The 2nd leg of the 2018 Manila Throwdown took place last December where the best of the best in the Crossfit industry came together to show off their wares in a weekend filled with grueling events held at the Vertis Tent in Quezon City.
Meant more to bind together friends in the industry, it was Team Avantgarde composed of Kristen Lim, Justin Hernandez and Odelon Simpao who ended up being the best among 67 squads. They finished their workouts with the fastest time, a first for the team who finally copped top honors after settling for second the last four years.
“It’s a sweet, sweet victory,” said Lim, a full-time coach, and Crossfit athlete. “We’ve been competing for four years and we always (finish) second.”
The experience was vital in their victory as far as Lim was concerned, likening their maturity over the years to wine.
Coming in second was the team of Isabel Wolfe, Inigo Dulay and Joshua Chabon of Proven Not Given squad while Matt Cass, Miles Fineman and Jade Georgewill of Bangkok Beast took third place honors.
The event was filled with different personalities, including celebrity couple Drew and Iya Villania-Arellano who partnered with Javy Olives for the Hermanos Locos Inc. flag. The trio emerged as the champions for the Scaled (New and Intermediate) class.
“She’s our secret weapon,” said Drew Arellano, referring to his wife who had just given birth to their second child last August.
“I’m over the moon. I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m just surprised that I made it here and we won,” said Iya Villania-Arellano.
Asked about how their triumph could inspire mothers who strive to be fit, Villania-Arellano said, “I hope so. That’s what I wish to be.”
Madayaw Forever’s Marlon Te, Jane Garner, and Daniel Labrador settled for second while 1229 Baboons of Matt Macalalad, Hannah Chen and Carl Chabon finished third.
Teams worked in three sets of workouts that pushed their bodies to the limit and tested their skills in gymnastics, weightlifting, endurance and high-intensity workouts.
Improper technique
• Olympic style weightlifting as a sport is as technical as it can get. It relies on developing timing and the proper usage of force, strength and speed in different aspects of the lift. In addition to that, lifting that bar and moving relatively heavy weights from the ground to the top of your head will have a higher chance of injuries if done with bad technique.
• Which brings me to the solution for this predicament, choose the right gym for your needs, look at the coaches, check the pedigree of the gym, their lifting history and the number of students that are free from any injuries. Watch how the classes are conducted and how each part of the lift is explained.
If you see that most members are complaining about injuries, the coach keeps on pushing weights way beyond the proper technique, run away. Fast.
A good gym with a good coach take pride in teaching proper technique and does not focus on lifting heavy weights but on proper movements.
Lifting too heavy too soon
• Assuming that proper technique is taught to athletes, this part happens because of two scenarios:
- Not following the percentages recommended in the program
- The lifter letting his ego get the better of him
• Either way, there’s a reason why a program has its cycles, it aims to build, strengthen, prepare the body and mind of the lifter to lift heavy weights, programming is more than just bunching together different reps and sets. It is always best to adhere to the program that the coach has made and follow the percentages given to avoid unnecessary injuries
Overtraining
• If there’s anything that is not necessarily true in lifting and strength sports, it is the saying, “No Pain, No Gain.” Time and again, it has been reiterated that proper rest and recovery methods are the key to lifting progress and overtraining is the fastest way to get injured.
• Yes, there is sweat, hardship and pain when training for a competition, but know the difference because it’s supposed to be hard, compared to a kind of pain because your body cannot function properly anymore.
• If you are feeling lethargic,
You’re starting to have a hard time gripping anything
If you need copious amounts of coffee or pre workouts in order to train,
Maybe it’s time to take that rest seriously like what your coach told you. Take a day off. Or two, scratch that. Give it a week’s rest. Get a massage, have a downtime, get out of the gym, just get your mind right, sleep. Do anything that will reverse the fatigue, then come back and smash the weights again.
Competing too much
• They say that the fastest way to burn out is to compete as many as you can as much as your schedule allows you to, competing, training to a peak is always fun to do, but when you do it without any breaks, for whatever reason, sooner or later your body will break down. The physical and mental toll that training brings to your body will cause so much stress that causes it to break down if you push it too much.
• Take a break, get out of your sport for a bit, enjoy the outdoors, have time with your family and connect properly with the people around will help you enjoy your sport longer. Rather than being always in the gym and training all the time.
Not only is that detrimental, it is also taxing to the people around you as well.
Taking too long of a break
• While some athletes do not take a break, there are also a some people who take too long in getting back, but once they do, they push their bodies too soon, thinking that they can just pick up where they left off and lift the same amount of weights. This is the worst way to approach training and no good coach would allow an athlete perform this way.
• Life gets in the way and we all need a break from our sports, that’s totally understandable. What is not acceptable is to train your body as if you didn’t take a break at all and push its limits too soon. This is the worst way to approach training and the fastest way to getting injured.
When you take long breaks, whether its forced or done voluntarily, an athlete must accept that his body needs to make it adapt again to the volume and intensity that training brings. Not to mention the toll it brings to his body physically and mentally.
It is very important to take it slow, taking baby steps and just start getting moving, once the body gets acclimated to the sport again, then you can train with a high intensity. Respect your body’s capabilities and it will help you last long in the sport.
Hope this clears out a lot of things about injuries, remember it’s not in the workout that your body gets better, training simply puts your body in strenuous situation in order for it to adapt. But in order for it to get better, proper technique, a little common sense and proper rest is needed.
