Scored Events BEFORE The Competition: Our Purpose

Not a qualifier. Not strictly an online competition either.

Somewhere in the middle yet tied to a live event later.

Maybe you have heard, maybe you haven’t but this year we are adding 3 events to our live competitions that will be done BEFORE the competition takes place. This will go for all athletes, both individual and team members.

So what’s the deal with it? Why are we doing this? Well, here is why.

In my experience, 1 day events do not adequately test an individual or a team. Usually these 1 day events have 3 events with 3-5 scores. While this is good and fun, I do not believe that it gets the best possible picture of that individual or team. Depending on the workouts, athletes can hide behind some glaring weaknesses that will never get tested in 3 events. How can 3 workouts provide the best look at the athlete overall? Well, it can’t.

How many events could though? Seven? Eight? Sixteen? Don’t know but it has to be more than THREE, right?

So here is what I decided to do:

Trinity Competitions will ask the athletes to perform 3 workouts before the live event so we can test for things that are not fun to watch or cannot be done logistically in a 1 or 2 day event. As a spectator or athlete, do you really want to watch/do a 30 minute mono-structural workout at a live competition?

So now we can test for longer rowing, running, and even strength events that give us all a better idea of an athlete’s capabilities about a week to two before the live competition. This does a few things:

1. Tests the athlete in events they are not normally tested for in weekend events
2. Exposes any weaknesses in longer, aerobic events or absolute strength events.
3. Allows the weekend competition to be more “CrossFit” based and fun to watch.
   • *The “fun to watch” part is also for the spectators, as we want to give them a great experience as well.

So much like the CrossFit Games Open, this requires athletes to perform these workouts when they want, where they want, and with whom they want. It also requires integrity, honesty, and knowledge of technology. Some people are good at all three, some are not.

In order to have the best outcome here, we trust the athletes will actually do the workouts, have a judge who holds them to the standard, and be able to submit their score on time. In some cases, they will need to verify they did the workout via a video submission. This is mainly for those athletes who wish to win money or stand on the podium at the end of the competition.

This year, the athletes will need 5 things to do this:

1. A 400M Track- a real one at a school or a public track.
   • Good resource for this: http://run.isport.com/running-tracks/us/texas/
2. A Barbell and bumper plates with collars
3. A Concept 2 Rower
4. A judge to validate or a recording of it uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo
5. Integrity

We feel it is important to push the limits as athletes and that same principal applies to our events. We feel this is move that will allow athletes to get more out of each competition and at the same time the teams to come together earlier and have a better experience.

 

 

The possible negatives here are the same as the Open:

1. Athletes do not actually do the workouts and lie about it.
2. Athletes do not film it and people do not believe their score.
3. Athletes film it, their movements do not meet the standard, and we have to deduct their score.
4. Athletes do not submit scores on time.

We understand that this is a risk we run but we are willing to accept it. This is not a new concept and we feel most of our athletes have the experience and capabilities to meet the standard we ask of them.

So here’s to a great 2016 and beyond. We are excited about what’s to come for all of us! God bless and keep training.

-Christopher Galvan, Founder: Trinity Competitions