This past weekend I was traveling throughout south Florida to attend/coach two different competitions. The first one starting on Saturday being the Thunderdome CrossFit competition hosted by Fit Nation in the Estero/Ft. Myers area where four girls from Real Fitness Sarasota (the gym I co-own) competed. Katie Simmerling, Cherisse Kellemen and Tanya Poppa (my cousins wife ;)) were on the team and Sophie Larson as an individual. With that being said, I couldn’t be more proud of the effort portrayed by all four of them! A big congrats to Sohpie for her making the podium with a 3rd place finish.
The next competition was the Miami Classic, a USAW sanctioned Olympic style weightlifting meet that is hosted by CrossFit Soul. There were many big names there, Kendrick Farris being one of them. He did not lift but his attendance should help you understand the magnitude of the meet. With that,ย I wanted to give a shout out to Domenic D’Agostino and Alex Lefcakis for their success this weekend at the event. It was a first for both of them competing in a weight lifting competition and with the level of athletes, coaches and energy around them, they handled it very well. Domenic snatched 100kg (225lbs) and C&J 130
Below is Domenic’s 100kg snatch
Domenic D’Agostino from Mike Poppa on Vimeo.
Alex was only 5kg off a qualifying total with a snatch of 117kg (257lbs) and a C&J of 155kg (341lbs)
Below is Alex’s C&J
Alex lefcakis 155 C&J from Mike Poppa on Vimeo.
On the movement side of things, my only thought after going to the crossfit competition is that there is still a massive void between competitive crossfit and correct movement. I am the first to tell you that I don’t move “perfectly” in workouts but I try to hold a standard no matter what the movement is. I believe every coach should know how to teach the basics correctly. You would think that competitors, who want to win, who want to be the best, would concentrate on trying to do things the correct way. I completely understand that once fatigue sets in, physically, you can break down but thats not what I am referring to. I am talking about athletes who have coaches that either:
1) Don’t teach them the correct way to do the basics (KB swings, DL, oh presses, etc.)
or
2) Dont correct “competitor” movements because they have been in the gym for some time.
As coaches and athletes, we always have to keep getting better. There are to many resources out there to not know how to coach the basics of what we do. If you personally have trouble with the simplest of movements, figure out to correct it!
skill: 10 minutes working on a weakness
Happy Monday!
Coach Poppa