Spitting Sparks – Tess Napper

Spitting Sparks – [noun] (spitting spärks) 1. A CrossFit athlete who is on their way to becoming a Firebreather.

Welcome to our next series of Athlete interviews.  In this series we asked three Coastal CrossFit athletes who have made significant progress in a relatively short period of time to share some of their tips and tricks for success in CrossFit.  We hope you enjoy this latest series and as usual please let us know whether you get something out of it either in person or by posting a comment.

The second Athlete in this series is Tess Napper:

Please provide a bit of background about yourself: I am 47 years old. I am a bookkeeper in our business. Before CrossFit, my week of training consisted of boxercise, personal training sessions and bootcamps. At one stage I fancied myself as a runner, so I dabbled in running…actually you wouldn’t call it running, more like a slow jog…shamefully, I could power walk quicker!! Outside of CrossFit, I love to spend time with Drew and Madi. In the summer we try to get a bit of water skiing in. I also enjoy time with the girls for coffee and the occasional breaky!

How long have you been training at Coastal CrossFit? I joined Coastal CrossFit in February of 2012.

How would you describe your fitness when you started? At that point I was fairly fit and could do somethings ok..push ups, burpees, a couple of body weight pull ups, squats, kettlebell swings and even a few double unders (thanks to the boys at boxing). But I had no idea about cleans, jerks, snatches, overhead squats, thrusters or the metcon WODs in CrossFit…And my attempt on the rower was let’s just say..very interesting!!

What has changed the most about your fitness? During my time at Coastal, the quality of my movements has improved considerably and most of all, my overall strength has increased. My once 1-2 strict pull ups is now 8-10 and I can do weighted strict as well ( I think my best is 5 at 7kg). I have no problem doing a kettlebell swing at 20kg and usually use that instead of 16kg in a workout.

How often do you train on average?I try to do a minimum of 4 times per week…I prefer 5 to 6 sessions. I haven’t done double days but would like to work towards that at least twice a week. I have done the development sessions on a Saturday and really enjoyed it. I will continue to do that, it’s a great way to finish a good week of training.

What are your goals for the future? My goals with CrossFit are to continue improving my lifting and refining lots of the other movements..kipping pull ups, handstand push ups, ring dips etc…  I would like to continue to be competitive in my age group and actually finish top 10 in Australia for the open and top 100 in the world would be very nice!

What advice would you give to a new CrossFitter who wants to progress rapidly? To new crossfitters I would say listen to instruction and ask lots of questions if you are not sure. Try, try and try again, be prepared to fail but most of all don’t give up! There will be things that may come easier than others, so the things that don’t, keep practising. Most of all, don’t give away good form for the sake of being quicker, performing movements correctly from the start will make you better in the end.

How would you describe your nutrition? In our house we are fairly regimented with food. We tend to stick along the paleo track with lots of good quality meat, eggs, lots of vegies and salad at most meals. Madi is a great cook, so she makes lots of great healthy treats without all the nasties. I enjoy finding different recipes and making great healthy meals with meat/chicken or seafood and vegies and salad.

What are your favourite and least favourite workouts, movements etc? My favourite workouts are the ones that include movements I can do well… I also love when olympic lifting is included in a WOD..somehow that just puts a whole different spin on the workout…it always makes me nervous but I enjoy it! I do like being pushed beyond my comfort zone..that happens most days, for me it is such a buzz to be able to actually do this stuff and keep up…most of the time. I wouldn’t call it my least favourite but the snatch and I do have a love hate relationship…one day it will get better!!

What keeps you coming back? I keep coming back to Coastal Crossfit because I enjoy being with the people that train there. I also love the fact Chris and Marie are so passionate about what they do….And how could you not fall in love with Chloe and Jesse!!

Chris’s Notes: I would like to take all of the credit for Tess’s (and Drew’s) abilities but they pretty much turned up to us as perfect blank canvases for success in CrossFit.  I specifically wanted to include Tess in this series because it could be easy for others to overlook or not even realise that she is a masters age athlete yet she regularly hangs with athletes much younger than herself.  To her credit, the combination of being smart with her body and weight choices, good nutrition and a great attitude have allowed her to progress rapidly through the ranks.