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 third and final Athlete in this series is Bodo Lueders:
Please provide a bit of background about yourself: My name is Bodo Lueders, I am 34 years old and have been playing football (soccer) since moving to Australia in 1990. I am an accountant and get to sit on my backside all day which is why I look forward to CrossFit.
How long have you been training at Coastal CrossFit? I have been training at Coastal CrossFit for 16 months (I think).
How would you describe your fitness when you started? General fitness was good as a result of football training. The main thing I could transfer from football was my lung capacity. 99.9% of the CrossFit movements were completely foreign to me. I can still remember squatting with the PVC bar for the first few weeks. I also struggled with the coordination of most movements e.g. double unders, kipping and all Olympic lifts (I did not know the difference between a snatch or clean and jerk).
What has changed the most about your fitness? I think my upper body flexibility and strength has improved resulting in heavier Olympic lifts (my snatch has progressed from a pvc pipe to a PB of 72kg) and increased number of body weight pulling and pushing reps.
How often do you train on average? I have tried to make training a habit and because I am fairly inactive at work I like to train 4-5 times a week. Where possible (normally on a day off) I will attend double sessions to practice my Olympic lifts. I find the performance development sessions particularly helpful as they tend to focus more on the Olympic lifts.
What are your goals for the future? The Open was my first competition. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and picked up on a few tips to improve my performance e.g. linking movements together. I would like to compete in more competitions as a result. My goal is to snatch my body weight by the end of the year (6kgs to go). Not sure if this is achievable but the aim is to add 1kg every month.
What advice would you give to a new CrossFitter who wants to progress rapidly? Listen to the trainers, ask questions (I was lucky in that some of my groups were fairly small and had an opportunity to get more personalised feedback from the trainers – I found Friday open gyms a good time for this), read and look at Chris’s posts, train as much as possible (concentrating on areas you need to develop), train with people who have been Cross Fitting for a while (thanks to Tyler for helping me with toes to bar!), improve your eating and try to get more sleep (although I need to improve on both of these areas).
How would you describe your nutrition? Generally poor. I increased the amount of food I was eating about 6 months ago (both carbs and proteins) for muscle repair and fuel. Since attending the CrossFit diet session I am more mindful about the nutritional labels on food items I purchase and the refined carbs I eat (rice and pasta are my weakness).
What are your favourite and least favourite workouts, movements etc? Least favourite movement would have to be double unders – some weeks I seem to have them but most weeks they seem to have me and Brooke seems to kick my butt at double unders all the time! My favourite workout would have to involve the snatch. I find it to be one of the hardest movements as one little thing can ruin the lift but when you get it right it always puts a smile on my face. Bit like a golf swing I guess, one correct hit makes up for the 30 bad ones.
What keeps you coming back? The variety – I have rarely completed the same exercise. The challenge of completing a workout. And last but not least, the people.
Chris’s Notes: There are two words that come to mind when I think of Bodo – consistency and effort, and it is my opinion that these two attributes explain much of the improvement that we have seen from him in such a short time. Whilst by his own admission some of the movements in CrossFit have not come that naturally, he has overcome this by always being there and always trying hard. Add to this the fact that he spends most of his time at training in the bathroom and doing burpees for being late and his achievements are even more impressive!
We hope you have enjoyed getting an insight into how these athletes have achieved success and that it has motivated you to realise that you too can achieve the same. While you might like to believe that the person who is beating you is doing it because of their genetics or gender or age, the reality in 99.9% of situations is that the better athlete has simply worked harder, eaten better, slept more and believed they could.
