahead of second-place Kevin Ogar’s 7:42 time and third-place Tommy Hackenbruck’s 8:02. Lindsey Valenzuela was officially on a roll, taking her third WOD win of the day with a time of 8:03. Kris Clever, nearly 1:30 behind Valenzuela, managed a fourth place finish.

The sixth and final WOD pulled out all the stops: Deadlifts, followed by Thrusters, Box Jump Overs, KB Swings, Cal Rows, Handstand Push-Ups, Burpee Bar Muscle-Ups, 50-metre OH Walking Lunges, a 50-metre run, 100 Heavy Rope Double-Unders, a 200-metre sprint, and—pause to gasp here—Burpee Rower Hops to round it all out. First in the men’s division was Neal Maddox, garnering his third win nearly 30 seconds ahead of second-place Ken Leverich. Lindsey Valenzuela showed that her sweep of the three previous WODs hadn’t used her up, as she took win number four, with Alessandra Pichelli and Kris Clever grabbing 2^nd and 3^rd place, respectively.

When the chalk dust had settled, the top of the leader board in the Men’s Pro division was Kenneth Leverich, who finished 17^th in the 2012 Games. Joe Garcia, Orange Coast CrossFit’s director of performance, wasn’t surprised. “He’s just an intense competitor. Once the clock is going, it’s just him and whatever task he has in front of him—know what I mean?—Until it’s done.” And although he didn’t take first in any of the WODs, Leverich was a strong enough competitor to edge out three-event-winner Neal Maddox by 17 points. Travis Mayer rounded out the top three men’s spots, while Tommy Hackenbruck came in 7^th.

On the women’s side, the seemingly unstoppable Lindsey Valenzuela took three WODs and the first-place title. Valenzuela took 9^th place in the Games in 2012 but is best remembered for bringing the crowd to its feet as she became one of only two women to complete the 235-pound Clean Ladder event.

While CrossFitters everywhere turn their attention to qualifying rounds for this year’s Games, Flynn and his SoCal posse will be hard at work plotting the 2014 Throwdown. Flynn assures fans of the event that he knows their expectations are high. “We’d like to continue to attract more of the best athletes from around the world,” he says. “We want to make sure we keep our brand intact by only allowing the best of the best to compete [and we’ll] do this by keeping the workouts extremely challenging.”

CrossFit founder Greg “Coach” Glassman threw the company’s support behind what’s now known as the Hope for Kenya initiative after hearing about CrossFit trainer and Kenya devotee Dallin Frampton’s (CrossFit SpearHead, Utah) involvement and passion for the cause. Through a charity called Koins for Kenya, Frampton joined a mission to provide educational opportunities to Africans in the country’s vast and underserved rural areas. In most cases, this means not only building schools in places where existing facilities are substandard or even nonexistent, but also working to ensure that the basics of life (shelter and safe and reliable sources of food and water) are in place so that students can be healthy enough to go to school.

Twenty-two-year-old Frampton says he’s always had an inexplicable affinity for Kenya, even before setting foot in the country. In 2009, one year after graduating from high school, he had a chance meeting with someone involved in Koins for Kenya and made a real connection. Less than 12 hours later, he sat in the executive director’s office asking how he could help. The answer was simple, if not easy: identify a project, and raise the money to accomplish it. “He challenged me to raise about $10,000 to build a school in the village of Dzivani [near Mombasa, Kenya].” Between the time of this meeting in September 2009 and January 2010, he had raised about $13,000. In March he was on his way to Kenya for a six-month stint that would become a life-changing, village-changing, and even CrossFit-changing experience.

Frampton returned from Africa excited to share his passion for the work he was doing. In February 2011, he met Coach Glassman at a Sports Series Q & A in Park City, Utah, and approached him, hoping to snag a donation. What he got was much more. “I had no idea he would want to grab onto this the way that he did,” marvels Frampton. The young man’s passion was apparently contagious, because after funding a two-room school project, Coach and a team of CrossFit HQ staffers flew to Africa to see the work and meet the people. Glassman even led an impromptu workout for the village kids. Jimi Letchford, head of CF branding, recalls the spark that ignited when Glassman saw what was possible if CrossFit really invested itself in Kenya. “He knew that his community would rally behind it.” A short time later, Glassman not only gave the green light for CrossFit to fund a second school project, with four schoolrooms and a water collection system, but he started dreaming up creative ways to up the ante in a CrossFit-Kenya partnership.

In a country where the life expectancy of a newborn is less than 60 years and 20% of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day, there’s no shortage of worthy projects to tackle. Only about half of high-school-aged kids are actually enrolled in a school, and without adequate resources to send all of their children to a high school that may be many miles away, families and entire villages often pool their funds to send only the most promising students for education beyond Grade 8. Only these students will have a chance at the lifetime of opportunities (including a shot at college) that this level of education may provide. CrossFit, through its involvement in building schools and other basic infrastructure in Kenya, hopes to help more kids have access to this opportunity. Letchford estimates that by the time this issue goes to print, the initiative will probably have raised enough money for five or six schools.

First things first

When you visit one of the villages served by the project, you won’t see kids doing Wall Ball Shots or Muscle-Ups, but you will see a definite CrossFit presence. “The CrossFit part is just getting off the ground,” notes Frampton. In the village of Dzendereni, the newly-built school has been branded (literally) as the “CrossFit School.” A large CrossFit logo is emblazoned on an exterior wall and the desks are each stamped with the same logo. But incorporating CrossFit and CrossFit Kids into the curriculum can wait a while. “We’re in the very, very first baby steps of getting this thing off the ground,” says Frampton. “We can’t introduce CrossFit at its [typical] intensity before we give them the right fuel to fuel themselves. So we’re at Level 0, rather than at Level 1, where we can just go in and start teaching CrossFit. There are a couple prerequisites we’re focusing on right now.”

It’s not a “build-a-school-and-scram” model, Letchford notes. Job one is to set up the conditions where kids can show up feeling strong and healthy enough to participate in the mental and physical challenges of the school day. The projects always include buy-in from villagers, and there is much emphasis on helping families become self-reliant in nutrition and livelihood. CrossFit works with a couple of other non-profits to bring clean water and resources for sustainable crop cultivation to rural families in Kenya. They work with individual families to map out the crops that can be grown on their land, thereby moving villages away from the corn monoculture that has helped keep them in nutritional poverty. They teach a model called self-rotational gardening, in which calculations are first done to determine how much and what type of food a family will need to grow on the land they have available. The land is divided into sections, each large enough to produce food for the family for a two-week period. The first section is planted, say, with carrots, cabbage, and watermelon. That section is tended, and two weeks later the second section is planted either with the same foods or something different. When four sections have been planted, the first section is ready to harvest. The planting/harvesting cycle continues in this way, so there is always fresh food available. “Through these gardens, [villagers] can plant on one-tenth of the land they usually use for corn,” says Frampton, adding that unlike corn, the foods they are growing are rich in vitamins and minerals.

What’s a better accompaniment to fresh fruits and vegetables than a glass of clean, clear water? Water cisterns connected to simple gutter systems can collect fresh rainwater as part of a village’s improvement project. (The recently built CrossFit School in Dzerenderi has a 35,000-litre cistern.) And when there’s insufficient water from above, the “village drill” can help villagers access it from below. The drill, a human-powered marvel that works with the combined effort of several people, was created by an outfit called WHOLives (where WHO stands for water, health, and opportunity). Drillers assemble around a large metal wheel that looks a little like the merry-go-rounds at suburban playgrounds. Each grabs a handle and they begin to spin the wheel, which is connected to a section of drill bit. Once the bit is drilled in, the top of the drill is removed, a new section of bit is installed, and the wheel is spun again. The process continues until the (no doubt thirsty) drillers strike the wet stuff or the drill reaches its maximum depth of 250 feet.

Stepping up made easy

There’s a certain synergy that develops when people see others ‘doing good.’ Letchford and Frampton have certainly noticed this trend with CrossFit’s Hope for Kenya initiative, which has garnered about $130,000 in donations so far. “We’ve raised about $65,000 in the last two weeks,” says Letchford, and he adds that CF New England alone has raised more than $10,000. “We have people hitting Dallin up every day,” Letchford says. “Doctors, nurses, engineers . . . they just want to be part of it.” He adds that reigning Fittest Man on Earth Rich Froning and his wife have expressed a lifelong dream of going to Kenya and helping out.

So what can CrossFitters do to help? Frampton’s answer will sound familiar. “It’s all about raising money for a project,” says Frampton. “There are so many different things to do in Kenya, and I’m trying to link up the affiliates that want to get involved with a specific village.” There is also now quarterly Hope for Kenya WODs that CrossFitters can do to support the cause. Affiliates can host any kind of fundraising event, and CrossFit HQ is ready to support them. “We don’t care if you’re selling hot dogs or doing the workout, or whatever,” Letchford says. The important thing is for affiliates and individuals to get involved at whatever level they can.

CrossFit is also continually enhancing the initiative’s website (www.kenya.crossfit.com), which serves as a resource for affiliates to identify projects, raise funds, and share success stories. Letchford quips that one of the features now being developed for the website will be “like a Farmville project, but real.” Donors can select from a menu of items to see what their donations will buy—for example, a chicken coop, 100 desks, or a garden start-up for a family. And would-be supporters can rest assured that not all projects are in the five-figure price range. A fully- equipped garden goes for about $3,000. For a much more modest $30 (about the cost of a month’s worth of Gatorade), you can provide a desk for two or three students. Who knows, those desks might someday double as handy pieces of workout equipment when it’s time to try the new WOD called Kenya.

Note: Stats on Kenyan life expectancy, income, and school enrollment from UNICEF website.

In 2012, he blasted through the NorCal regionals, shattering the world record in Event 3—a merciless four rounds of 100-pound dumbbell snatches alternating with sprints. Only Maddox’s friend, training partner, and fellow CrossFit phenom Jason Khalipa came out ahead of him when the six events had ended. Both were on their way to the 2012 Games to take a shot at a $1 million purse—Maddox starting out at fourth place overall and Khalipa at second.

Maddox, competing with a partially torn biceps, turned in top ten finishes in three of the first nine events, but managed only a disappointing 35^th place in the rope-sled workout. He came back strong in the next event, the clean ladder, hefting 365 pounds to snare first place. It wasn’t enough, though, to move him into the final day of competition, a goal that had eluded him in the two previous years’ Games as well. It was some consolation, at least, to see his buddy Khalipa fight his way to a fifth place slot.

When asked how he might train differently for the 2013 Games, Maddox isn’t biting: he’s sticking with what has brought him this far. “The injury was really the hardest thing.” He notes that rubbing elbows in the gym with people like Matt Chan (men’s second place in the 2012 Games) and Rich Froning (two-time and current World’s Fittest Man) didn’t hurt one bit.

The come-from-behind kid

If you doubt the man knows how to make up for lost time, consider his humble beginnings. As a child, he was partially deaf and unable to speak. “My mom always jokes that I was the youngest kid to go to San Jose State because I went there for my hearing appointments,” he fondly recalls. At nine years old, after learning sign language and taking years of speech therapy, his hearing began to return and he started talking. “They never knew what the cause was,” says Maddox.

As a kid, he looked up to his dad, a towering guy who worked out. His tender pre-teen years were divided between watching his father stay in shape, sneaking a peek at Hardbodies on TV, and learning how to do push-ups and sit-ups when most kids his age were avoiding them like the plague. And he never forgets that, during his rough start in life, “People went out of their way to help me.”

He’s paying it forward now in his role as a Level 1 trainer, and his excellent showing in the last couple of years at regionals and in the Games has brought some notoriety—and undoubtedly a few extra clients. “Being at the Games doesn’t necessarily make me a better trainer,” Maddox insists, but if someone wants to go to the Games, I know how to get them there.” He’s quick to add that only about 1% of those who train will ever get to the Games, although many more have expressed the desire to do so. “People say, ‘I wanna go to the Games,’ but they have no idea. There’s years of prep that got me to this point,” Maddox says. “I would never want to crush anybody’s dream, but . . .”

In addition to training the young, fit, and wildly ambitious, he also finds gratification working with clients who may be older, somewhat fragile, or suffering from limiting conditions like MS. “Going to regionals makes me a better competitor, but what makes me a better trainer is watching the client and how they move, seeing and correcting the movement on a day-to-day basis.” The consensus from client testimonials is that he’s a tough, down-to-business kind of guy who gets results by tailoring workouts to his client’s needs and abilities, then pushing hard to make sure nothing is held back.

Fuelling success

What do you feed a CrossFit machine? Well, Maddox feeds it whatever it asks for. “I eat clean mostly,” he says, “but if I want something bad, I’m gonna get it. I listen to what my body wants.” The machine likes to stay well-oiled, apparently: it asks for fat at every meal, and Maddox has been quoted elsewhere as saying, “I eat fat; in fact, I eat a lot of fat.” A recent day’s meal plan looked like this: eggs and toast for breakfast; a fruit and protein snack; lunch of rice or a sweet potato with protein; a Progenex shake with coconut water in the afternoon; dinner of salmon and zucchini; and a slice of carrot cake (substitute glazed donut or other bodily requests, as appropriate).

Like many top-tier CrossFitters, Maddox integrates his workouts with family time. “Slowly but surely,” he says, he’s making CrossFit a way of life for his teenage daughter. When he picks her up after school, they travel together to the gym, where she studies while Maddox works out. “When I’m done, it’s her turn to work out. I made it mandatory for her,” he admits, and explains why: “It’s more than working out—it’s fighting through adversity; it’s discipline, community, and structure.” He hopes the lessons she’s learning in CrossFit will stay with her through the college years, preparing her to go out and get what she wants from life—even if that is an occasional donut.

The nutritional supplements market is full of products but slim on facts. Protect your health and enhance your CrossFit performance through the science of Intelligent Supplementation (IS).

By Andrew Munaweera

Proper training, plenty of rest and a clean diet traditionally form the foundation for health and CrossFit performance. Scientific studies, clinical trials and real-world results demonstrate that another element called Intelligent Supplementation (IS) can also noticeably andsignificantly enhance CrossFit athletic performance while protecting your most precious asset – your health.

This introductory article outlines a research-based, effective CrossFit supplementation program that enhances the results that are achievable with a foundation of proper training, sufficient rest and a clean diet.

Before diving into the IS Protocol, I’ll first explain the difference between IS and Conventional Supplementation (CS). In simple terms, I define IS as the thoughtful use of potent, pure and safe nutritional supplements which enhance functionality (our ability to do things) and health (the source of our ability to do things). An IS Protocol usually includes only a few powerful products because these products produce measureable results.

In contrast to IS, I define Conventional Supplementation (CS) as the excessive and/or hopeful use of products for health or performance enhancement. You’ll notice I use the word hopeful here – it’s a great word to describe what I have seen over the last 21 years in the business. Namely, wonderful people purchasing products that promise a world of results but fail to deliver anywhere near the hype, or worse, do not deliver at all. I used a CS strategy during my early years in the supplement industry – I bought a lot of products promising results, yet most of them didn’t have research or scientific evidence to support their claims. I took them because I hoped and believed they would work. Yes, I was a fool and I was soon parted from my money.

Now that you understand the difference between IS and CS, let’s get to the fun part – the part where I give you the science-based Intelligent Supplementation Protocol.

Intelligent Supplementation (IS) Protocol For Enhanced CrossFit Performance

And remember, consult a licensed health care provider before taking any supplements if you: are pregnant, breastfeeding, take medication, use recreational drugs, suffer from allergies or have a diagnosed medical condition.

Andrew Munaweera is a nutritional supplement industry insider with over 21 years of experience as an educator, researcher, entrepreneur, medical sales professional and corporate whipping boy. Mention the words “omega-3” or “probiotics” in a conversation and you’ll get his undivided attention. He trains out of CrossFit Vancouver where he goes by the nickname “Snake Oil”.