I just posted this article to my facebook, and realized it was worth a quick blog rant as well. I know I mainly just blog my workouts on here, but this has quite a bit to do with me as a competitor. 

There are only a few competitions that I have entered that I can honestly say I were good for my health.   After the Reebok CrossFit Championships this year, I had to stop on the drive home to be physically sick (and this is a pukie visit HOURS after the last WOD). Post-London Throwdown in February, I came down with a horrible flu that left me in bed for the better part of a week. Basically, at every competition, I go "balls to the wall," physically and mentally giving everything I've got, and by body seems to pay for it later. I refuse to argue that CrossFit competitions and the work involved in them are good for me physically because the intensity is just too high, and at the rate I enter competitions, too frequent. 

That rant aside, I still effing love competing. I love fighting for the podium. As I've blogged before, if given the option, I will change my location at a competition so that I can face my competitor. It's sick, I know, but I love it. However, I will not claim it to be the same thing as CrossFit and GPP training. If everyone took things to the competition level (I mean like 4 intense-ass WODs for a sick-ass prize) at every workout, we'd be dead. We change our attitude, and our physical capabilities in a competition. Who hasn't seen a sexy insane PR/PB at a competition and thought, 'how the hell did that happen?!'

Wow, now that I've gone on for multiple paragraphs about how competition is different that training for GPP, I'll address what this article was about and why I think it's cool: it separates the idea of training and competitions. It takes the perspective of looking at CrossFit once again like a sport. For those athletes like myself who are into competition, we train every day on a variety of things that will help us when it comes to competition. By come the big day, anything flies. Good technique is important, and as anyone who has caught that heavy-ass snatch at a ridiculously low depth knows, it's how we get the greatest gains. However, it is also important to acknowledge when efficiency may triumph technique if safety is considered.

After the "Burpee Incident" (more commonly referred to as 12.1) Castro created, he and I have had an interesting relationship. Nevertheless, I really appreciate what he's given us to consider, from both the athlete and the trainer's point of view, in this article. Have a read. Then go do Isabel. I think I will.

http://community.crossfit.com/article/snatch-strategies-crossfit-workouts-and-competitions

Oh, and my WOD today was fast and heavy C&J's, with some double under and handstand practice. My Master's Dissertation is due in three days, so I'm physically taking it really easy. My body reacts poorly to the combination of stress and physical load, so in order to avoid pukie visits, I'm taking a step back on training until hand in :)