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A picture of a bar that an athlete would typically do a bar muscle up with. This bar has a much smaller diameter compared to the log at the Rogue Invitational.

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Laura Horvath in the 2018 CrossFit Games

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"The Unexpected and the Unknowable" : Practice Variability

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"The Unexpected and the Unknowable" : Practice Variability

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A big part of the reasoning behind CrossFit's highly varied and intense programming is to prepare people for any physical situation. These situations include the unknown and the unknowable.

The CrossFit Games are a bit like the Olympics of CrossFit. The world's best athletes compete amongst each other to claim the title of the "Fittest in the World". Throughout the Games, athletes participate in a variety of events. However, the competition always includes events that incorporate an odd object. These odd objects are pieces of equipment that the athletes have never seen in previous competitions and that they have never worked with.

In the 2018 CrossFit Games, the programmers introduced an event that began and ended with a "Rescue Randy" dummy drag across the field. The athletes had never seen anything like this before. Athletes dragged the dummy with different grips and different approaches, but either way, they had to quickly adapt in order to get through the event.

Perhaps doing some sort of intense sled drag practice prior to the Games could prepare you for such an event, but if you spent all your time doing sled drags, how could you ever succeed at any other odd object event?

Practice variability is going to increased our capability to perform the skills we have practiced AND the skills we have never practiced before. These athletes must constantly change the movements, repetitions, and environment they practice in to be able to adapt to such a big change. They cannot stick with simply weightlifting, pull-ups, or cardio. Each day, these athletes must vary their programming in order to be best prepared and ready for such surprises as the odd objects at the CrossFit Games!

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A picture of me competing at a local CrossFit competition in the summer of 2021.

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After I finished signing up for my first CrossFit competition, I knew that I would have to make some changes to my typical training routine in order to feel prepared. I began to work on some weaknesses and prioritized sleep and recovery more than ever.

Before the competition, the first event was released in order to give athletes a chance to prepare for one of the events. It was a weightlifting complex that was made up of a clean, thruster, and jerk. I decided to practice the complex beforehand and test out how heavy I might be able to go for this complex when I am at the competition.

I worked really hard on this complex, and I ended up finding that the maximum weight I could lift for this complex was 130 pounds.

As the first event began on competition day, I completed the complex a few times while increasing the weight. Toward the end of the event, I successfully completed the complex with 130 lbs. I looked up at the clock to see how much time I had left.

One minute remained on the clock.

I made a split second decision and decided to go for a personal record (PR)! It was a weight I had never attempted before, but I felt great and wanted to give it a shot. As I stood up from the jerk, I felt an overwhelming feeling of pride, surprise, and happiness. I hit 135 lbs!

In lecture, we defined performance variables as "environmental variables that have a direct and immediate effect on performance while they are present, but when they are no longer present, their effect on performance is altered". Examples of these variables can include fatigue, weather, and injuries. In my case, I think the effect of a crowd, strict timing, and adrenaline all had an influence on me hitting that final weight. These variables did not affect my learning of the skill, as I had already practiced it multiple times and knew how to do it. However, these variables allowed me to perform even better than I had practiced.

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Three athletes at the 2022 Rogue Invitational struggling to smoothly get over the log to complete a bar muscle-up

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The Dreaded Log Muscle Up: Transfer of Skills

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The Dreaded Log Muscle Up: Transfer of Skills

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Just like the CrossFit Games, the Rogue Invitational is no stranger to incorporating new objects and making challenging modifications to traditional movements.

In 2022, the Rogue Invitational included an event with a ski machine, GHD sit-ups, and bar muscle-ups. This workout would be something that a professional athlete could breeze through in no time. However, the catch in this workout was that the bar that would be used to complete the bar muscle-ups would have a much greater diameter than usual (see the picture to the right for reference). This prevented athletes from wrapping their fingers around the log for support and proved to be extremely challenging to get repetitions done.

Why did this happen?

This new log bar muscle-up could be seen as a transfer test for these athletes because they are performing a skill in a different context or situation than they are normally familiar with (in this case, the context is the diameter of the bar).

Negative transfer is defined as the "negative effect of prior experience on the performance of a skill so that a person performs the skill less well than he or she would have without prior experience".

These athletes are normally used to doing bar muscle-ups on a bar with a much smaller diameter. With the smaller bar, athletes are able to grip the bar fully, bring their hips up to the bar much easier, and string multiple repetitions together.

With the log, athletes were unable to do any of this.

One of the reasons that this negative transfer occurred is because of perception-action coupling. These athletes have mastered the bar-muscle up and have connected the sensory (or perceptual) information available during the performance of a bar muscle-up with the required output: getting to the top of the bar smoothly. The increased diameter of the log interferes with the athlete's recognition of familiar perceptual components in a movement situation, so that when a different response is now required, perception-action coupling will lead to lengthened reaction and movement times, as well as errors.

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The top 8 women in the 2022 CrossFit Games and their rankings in 6 different events

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The Unstoppable Tia Clair Toomey: The "All Around" Athlete

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The Unstoppable Tia Clair Toomey: The "All Around" Athlete

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Tia-Clair Toomey is a name you will hear a lot in CrossFit. She has become one of the most decorated and competitive athletes in the sport. She has won 6 individual first place titles at the CrossFit games (and is the only female athlete to do so), and she also competed at the 2016 Olympics in a weightlifting event!

So, in the context of the CrossFit Games, what does it take to win, and why are her achievements so impressive?

Crossfit and the CrossFit Games are unique in that they are the ultimate test of fitness. They incorporate combinations of elements such as interval training, Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, powerlifting, gymnastics, kettlebell lifting, calisthenics, strongman, bodyweight exercises, odd object events, and other exercises.

Your overall finish at the CrossFit games is determined on how many points you accumulate throughout a series of events. The higher you place in an event, the more points you get. As you can see from above, Tia-Toomey does not always finish first. However, what makes her stand out from other athletes is that she can consistently be found doing well in almost every event. Some athletes may be extremely strong and place well in a lifting event, but their overall standing will ultimately suffer if they place near the bottom in every other event that does not just involve weightlifting.

In class, we defined an ability as a "general trait or capacity of an individual that is a determinant of a person’s achievement potential for the performance of specific skills".

Furthermore, Henry's Specificity of Motor Abilities Hypothesis states that 1) the number of motor abilities is very large, 2) abilities are independent so that the strength of one ability is unrelated to the strength of any other, and 3) each skill that we perform depends on a large number of these abilities.

In class, we asked, if motor abilities are numerous and independent, how can we explain the so-called “all-around athlete” with the specificity of motor abilities hypothesis?

According to this hypothesis, we can say Tia-Clair Toomey consistently excels in a variety of tasks and skills that are tested at the CrossFit Games. Although her abilities are not something she can modify with practice, her skills are something she can improve with practice. Overtime, she has improved a variety of skills to the point where she can consistently be seen doing very well in almost every event, reflected by the success in her CrossFit career.