Bound Newsletter 8.11.2024
Lazar Dukic
1995 - 2024
Fridays workout will be in honor of Lazar:
4RFT:
300/250m Row
100-75-50-25 Double Unders
3-6-9-12 Bar Muscle Ups
A GoFundMe account was created for Lazar and his family. Follow link below if you would like to donate
What happened last Thursday at the CrossFit Games was unimaginable. Before the event, the tragedy that occurred wasn't something anyone could have anticipated. It was just an 800m swim. Every one of those athletes had a strategy, knowing they needed to conserve energy for the swim. They were aware it would be difficult, but no one imagined that one person wouldn't make it out of the water—especially not Lazar, with his background in water polo. In a sport where you tread water for hours during play and practice, it was unthinkable that Lazar would go under.
We don’t yet know the full circumstances. Whether it was fatigue, cramps, or a cardiac event during the race, the autopsy will reveal more. Regardless of the results, everyone has their own thoughts on whether a swim event should even be included in the Games.
I was there in 2011 and 2012, before any of us knew how to swim well. When Castro announced that we’d be swimming in the ocean, I remember us all looking at each other with a mix of fear and excitement, eager to try something new. We started each event with the swim while we were fresh. In the first year, the swim was part of Murph and was only 250-350m long—a very short distance. The second year, at Camp Pendleton, we had to sprint 600m down the beach, then swim out and back 600m before starting our triathlon. I don’t think any of us ever questioned the number of lifeguards or the safety protocols in place. We trusted Dave Castro.
For all the controversy that surrounds Castro, he cares more about the Games athletes than anyone else. If he didn’t feel the events were safe, he wouldn’t include them. I’ll say it again: Castro cares more about the Games athletes than anyone else.
I bring this up for two reasons:
I don’t blame Castro for the tragedy that occurred. Until the autopsy reveals the details surrounding the cause of the drowning, I’m going to remain neutral and not jump to conclusions about whether it was due to fatigue, dehydration, heat stroke, a cardiac event, etc.
CrossFit HQ, as a whole, needs to change. We are CrossFitters. That once meant something. We were outlaws, pioneers, badasses—still are. Once you joined a CrossFit gym, you became part of a community. Right now, HQ has lost that connection and is losing the trust of the very people who helped the shareholders of HQ get to where they are today. I don’t think they realize what they purchased from Greg Glassman. It’s not something you can monopolize. It was a freight train on the tracks, going full speed ahead with no end in sight. But now, it’s different. The leadership doesn’t truly understand that we were just a simple fitness program that taught people to:
“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, clean and jerk, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climbs, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc., hard and fast. Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense.” — Greg Glassman, Fitness in 100 Words
“Where our greatest adaptation is not in the body, but the mind.” — Chuck Carswell
I’ll sum this up with what Kara Saunders said after winning the Team competition. This embodies what CrossFit is all about and how COMMUNITY is the greatest asset you’ll gain by being part of a CrossFit gym:
“I don’t even think I could tell you how I feel right now,” Kara said. “I’ve spent most of today trying to give myself space and understand that, as humans, we can feel a few things at the same time. I’ve given myself permission to both grieve and think about someone who deserves every single thought. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can feel Lazar here today. It’s taken me 13 years and 11 CrossFit Games to get here. I found myself in this sport, from a young woman to a mama now. And it turns out, in order to be a winner, I needed my people around me. I wasn’t supposed to do it on my own.”
New Members:
- Peter and Diana Rojas
- James Payne (Kalies husband)
Upcoming Birthdays:
Sam Holsomback - August 13
Alayna Aslan - August 13
Luke Mayben - August 15
Mary Cox - August 16
Jeff Mayr - August 21
Eric Harvey - August 22
Micheal “stuntman” Jamorksi - August 26
Matt Garrison - August 27
Ashton Huppert - August 30
Chris Mench - August 30
Bragging Board:
Congratulations Fatih on your marriage!
Announcements/Schedule/Events:
Run Club will meet Wednesday at Swift Cantrell at 6:30pm.
The Adaptive CrossFit Games begins September 18-22. Be sure to put your name down for a Made Strong Shirt to support Jen Wells competing this year!
Beach Brawl 2024 Fall - 9/27 thru 9/29
Blue Ridge 15/30/50k trail run - October 5th, 2024
Barbell Collective Weightlifting Competition at CrossFit Bound - October 26th
CrossFit Journal Article of the Week: The Fittest Athletes: CrossFit Games Athletes vs Olympic Decathletes by Stephane Rochet
“Decathletes are strong and explosive. In the weight room, they perform squats, deadlifts, snatches, cleans, and presses with weights that rival the top CrossFit athletes. They can run very well, covering 400 meters in under 50 seconds and 1,500 meters at a 5-minute mile pace. With all the jumping and sprinting in competition, decathletes must stay lean and have excellent relative, or “pound for pound,” strength. This means they can do push-ups, pull-ups, rope climbs, peg boards, and pistols with the best of them. Training for complex events such as the pole vault, discus, and high jump develops excellent body awareness. Demonstrate how to do a muscle-up or handstand push-up to a decathlete; chances are they can do it on their first attempt. Double-unders would be mastered quickly. There’s also no doubt these athletes can push to their limit through the pain of intensity, as witnessed in their 400-meter and 1,500-meter performances.
Because decathletes bring so many skills to the table, it’s not unreasonable to think they have a fighting chance at the Games. But the truth is, they have chinks in their fitness armor that will take a long time to fix. Most obviously, decathletes don’t train for more extended events like a 10K row, 5K or 10K run, or Murph. They would have been devastated by the 3-mile Ranch Loop event at the 2020 Games, especially when they learned at the finish line — as the athletes did back then — they were only halfway and the event was now a 6-mile hill run. Decathletes must also devote considerable time to training all the movements CrossFit uses in limitless combinations. Despite being really good at front squats and pull-ups, a decathlete will struggle initially with Fran. It’s very different when these movements are combined at high intensity. So, while Fran might feel the same as an all-out 400-meter or 800-meter run, those events don’t prepare us for the stamina and cardiorespiratory demands of thrusters and pull-ups in combination. Similarly, a decathlete switching over to CrossFit will have to become accustomed to much broader rep ranges and volume in strength work and complex gymnastics movements. Finally, instead of planning for 10 events where all the variables are known, our decathlete will have to figure out how to train for … everything.
This is the world in which the CrossFit athlete lives and thrives. Now, a CrossFit Games competitor will fare poorly against a decathlete in most of the decathlon events. The CrossFit athlete will probably be abysmal at jumping, throwing, and pole vault events. They will acquit themselves decently in the running events other than the hurdles. Any other workout, test, or event we can come up with will likely favor the CrossFit athlete. They are fitter across many more modalities and time domains than the decathlete. That is why the winner of the CrossFit Games captures the title of “Fittest on Earth” and why no other sport can make the same claim.”
Weekly Training Breakdown
BPs List:
Hampton Morris - a Marietta, Georgia native
Placed 3rd at this years olympics with a total of 298kg (657lbs!). Morris snatched 126kg (278 lbs.), then lifted an Olympic record-equaling 172kg (379 lbs.) in the clean and jerk. His weight class is 61kg or 134lbs.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: How to Exercise & Eat for Optimal Health and Longevity with the Huberman Lab Podcast
In this episode, my guest is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, D.O., a board-certified physician who did her clinical and research training at Washington University in geriatrics and nutrition. She is also an expert in how diet and exercise impact muscle and whole-body health and longevity. Dr. Lyon is a bestselling author and public educator. We discuss how healthy skeletal muscle promotes longevity, brain health, disease prevention, ideal body composition, and the health of other organs and bodily systems.She makes specific nutritional recommendations for optimal health: what to eat, how much to eat, the timing of meals, the essential need for adequate quality protein (including animal and plant-based options), supplementation, and how our dietary requirements change with age. She explains why specific types of resistance training are essential to build and maintain muscle and overall metabolic health. She also describes how to include resistance training as part of your exercise regimen — regardless of age or sex.
She also provides specific mindset tools to encourage sustained adherence to healthy eating and exercise practices. Women and men of all ages will benefit from Dr. Lyon’s practical, evidence-based protocols to improve muscle and whole-body appearance, function, and health.
