Chris Weir is into fitness.
At any given moment, you could find him doing back squats, pull-ups, deadlifts or dumbbell snatches.
At 40, the Fenton resident is clearly in shape.
But what proves he’s in better shape than most is what he does for competition — he’s a CrossFit competitor.
While he can do all the activities listed earlier, doing them under the pressure of a clock is when he really thrives. And he proved so during the recent Central East regional CrossFit Games, held in Columbus, Ohio. While there, Weir, despite going against many competitors nearly half his age, placed 29th in the three-day, six-event competition. Just making it to the competition is quite an accomplishment. One must qualify for the region, and Weir was hoping to finish in the top 25.
“My goal was the place in the top 25,” Weir said. “That may not sound like an outlandish goal, but I looked realistically who was in the region and who I was competing with. I was going against people half my age who do this for a living. We have a lot of gifted athletes in our regional. It turns out our region is one of the most competitive in the world.”
What are the
CrossFit games?
The CrossFit games are a competition in which participants compete in two different events a day over a course of three days. The events vary from year to year, but always consist of high intensity workouts over a short period of time.
For example, event four (the second event of the second day) at this year’s regional included back squatting 135 pounds, followed by 40 pull-ups. From there Weir had to do 30 shoulder-to-overhead lifts of 135 pounds, 50 front squats (85 pounds), 40 pull-ups, 30 shoulder-to-overhead lifts (85 pounds), 50 overhead squats (65 pounds), 40 pull-ups and 30 shoulder-to-overhead lifts (65 pounds) in that order in under 22 minutes. Weir finished his heat in first place, taking 17th overall in the event in 21:29.
The first event of second day — the dumbbell snatch and sprint — was his best event. In this event, Weir had to do 10 dumbbell snatches of 100 pounds, displaying control and alternating hands between each snatch. Once he completed the 10, he ran the dumbbell to the next station (about 10 yards ahead), placed it on the ground, sprinted about 40 yards back and forth, returned to the new location and repeated the process. He repeated the process for four rounds of snatches before completing the event with a short sprint to the end of the gym and back to his dumbbell. Once he touched his dumbbell, his event was over. Weir placed 23rd in this event with a time of 5:53.
“It was between (the two second-day events) that were probably my two best events,” Weir said.
The one he was most disappointed with was the fifth event, called the snatch ladder with double-unders.
The athlete began the event by jumping a rope. The athlete must have the rope make two complete rotations between each jump. Once Weir did that, he was able to try a snatch which started with a lift of 155 pounds. If the athlete completes that in 50 seconds, he earns the right to go to the next station and attempt the same task again, but with each task involving 10 more pounds of weight. Weir got to 185 pounds and placed for a tie in 30th place.
“I was so sore and tight,” Weir said. “I warmed up for (90 minutes) and still did not feel good. I was expecting to be at 205 or 215 pounds and only made 185. That kept me out of the top 25.”
The conversion to CrossFit
Weir started CrossFit training just over three years ago.
“At the time I was competing in triathlon and endurance sports, trying to stay fit, but the long distances were taking a toll on my body. It beats you up,” Weir said. “But then I came on a CrossFit website, got online and started digging in. I was watching these girls and guys doing some intense workouts and some amazing things. I thought, ‘Wow, I need to learn more about this.’”
That was the start of his career. Since then, he’s competed in several events a year and now owns his own CrossFit training gym, CrossFit Raw Intensity.
“In its simplest form, the sport is constantly varied functional movement done at high intensity,” Weir said. “The movements that we perform in our training are the same movements you perform in sport, combat and in life. Whether you are on the field of play or lifting a bag of groceries, they really are the same movements.”
Competitions are more about challenging yourself and camaraderie with the athletes.
“When you are competing in CrossFit, you are controlling yourself,” Weir said. “You control what you do more than any variable. It doesn’t hurt to have someone pushing you, but you compete against yourself. It’s not like football or baseball where your success is determined by someone’s failure. And, in fact, once you are done you usually cheer on your competitor, even when the stakes are huge.”