GERMAN THROWDOWN 2018 -André Houdet

Objective review:

PLACEMENT: 4th/40. WOD #1: For time: 30 BBJO @24inch 20 Push Up 10 Bar MU 20 Push Up 30 BBJO *All with 20lbs weighted vest. =Time: 6:40 =Placement: 2nd WOD #2 AMRAP 8: 8 Single arm DB Squat Clean @30kg 2 Rope climb (legless) =Score: 78 reps =Placement: 9th WOD #3 5 min to establish 1RM snatch =Score: 121 (101-111-116-121-126f-126f) =Placement: 8th WOD #4 5.5km run for time outside =Time: 21:48 =Placement: 13th *I think they screwed up scoring here, as I was originally 11th here. WOD #5 “Gwen” 15-12-9* Clean and Jerk *All sets need to be performed unbroken and you can only choose the same weight for all 3 rounds. *From 0-5 complete the round of 15 reps, 5-10 complete the round of 12, 10-15 complete the round of 12 reps. =Score: 81 kg =Placement: 13th WOD #6 -Cut off. Semi finals, only 10/40 athletes advance For time: 21 Cal Row* 21 GHD Sit Up* 15 Cal Row* 15 GHD Sit Up* 9 Cal Row* 9 GHD Sit Up*

*Handstand Walk between movements (total distance of: 110m HSW)

= Time: 6:50

=Placement: 5th

WOD #7 7 Rounds for time of: 7 Thruster @35kg 7 Pull Up 7 Burpee =Time: 6:03 =Placement: 2nd

Subjective review: Overall feeling after the weekend is that I’m proud and content with my performance. I went into this competition with the mindset of: (1) Control the chaos, leave nothing up to chance. (2) Effort is a choice, winning is not. (3) Be professional and show good sportsmanship. And I did all of above. I didn’t win the competition, but I executed to my absolute best. If that isn’t enough to win, then I have to realize that I’m not YET good enough to deserve standing on top of the podium by the end of the weekend. This review is going to go into every single detail of the trip to outline the importance of the “little things”. I originally wrote this to send to my coach, but decided to rewrite it slightly, so that I could share it with anyone who would want to get an insight on how I personally would prepare for a competition. (I’m not saying that my way is the right way, but this is the routine that I used and I was very happy with it!) I will explain what happened over the course of these 4 days:

THURSDAY We flew from our home in Dubai, Thursday morning 7am and arrived in Mainz, Germany at 3pm. For the flight I had brought my own food with me from my sponsor Fuel Up (@FuelUpLife) to maintain proper fuel for the trip. During the 6hr flight I had put an alarm clock for every hour to get up and perform 4 min of dynamic movements to keep blood flow going and to make sure I would feel good when coming off the flight. The movement flow looked like this:

THURSDAY – Travel day FRIDAY- Check in SATURDAY – German Throwdown Day 1 SUNDAY – German Throwdown Day 2

Natalie and I arrived in Mainz, Germany 2 days prior to the competition to adjust to the new time zone, climate and environment. We had booked a cozy AIRBNB apartment as close to the stadium and to a CF gym as possible. Like that I could easily access a gym for a session Thursday night and Friday morning, and we could also get to stadium and back home quickly. As soon as we arrived in Mainz, we went food shopping with a full grocery list made by my nutritionist Liam Holmes, (@PH_Nutrition), and prepped all food for Friday-Saturday-Sunday. The general meal plan looked like this:

2 rounds of: 10 alt. lunges with rotation 10 squats 10 goodmornings 20 alt. slow high knees (on the spot) 20 alt. slow butt kicks (on the spot) 20 calf raises 10 thoracic/shoulder flexion opener with hands on the wall

As we had brought our own tupperware and plastic cutlery it was easy to prep all of the food for 3 total days. Prepping all the meals on Thursday allowed us to solely focus on performing during the competition and not having to worry about the nutrition part of the game. After all meals where prepped I went off to CF ZollHafen (@crossfitzollhafen) nearby our apartment and did an evening session. The session was simple and the intention was to make the body feel good after a long flight. The session looked like this:

Meal 1/Breakfast: Oatmeal/Porridge: 125g of Gluten Free Organic Oats 20g Chia seeds 5g Cinnamon 20g of Vegan Chocolate protein powder 75g of Berries/Fruit Hot water and little bit of almond milk + 2 scrambled eggs + Daily supplements: B-vtaimin, Vit C, Spirulina. Meal 2: 150g of Chicken 100g of Spinach 200g of White rice Meal 3: 150g of Chicken 100g of Spinach 200g of White rice Meal 4/Dinner: 200g of Salmon or White fish 200g of Sweet potato 200g of Veggies + Daily supplements: Fish oil, Magnesium, Zinc. Snack packs: Banana x 2 Dates/Figs x 10 Cashew nuts x 30g Liquid nutrition: Pure Electrolyte Hydration (carbs+electrolytes) https://puresportsnutrition.me/collections/electrolyte-hydration-range/products/pure-electrolyte-hydration-500g-pouch-uae And as I love good coffee, I brought my own Aero press and freshly grinded beans from my favorite coffee place in Dubai!

The session did its job and I felt great after! Thanks CF Zollhafen for having me in their super impressive box. If you are in Mainz, this is definitely a place to drop in! After dinner I prepped all my bags and laid out all the clothes that I was going to wear for the competition Saturday and Sunday. I once heard someone tell me that most successful people only have 1-2 sets of different clothing that they wear, as they in that case don’t have to think about what to wear for the next day. Apparently, humans can only make X amount of good decisions a day and if one of them is wasted on what to wear, then it’s not optimal. Therefor all my clothes for the competition were the exact same; Black socks, black shorts, Black T-shirt. FRIDAY Friday morning, Nat and I got up early as always and did our usual morning routine:

Then we headed back to CF Zollhafen for a final session before the competition. For me personally I like to do some sort of movement every day. I feel like on the days where I do nothing, I feel worse than if I didn’t do anything. The session was similar to what I did the night before and it had the same intention. As none of workouts for the events were announced for the competition I couldn’t do any sports specific prep or any walk throughs of events, which I would normally have done. The session Nat and I did looked like this:

After finishing this session, I had a feeling of: “Now you have done everything you can to prepare yourself optimally for the weekend. Now all you have to do is execute and have fun.” This was a great feeling to have and reminded me of how proper preparation is key when it comes to confidence and belief in one self. This quote also sums it up quite nicely: “He who fails to plan, is planning to fail” -Winston Churchill. Friday evening the athlete check-in and event briefing took place. Natalie and I took notes on all of the events we were going to face the following day, and made sure we had understood the standards and flow of every event in order to visualize the workouts later on. Coming home after the briefing, I filled out my “competition guide” made by my coach Kyle Ruth, (KyleRuth_ttt). The competition guide makes me create a 100% detailed plan on how to prep, execute and cool down for each and every event. It helps me “control the chaos” of competition, it makes me stay in MY bubble and it makes me stick to MY plan. So, it’s basically like creating a playbook that you follow from A-Z, and you literally only focus on the plan, and you don’t pay attention to what other athletes are doing.

2 rounds of: 5 min Assault bike @250w 5 min of Lower-body mobility (Lunge matrix, Dynamic box hip opener, Squat flow) 5 min Assault bike @250w 5 min of Upper-body mobility (Dynamic scap work, Animal movements, Banded shoulder/lat/pec contract-relax work) =40 min total

(1) Breakfast and coffee (2) Daily journaling (https://www.intelligentchange.com/products/the-five-minute-journal) (3) 15 min walk outside to freshen up and to kick start digestion.

3-2-1-2-3 min of: -Row @2:00/500m -Assault bike @250w -Dynamic movement of own choice (Bear-crawl, Lunge, Step up, Burpee, Squat, Ring row, Push up, Sit up, Dynamic planks)

SATURDAY Saturday, Day 1 of the German Throwdown kick started with a fun event. (see event details in below box) I felt confident in all movements, but I also knew that my upper-body endurance on push-ups and bar muscle ups wasn’t the best. Therefore, my strategy was to go super-fast on the burpee box jump overs from start to finish as I knew that it wouldn’t play a big factor for how I would feel for the rest of the movements. Despite my long levers, I would say that burpees is my favorite movement. The push-ups I just did as fast as I could without red-lining. The rule for the bar muscle ups was that I wasn’t going to chalk up on the first set and only chalk up in case I dropped down. That would give me a feeling of being ahead of the others in case they were going to chalk up prior to starting their set of bar muscle ups. The plan payed off, I won my heat and finished second overall. What a great start to the weekend! Post event celebration: Gave Natalie a hug, she said good job, and then we moved on, focusing 100% on the next event. Below you can see the workout, score, placement and notes:

Event 2 (see event details in below box) was something that I didn’t feel super confident in due to my past elbow injury, which kept me from having a lot exposure to legless rope climbs. The plan here was to take advantage of my height and jump as high as possible to lower the amount of pulls I would need to do in order to get to the top. Coming down I used a special leg wrap technique that allowed me to slide super quickly all the way down without having to use my arms at all. Overall super happy with the pacing and result of this event!

WOD #1: For time: 30 BBJO @24inch 20 Push Up 10 Bar MU 20 Push Up 30 BBJO *All with 20lbs weighted vest. =Time: 6:40 =Placement: 2nd

Event 3 was exciting as I had finally started to snatch “heavy” over the past few weeks after the elbow injury and I was excited to test myself here! We had 5 min to establish a 1RM snatch and I made sure to get some secure lifts in at first before going for the riskier heavy loads. I also made sure to lift an “uneven” number, so that there would be less of a risk hitting the same number as someone else. Typically, most athletes would go at a round number, so I decided to go 101-111-116-121kg. I hit 121kg which was the heaviest lift I had done in 2 years, so this event was a success and I was very happy despite not winning.

WOD #2 AMRAP 8: 8 Single arm DB Squat Clean @30kg 2 Rope climb (legless) =Score: 78 reps =Placement: 9th

WOD #3 5 min to establish 1RM snatch =Score: 121 (101-111-116-121-126f-126f) =Placement: 8th

After day 1, I was sitting in 4th place with only 1 point behind 3rd place. After a quick call with my coach we went over the events we would face on the following day and again went through the competition guide as I did for day 1 events. SUNDAY Day 2 and final day of the German Throwdown started early with Event 4 which was a 5.5km run outside! I had been doing running intervals once a week for the past 6 months (since Regionals) and was excited to see how I would do in this event, which normally would have been a weakness. I decided to aim for a 4:00-4:10 pace per km and used my Garmin watch to track speed and time. I managed to stick to the plan without getting caught up in someone else game. The run went well all the way until the last 30m, where I got overtaken my 2 guys and I had no clue that they were right behind me. I tried to out sprint them, but they beat me with a very few meters and I unfortunately just lost 2 very important spots, which could have made me podium by the end of the weekend. I was very disanointed that I wasn’t being more aware of the field in the last part of the run, so that I could have avoided this from happening. The judging crew were struggling with the times of each athlete and some-how they dropped me 2 spots further down the leaderboard. A lot of people complained about the scoring for this event as they should have used the chip monitors to make it more precise. Mistakes happen, and that’s part of the game. I learned my lesson about awareness, and immediate did everything I could in order to recover and prep for the next event.

WOD #4 5.5km run for time outside =Time: 21:48 =Placement: 13th *I think they screwed up scoring here, as I was originally 11th here.

Event 5 was a very interesting one and I think everyone was in doubt on which weights to hit here. I took a secure weight as there would have been too high of risk of failing at a higher load. I have mixed feelings about my performance here. I’m happy that I completed everything unbroken with good form and secure lifts giving me a solid score, but I should have taken a bigger risk with a slightly heavier load in order to get a higher placement here. This was my worst placement this weekend and I clearly need to improve my TnG Olympic weightlifting strength.

Event 6 – Semifinals. Only top 10 athletes advanced here and I had dropped from 4th place to 7th place. Not where I wanted to be. This fired me up though. I was going to try to win the last 2 events, as it was the only way to end up on the podium. The mindset of staying in my own lane now changed slightly and it was time to “RACE” and I therefor had to be aware of the other athletes in the field. This event had lots of handstand walk which is one movement that I really like, but like the rope climb and snatches haven’t had lots of exposure to due to my elbow injury. I did this event with zero breaks and sprinted as fast as I could on every station. 2,3,4 and 5th place where all 8 seconds apart and unfortunately, I had that 5th placement. I was disappointed in my placement, but happy with my effort as I couldn’t have gone any faster.

WOD #5 “Gwen” 15-12-9* Clean and Jerk *All sets need to be performed unbroken and you can only choose the same weight for all 3 rounds. *From 0-5 complete the round of 15 reps, 5-10 complete the round of 12, 10-15 complete the round of 12 reps. =Score: 81 kg =Placement: 13th

Event 7 – the final. I was still sitting in 7th despite finishing 5th in the event prior, and I therefor had to win the event and hope that some of the guys ahead of me would finish last in order to take a podium spot. Normally a workout like this would be a nightmare, but Kyle (my coach) has had me do so much work here that I knew I was 100% prepared. I went all in from second 1 and I managed to take a lead together with Adrain Mundviller who was the leader of the competition. I tried to hold on to him, but I fell a few reps behind and ended up taking 2nd in the event. I finished this event with a good gut feeling, knowing that I had done everything I could and regardless of the outcome, I could be proud of the work Nat and I had put in this weekend.

WOD #6 -Cut off. Semi finals, only 10/40 athletes advance For time: 21 Cal Row* 21 GHD Sit Up* 15 Cal Row* 15 GHD Sit Up* 9 Cal Row* 9 GHD Sit Up*

*Handstand Walk between movements (total distance of: 110m HSW)

= Time: 6:50

=Placement: 5th

WOD #7 7 Rounds for time of: 7 Thruster @35kg 7 Pull Up 7 Burpee =Time: 6:03 =Placement: 2nd

I went into the final event in 7th place and finished the competition in 4th place overall. It was mixed feelings. On one hand I was really proud of the professionalism and execution of the whole weekend, and on the other hand I was disappointed knowing that my best was enough to win. I have massive respect for all athletes competing this weekend and I think everyone earned their spot. You know what they say, you learn the most when you fall short of your goals. Finishing 4th makes more fired up than ever, and I’m excited to get back into training in order to improve my fitness, so that I can do even better next time I get to compete amongst great athletes. Below I’ve highlighted the things I’m happy with and the things I need to work on. Having this laid out clearly gives me a good overview and helps me build the game plan to close the gap.

Overall comp review:

GTD18 EVENTS:

Things that went great: Space for improvements:

What to take away from the event?

EVENT 1 -Engine felt great. Burpees felt easy! -Fast transitions. -Stayed in my own lane and didn’t slow down at any stage. -Great prep. -Great cool down.

-Grip needs to be stronger. Should be able to do 10 UB BMU with a WTD vest under fatigue always.

-More grip strength/endurance training.

EVENT 2 -Great pace. -Great prep.

-Upperbody pulling endurance.

-Upperbody pulling endurance needs work.

EVENT 3 -Hit heaviest snatch in 2 years. -Great prep. -Great cool down.

-Need a bigger snatch. #AsStrongAsPossilbe - Goal would be that 125kg is my bottom level and 130kg+ is a good day.

-Need to keep working a strong pull of the floor and a strong OHS

EVENT 4 -Pretty steady pace. -Great prep. -Great cool down.

-Be aware of your surroundings. -Faster cadence

-More running. I only do intervals training and I definitely need to get used to longer consecutive runs. I suggest adding a 30 min run @Z3 weekly next to my track Tuesdays.

EVENT 5 -Was very smooth technically. Stayed in my lane, and took advantage of the time. -Great prep. -Great cool down.

-Need to get stronger. 5kg heavier only and I would have been 2nd in the event. This needs work.

-Get stronger and better grip strength on TnG work

EVENT 6 -HSW went great, no pain in my elbow -Fast transitions.

-I need to do the GHD sit ups faster -Walk faster on the hands -Row even faster #AsFastAsPossbile

-work on fast GHD sit ups -work on speed HSW

EVENT 7 -I felt great on all movements. All the thrusters in training payed off! -Pace -Great prep.

- Instead of jogging in between transitions, I should have sprinted. Every second counts.

-Fast transitions makes the difference between winning and being second.

That’s it for me review! Massive thanks to the organizers, volunteres, spectators and fellow athletes at German Throwdown for making it a great experience! Until next time! -André