The Power of Team
Community is what sets CrossFit apart and nothing captures the spirit of community like the partner WOD. For many years now, in CrossFit gyms around the world, Saturday is celebrated as the team workout day.
This is very different from the globo-gym model. Do you remember walking into the gym with your headphones on, parking yourself on a cardio machine or on a bench in front of the mirrors and proceeding to sweat in your solitary space. Many days you might get through an entire workout without speaking to or making eye contact with a single person. Sure, you might nod on your way to or from the changeroom at a familiar face among the other gym regulars but how many did you know by name?
CrossFit is the exact opposite. At CrossFit we do not train with strangers. When we see a new face, we step up and introduce ourselves. If they’re new, we welcome them. We let them know we’re all in this together. Not only do we know their names (at least their CrossFit nickname), we probably know their kids’ names, their spouse’s name and even more likely, the name of their family dog. They may start out as just some nice people you sweat with three times per week but sweat and suffering has a magical way of transforming into lasting friendships and before you know it, they are helping you move or inviting you over for a summer BBQ or bringing soup to your doorstep when you’re under the weather. They go from being your gym friend to your support network. Most of us have found some of our best friends at CrossFit.
CrossFit delivers on the promise of elite fitness but as great as that is, it is the community of CrossFit that truly enriches our lives. And there is nothing like a good old Saturday CrossFit team WOD to forge new friendships and build community! So, why did we not adopt this practice at Empower?
Our humble start on Dunbar Street saw CrossFit group class members shoehorned into a tiny space where everything needed to be shared everyday. Rowers, pull up bars, barbells. It was rare to have a week go by without one or two partner or team-based workouts. When outsiders marvel at the powerful sense of community at Empower, we have to at least in part, thank our cramped beginnings for forcing us to work together.
Since moving to our Alma Street location, blessed with more space and more equipment, the necessity to share has diminished. It may also be true that the tight knit sense of community that characterized CrossFit’s earliest adopters has been lost on the newer generation of CrossFitters who have brought with them a more individualistic, globo-gym mindset. Folks who, in their drive to emulate the elite CrossFit Games athletes are more focussed on optimizing their training than sharing a plyobox with a friend. For them, every second wasted waiting for a GHD is time added to their score or a deduction in fitness gains.
But with Big Cat’s departure, responsibility for running the Saturday group classes returns to WOD Father who fell in love with the community aspect of CrossFit to such a degree that he left his career behind to pursue a life coaching CrossFit full time.
I fully realize that for the uninitiated, the first CrossFit team WOD can be a daunting concept. My first partner WOD found me paired with multi-time CrossFit Games competitor Jennifer Dober. She was someone who tended to finish workouts first. I generally finished last. The concern that I would slow her down weighed heavily upon me. Especially when we got to the partner pistol squats. A pistol squat is a squat performed on only one leg. At the time, I could not even come close to performing a pistol squat. Jennifer Dober, a gymnastics coach, left to her own devices could fly through them quicker than most of us could perform a regular two-legged air squat. And she would have too, were she not tethered to me. In the partner pistol squat, you had to hold your partner’s hand and synchronize your one-legged squats. So poor 115lb Jennifer Dober had to physically lift not only herself but also my 185lb deadweight off the floor each and every rep.
I apologized profusely for slowing us down, but she waved off my apology like it was no big deal. And I imagined she was just being kind until the following week when I was partnered with Crystal for a partner workout. While not a Games competitor, Crystal was a solid athlete, but she was relatively new to CrossFit. Pull ups figured prominently in the workout and she did not yet have unassisted pull ups. I did. Crystal apologized for making me do most of the pull ups and I’m sure she felt as badly as I had the week before but personally, I was thrilled to be able to contribute to our team. Since that day, CrossFit team workouts have been my favourite thing.
I have enjoyed teaming up in different years with both Magnum and Sandman for the CrossFit online Team Series competition. In the earlier four-person version of that competition, I teamed up with Hardrock, HeeHee and Super Mario. At the 2019 10-year Affiliate conference, HeeHee and I teamed up with a US-based, German affiliate owner and Joel Friedman, former CrossFit Vancouver coach and first CrossFit affiliate owner in Brazil to do the Whistler Lost Lagoon team workout which saw us doing nude burpees together on the floating dock (it was a choice between 100 burpees in clothes or 1 burpee each nude – a no brainer!)
While there won’t be any hand holding or nudity involved in the Saturday team WODs at Empower (sorry to disappoint), there will be lots of sweat, camaraderie and fun. And you just might make some new best friends for life! Looking forward to seeing you in the gym!
Warm Up
2 rounds (1 min each):
A. Echo Bike
B. Tyson Push Ups
C. Get Ups
D. Leg Swings
Tech
WOD Movements
FightFit B
In teams of 2 or 4:
3 rounds
Station 1
A 30 sec slam ball @15/20#
B 30 sec GNP
2 min Rest
Station 2
A 30 sec kick bag
B 30 sec sandbag get ups @30/50#
2 min Rest
Station 3
A 30 sec cal echo bike (while partner B holds sandbag)
B 30 sec sandbag carry @60/100#
2 min Rest
Cycle 3 times through the stations in order accumulating reps with your partner with A & B switching roles. If a team of 4, partners C & D rest while A & B work the switch.
