SPORTS PERFORMANCE
® things changed for the worse, but after crying in the hallway of the hospital for a while Jason once more found the courage to be positive.“ In the moment, of course there are a lot of tears and a lot of stress. But when you really sit down and reflect on any life situation- if you try and evaluate it in a positive way then there is often something positive you can take from any situation”. Once more he proves that he practices what he preaches in any situation.
Our conversation shifts back to CrossFit ® and how the bar has been raised over the years. He tells me that the increase in the standards have been“ significant”. He puts this into perspective quite simply,“ last year Samantha Briggs completed a double‘ Amanda’ in a faster time than she completed a single‘ Amanda’ in 2010. Basically, the standards have doubled. Back in 2008 when I won the Games the final workout was a 155lb( 70kgs) Squat Clean for 30 repetitions and it blew people’ s minds but nowadays that is just an everyday occurrence. Back in the day if you had a 225lb( 102kg) Snatch that was a big deal, but now you are not even going to qualify for the Regionals unless you can Snatch more than that”. As if we didn’ t need any more persuading he tells me that“ in 2009 I came second in a Snatch event with a 225lb lift, but in 2017 that would have been dead last – in fact to get off the bottom position you would have needed to have lifted over 255lb( 115kgs)”.
The standards of the sport have exponentially increased over the years and of course that cannot continue forever because we are not robots, but Jason doesn’ t think the standards have started to plateau just yet.“ We are not far away from seeing someone run a 5-minute mile and Squat 500lbs( 226kgs) in the same day. The 4-minute mile is an interesting example, it took decades and decades to break, but as soon as one person did it everyone else realised they could do the same and that is what is happening with CrossFit ®. Back in the day we didn’ t know where the bar was, we didn’ t know what we were capable of,
but that bar has been raised year after year. The next few years will be really exciting because as the athletes get stronger mentally they perform better physically”.
As serious as he takes his training and competing he talks fondly about the fun and games that used to be had with the other CrossFit ® competitors behind the scenes.“ For the veterans it is a bit more laid back, we are always jabbing at each other and heckling each other. But I remember this one time there was a rookie who decided to chirp up. He was like“ Hey Rich, I am going to Clean and Jerk more than you. Everyone on the bus just went silent, you could hear a pin drop, and then we just burst out laughing so hard. If you are going to call someone out, don’ t call out the four time champ”.
CrossFit ® has developed its own language and one of the terms commonly used within the community is AMRAP. Translated into English that becomes‘ as many rounds as possible’ and is used to denote a workout where the athlete performs a specific amount of work as many times as possible in a set time-period.
Jason has taken this principle and applied it to every part of his life in order to maximise his use of the most precious commodity of all – time. This is due to the development of his‘ AMRAP mentality’ which is available as a book from July 2018. His advice
128 MUSCLE & FITNESS / APRIL 2018