The CrossFit Games may be the most egalitarian athletic event on the planet. Anyone can sign up for the CrossFit Open—the worldwide, Internet-based competition that begins the qualifying mechanism for the Games—and go rep-for-rep against the very best CrossFit athletes on Earth. But while the CrossFit Open is indiscriminate and inclusive, it also deals out swift judgment.More than 138,000 people signed up for the 2013 Open; five weeks later, about 1,600 athletes (just a little more than 1%) were invited to attend Regionals, the second step of the vetting process. And when the dust clears at Regionals, no more than 50 men are given the honor of going to the Games. The contest to become the Fittest Man on Earth is one of the greatest sagas of courage, determination, and physical fortitude.These are some of the athletes who’ll tell their tale. Most will be of disappointment—but one will be of triumph.
2 of 7
1st Rich Froning
Age: 25 Height: 5’9″ Weight: 195 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Mayhem Cookeville, TN 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in the world 2012 CrossFit Games: 1st placeIn some ways it feels like we’re in the Rich Froning era of CrossFit. Like a young Mike Tyson or the ’90s-era Chicago Bulls, Froning exhibits excellence and dominance at every opportunity. With the exception of the 2010 CrossFit Games, where he placed second, Froning has won every Sectional, Open, Regional, and Games competition he’s entered since 2010. He was even the worldwide leader in this year’s CrossFit Open, despite not coming in first place in any single workout.“I don’t like to lose at anything,” says Froning, who grew up surrounded by 25 highly competitive male cousins. “In anything I do, I don’t enjoy getting second or third. If I hadn’t won the Open, people would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with Rich? So-and-so is coming for him!’ ”The miraculous part is that Froning’s been able to keep up with—and even outpace—the tsunami of new talent that’s been flooding the sport. Last February he sent ripples through the CrossFit community when he snatched 300 pounds and clean-and-jerked 370 pounds at a charity competition held at his new gym, CrossFit Mayhem, in Cookeville, TN. Shockingly, this feat of strength is not even something he considers his strong suit.“I think my ability to move moderate-to-heavy weight for a longer period of time in the Olympic movements is one of my advantages. Maybe not for a pure one-rep, but for reps,” he says. Aside from adding more running to his workouts, his training program has remained almost the same from year to year: Olympic lifting in the morning, two sessions of pure CrossFit in the afternoon, and some high-intensity intervals on the Concept2 rower at night.Froning’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 2 Workout 2: 8 Workout 3: 3 Workout 4: 3 Workout 5: 12
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3rd Josh Bridges
Age: 29 Height: 5’5″ Weight: 155 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Invictctus, San Diego, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in Southern California, 3rd worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: Missed due to injury 2011 CrossFit Games: 2nd placeIf one clear message came out of the 2013 CrossFit Open, it was this: Josh Bridges is back. After sitting out the 2012 Games because of a near-catastrophic knee injury, the runner-up from the 2011 CrossFit Games posted four top 10 finishes in the Open workouts, and took second place in the world behind Froning. Bridges has a huge motor and excels at any type of endurance event or long, sustained workout. He can do four metcons (metabolic conditioning workouts) a day and not even feel it the next morning.But as one of the smallest athletes on the field, at 5’5″ and 155 pounds, Bridges has to curtail his conditioning to work on pushing some heavy weight. “I have to be at least competitive in strength events. As long as I can maintain in those types of events and stay in the middle of the pack, I feel OK.” That’s not to say Bridges isn’t strong: He’s snatched 242 pounds, clean-and-jerked 310 pounds, and recently benched 225 pounds for 20 reps. Benching might not be a big part of CrossFit, but for Bridges it’s fun, and that’s all that matters. “It’s hard to be good at something if you’re not having fun at it,” he says.Bridges’ Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 6 Workout 2: 39 Workout 3: 4 Workout 4: 9 Workout 5: 1
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4th Scott Panchik
Age: 25 Height: 5’9″ Weight: 190 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Disction, Beachwood, OH 2013 CrossFit Open: 2nd in central east region (behing Froning), 4th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 4th placeAfter the first workout of the 2012 CrossFit Open, most people were pretty sure that Scott Panchik wasn’t real. For one, no one had ever heard of this guy who had the highest score in the world for that workout—as many burpees as possible in seven minutes. Second, 161 burpees in seven minutes seemed like it had to be a fake number.But Panchik is as real as it gets. The health and physical education teacher at Mentor High School in Mentor, OH, had been exposed to CrossFit through his father, but hadn’t seriously considered competing until he qualified for the 2012 Regionals. He quickly found a coach and got to work, sometimes hanging gymnastic rings under the bleachers of the high school football stadium so he could practice muscle-ups in the unforgiving Ohio weather. He ultimately took fourth place in the 2012 CrossFit Games—on just four months of dedicated training. And while he blanches at the word “prodigy,” he admits that he’s still in the honeymoon phase of his development curve.“I’m still PR-ing almost every day, and I’m still learning stuff every day,” he says. “The Open was great for me. I learned something from each one of the workouts.”After finishing up his workday at the high school, Panchik is at CrossFit Distinction from 4 to 8 PM, five to six days a week. Each session consists of skill training (such as stringing together muscle-ups), strength work, and then two metcons. Panchik feels that his greatest strength is his well-roundedness. “I’m always looking to get stronger, but I feel my strength is where it needs to be,” he says. “It’s way improved from 2012. I figured out a lot about myself after the Games last year.”Panchik’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 5 Workout 2: 27 Workout 3: 18 Workout 4: 27 Workout 5: 7
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6th Neal Maddox
Age: 35 Height: 5’10.5″ Weight: 205 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit X-Treme Athletics, San Jose, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in northern California, 6th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 20th placeTalk to any of Neal Maddox’s training partners and they all say the same thing: Maddox has the physical gifts to win the CrossFit Games—he just needs to get his head on straight.Taking 20th place in the 2012 Games was roundly thought of as an underachievement for anyone who’s trained with the San Jose, CA, native. Still, Maddox showed flashes of physical brilliance, especially when he won the clean ladder by reaching 365 pounds—and that’s not even his PR. Judging by his performance in the Open—first place in the world in one workout, second place in another—Maddox seems to be finding the right head space to compete. He chalks it up to a major shift in this training.“I did a lot of the Open workouts on my own,” he says. “I wanted to see if I needed people there or if I could do it by myself, and I was able to do it.” Maddox trains five days a week, completing one to three workouts a day. Strength has always been his calling card—in high school he benched more than 400 pounds and squatted 500—so he devotes a good portion of time to training his main weakness: running. Twice a week he’s at the track; he also includes running in several of his weekly workouts. Using the Open as his gauge, he says he’s exactly where he needs to be.“This year, without anyone around, I’ve been able to hit PRs,” he says. “If I’m able to do that on my own, then you put me in an arena full of people, I know I’m going to be able to do that and then some.”Maddox’ Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 1 Workout 2: 60 Workout 3: 2 Workout 4: 7 Workout 5: 32
6 of 7
5th Kenneth Leverich
Age: 28 Height: 5’8″ Weight: 185 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: Orange Coast CrossFit, Costa Mesa, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 2nd in southern California regional, 5th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 17th placeFor as long as he can remember, Kenneth Leverich has had the ability to feed off intensity, to push himself past the breaking point.As a kid, he competed in football, rugby, and Olympic weightlifting, and would ask teammates, “You know that feeling of pushing yourself so hard you get that coppery taste of blood in the back of your throat?” All he got in return were odd looks. But when he broached the subject at a CrossFit gym, he finally got the response he was hoping for. “This guy said, ‘I totally know that feeling!’” says Leverich. “And I was like: This is my home. These are my people.”Leverich is a CrossFit barbarian. He trains up to six hours a day, squeezing in as many as six workouts—and that doesn’t include daily strength sessions. In a video he recently posted on his Facebook page, he snatches 270 pounds, then immediately hits a standing backflip. In the gym, he invents moves such as the “forward muscle-up handstand push-up” on the rings, in which he puts his feet forward over his head and finishes in a handstand. In his own version of a bar muscle-up, he ends the move by standing on top of the bar. Leverich—who usually goes surfing or spearfishing on his days off—believes this training prepares him for the chaos and unpredictability of the Games.“People are always screaming at me, ‘Kenny! You ‘re going to get hurt!’ ” he says. “But look at the 2012 Games. There was an obstacle course. I took second in that event.”Leverich’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 11 Workout 2: 86 Workout 3: 9 Workout 4: 3 Workout 5: 4
7 of 7
211th Matt Chan
Age: 35 Height: 5’10” Weight: 210 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Verve, Denver, CO 2013 CrossFit Open: 7th in southwest region, 211th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 2nd placeThe first workout of the 2013 CrossFit Open was exactly 21 weeks after Matt Chan was treated for meniscal tears in both knees. The 2012 CrossFit Games runner-up found himself in a frantic race: recuperating from the procedure to training for the Open. He figured if he could do just enough to punch his ticket to Regionals, that would buy him an extra two months to train. He placed 211th in the world—not much to brag about, but enough to get to the next step.“The Open is not the Games for me,” says Chan. “I think returning Games competitors are being smarter about training, and realizing we have more important things to work on than satisfying our egos.”Chan has always been known for strength. His numbers in the back squat, deadlift, snatch, and clean-and-jerk have typically been some of the highest in the CrossFit community. But spending four months not being allowed to squat below parallel forced him to work on other aspects of his game. “I did a lot of gymnastics skills, like handstand pushups. I got a lot better at that stuff,” he says. “I set PRs in workouts that had been major weaknesses for me. It was reassuring to see some things improve when I couldn’t work on other things.” With his rehab nearly complete, Chan trains five to six days a week. This includes two heavy-lifting days, focusing on one-, three-, and five-rep maxes; one day at the track, to work on his aerobic base; and a sprinkling of Olympic lifts throughout the week. He also performs a metcon at every session.“I describe my workouts as ‘constantly varied, with a focus on my weaknesses,’ ” Chan says.Chan’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)Workout 1: 882 Workout 2: 845 Workout 3: 338 Workout 4: 446 Workout 5: 63
The CrossFit Games may be the most egalitarian athletic event on the planet. Anyone can sign up for the CrossFit Open—the worldwide, Internet-based competition that begins the qualifying mechanism for the Games—and go rep-for-rep against the very best CrossFit athletes on Earth. But while the CrossFit Open is indiscriminate and inclusive, it also deals out swift judgment.
More than 138,000 people signed up for the 2013 Open; five weeks later, about 1,600 athletes (just a little more than 1%) were invited to attend Regionals, the second step of the vetting process. And when the dust clears at Regionals, no more than 50 men are given the honor of going to the Games. The contest to become the Fittest Man on Earth is one of the greatest sagas of courage, determination, and physical fortitude.
These are some of the athletes who’ll tell their tale. Most will be of disappointment—but one will be of triumph.
1st Rich Froning
Age: 25 Height: 5’9″ Weight: 195 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Mayhem Cookeville, TN 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in the world 2012 CrossFit Games: 1st place
In some ways it feels like we’re in the Rich Froning era of CrossFit. Like a young Mike Tyson or the ’90s-era Chicago Bulls, Froning exhibits excellence and dominance at every opportunity. With the exception of the 2010 CrossFit Games, where he placed second, Froning has won every Sectional, Open, Regional, and Games competition he’s entered since 2010. He was even the worldwide leader in this year’s CrossFit Open, despite not coming in first place in any single workout.
“I don’t like to lose at anything,” says Froning, who grew up surrounded by 25 highly competitive male cousins. “In anything I do, I don’t enjoy getting second or third. If I hadn’t won the Open, people would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with Rich? So-and-so is coming for him!’ ”
The miraculous part is that Froning’s been able to keep up with—and even outpace—the tsunami of new talent that’s been flooding the sport. Last February he sent ripples through the CrossFit community when he snatched 300 pounds and clean-and-jerked 370 pounds at a charity competition held at his new gym, CrossFit Mayhem, in Cookeville, TN. Shockingly, this feat of strength is not even something he considers his strong suit.
“I think my ability to move moderate-to-heavy weight for a longer period of time in the Olympic movements is one of my advantages. Maybe not for a pure one-rep, but for reps,” he says. Aside from adding more running to his workouts, his training program has remained almost the same from year to year: Olympic lifting in the morning, two sessions of pure CrossFit in the afternoon, and some high-intensity intervals on the Concept2 rower at night.
Froning’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
Age: 29 Height: 5’5″ Weight: 155 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Invictctus, San Diego, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in Southern California, 3rd worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: Missed due to injury 2011 CrossFit Games: 2nd place
If one clear message came out of the 2013 CrossFit Open, it was this: Josh Bridges is back. After sitting out the 2012 Games because of a near-catastrophic knee injury, the runner-up from the 2011 CrossFit Games posted four top 10 finishes in the Open workouts, and took second place in the world behind Froning. Bridges has a huge motor and excels at any type of endurance event or long, sustained workout. He can do four metcons (metabolic conditioning workouts) a day and not even feel it the next morning.
But as one of the smallest athletes on the field, at 5’5″ and 155 pounds, Bridges has to curtail his conditioning to work on pushing some heavy weight. “I have to be at least competitive in strength events. As long as I can maintain in those types of events and stay in the middle of the pack, I feel OK.” That’s not to say Bridges isn’t strong: He’s snatched 242 pounds, clean-and-jerked 310 pounds, and recently benched 225 pounds for 20 reps. Benching might not be a big part of CrossFit, but for Bridges it’s fun, and that’s all that matters. “It’s hard to be good at something if you’re not having fun at it,” he says.
Bridges’ Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
Age: 25 Height: 5’9″ Weight: 190 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Disction, Beachwood, OH 2013 CrossFit Open: 2nd in central east region (behing Froning), 4th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 4th place
After the first workout of the 2012 CrossFit Open, most people were pretty sure that Scott Panchik wasn’t real. For one, no one had ever heard of this guy who had the highest score in the world for that workout—as many burpees as possible in seven minutes. Second, 161 burpees in seven minutes seemed like it had to be a fake number.
But Panchik is as real as it gets. The health and physical education teacher at Mentor High School in Mentor, OH, had been exposed to CrossFit through his father, but hadn’t seriously considered competing until he qualified for the 2012 Regionals. He quickly found a coach and got to work, sometimes hanging gymnastic rings under the bleachers of the high school football stadium so he could practice muscle-ups in the unforgiving Ohio weather. He ultimately took fourth place in the 2012 CrossFit Games—on just four months of dedicated training. And while he blanches at the word “prodigy,” he admits that he’s still in the honeymoon phase of his development curve.
“I’m still PR-ing almost every day, and I’m still learning stuff every day,” he says. “The Open was great for me. I learned something from each one of the workouts.”
After finishing up his workday at the high school, Panchik is at CrossFit Distinction from 4 to 8 PM, five to six days a week. Each session consists of skill training (such as stringing together muscle-ups), strength work, and then two metcons. Panchik feels that his greatest strength is his well-roundedness. “I’m always looking to get stronger, but I feel my strength is where it needs to be,” he says. “It’s way improved from 2012. I figured out a lot about myself after the Games last year.”
Panchik’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
Age: 35 Height: 5’10.5″ Weight: 205 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit X-Treme Athletics, San Jose, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 1st in northern California, 6th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 20th place
Talk to any of Neal Maddox’s training partners and they all say the same thing: Maddox has the physical gifts to win the CrossFit Games—he just needs to get his head on straight.
Taking 20th place in the 2012 Games was roundly thought of as an underachievement for anyone who’s trained with the San Jose, CA, native. Still, Maddox showed flashes of physical brilliance, especially when he won the clean ladder by reaching 365 pounds—and that’s not even his PR. Judging by his performance in the Open—first place in the world in one workout, second place in another—Maddox seems to be finding the right head space to compete. He chalks it up to a major shift in this training.
“I did a lot of the Open workouts on my own,” he says. “I wanted to see if I needed people there or if I could do it by myself, and I was able to do it.” Maddox trains five days a week, completing one to three workouts a day. Strength has always been his calling card—in high school he benched more than 400 pounds and squatted 500—so he devotes a good portion of time to training his main weakness: running. Twice a week he’s at the track; he also includes running in several of his weekly workouts. Using the Open as his gauge, he says he’s exactly where he needs to be.
“This year, without anyone around, I’ve been able to hit PRs,” he says. “If I’m able to do that on my own, then you put me in an arena full of people, I know I’m going to be able to do that and then some.”
Maddox’ Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
Age: 28 Height: 5’8″ Weight: 185 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: Orange Coast CrossFit, Costa Mesa, CA 2013 CrossFit Open: 2nd in southern California regional, 5th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 17th place
For as long as he can remember, Kenneth Leverich has had the ability to feed off intensity, to push himself past the breaking point.
As a kid, he competed in football, rugby, and Olympic weightlifting, and would ask teammates, “You know that feeling of pushing yourself so hard you get that coppery taste of blood in the back of your throat?” All he got in return were odd looks. But when he broached the subject at a CrossFit gym, he finally got the response he was hoping for. “This guy said, ‘I totally know that feeling!’” says Leverich. “And I was like: This is my home. These are my people.”
Leverich is a CrossFit barbarian. He trains up to six hours a day, squeezing in as many as six workouts—and that doesn’t include daily strength sessions. In a video he recently posted on his Facebook page, he snatches 270 pounds, then immediately hits a standing backflip. In the gym, he invents moves such as the “forward muscle-up handstand push-up” on the rings, in which he puts his feet forward over his head and finishes in a handstand. In his own version of a bar muscle-up, he ends the move by standing on top of the bar. Leverich—who usually goes surfing or spearfishing on his days off—believes this training prepares him for the chaos and unpredictability of the Games.
“People are always screaming at me, ‘Kenny! You ‘re going to get hurt!’ ” he says. “But look at the 2012 Games. There was an obstacle course. I took second in that event.”
Leverich’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
Age: 35 Height: 5’10” Weight: 210 lbs Home CrossFit Gym: CrossFit Verve, Denver, CO 2013 CrossFit Open: 7th in southwest region, 211th worldwide 2012 CrossFit Open: 2nd place
The first workout of the 2013 CrossFit Open was exactly 21 weeks after Matt Chan was treated for meniscal tears in both knees. The 2012 CrossFit Games runner-up found himself in a frantic race: recuperating from the procedure to training for the Open. He figured if he could do just enough to punch his ticket to Regionals, that would buy him an extra two months to train. He placed 211th in the world—not much to brag about, but enough to get to the next step.
“The Open is not the Games for me,” says Chan. “I think returning Games competitors are being smarter about training, and realizing we have more important things to work on than satisfying our egos.”
Chan has always been known for strength. His numbers in the back squat, deadlift, snatch, and clean-and-jerk have typically been some of the highest in the CrossFit community. But spending four months not being allowed to squat below parallel forced him to work on other aspects of his game. “I did a lot of gymnastics skills, like handstand pushups. I got a lot better at that stuff,” he says. “I set PRs in workouts that had been major weaknesses for me. It was reassuring to see some things improve when I couldn’t work on other things.” With his rehab nearly complete, Chan trains five to six days a week. This includes two heavy-lifting days, focusing on one-, three-, and five-rep maxes; one day at the track, to work on his aerobic base; and a sprinkling of Olympic lifts throughout the week. He also performs a metcon at every session.
“I describe my workouts as ‘constantly varied, with a focus on my weaknesses,’ ” Chan says.
Chan’s Worldwide Placings for the CrossFit Open (By Workout)
