Upper East Side

Why I Compete
By Coach Brandon Renert

In my youth I played competitive sports, mainly football. This instilled a healthy competitive nature in me and taught me how to train with a team for a goal — goals that were long standing and required training for long periods of time. As an adult, training turned into something new. The team aspect of training for a season was no longer.

For 20 years I have trained setting personal goals. Whether it be powerlifting, CrossFit, or Olympic weightlifting, I have set goals and trained to better myself. It is also a way to see where I stand amongst my peers, carrying on my healthy competitive instinct. Either way, it allows me to set goals and test them at a certain point to measure how I am improving and bettering myself. Whatever your goal may be (it may be just to try an event and merely finish it), it’s important to have them, to get better as an athlete and not slip backward.

As I am pushing 40 years old, I have no illusions of making the US National Olympic Weightlifting team or even winning at Nationals. This does not mean my participation in formal competitions is silly. I get to meet new people, push my limits, measure myself amongst my peers and, as I stated earlier, see how I measure against my previous self.
Society tells me that my best days are behind my and I respond with a emphatic, “NO, they are not.” I will strive to be a little bit better year after year while enjoying the process of setting goals and training hard to attain them.

We test ourselves every day at the box and should be recording and tracking everything. I encourage every athlete to step outside his or her comfort zone and test yourself in a formal setting. There is no better way to start than the Crossfit Open. Yes, you might find out you hate it, but you might also find it has inspired you to be better. At the very least, you will have learned a thing or two about yourself.

Sign up for the open (scaled or Rx division).

Warm up
3 rounds not for time:
10 light KB thrusters
10 ring rows
1:00 plank

Strength
Clean
Fitness: 2 clean pulls (with no explode) + power clean
Performance: 2 clean pulls (with explode) + clean

Conditioning
Fitness: 15-12-9-6-3 reps for time*:
Jumping pull-ups
Hand release push-ups
Power cleans

Performance: 15-12-9-6-3 reps for time*:
C2B pull-ups
Hand release push-ups
Power cleans (135/95)

*20-minute time cap