Last Saturday we hosted our inaugural Barbells for Boobs in the new location. And what an honor it was!
30 of our athletes participated. We’re a unique box because our CrossFit Classes host athletes 55 years old and up. So, running an event-style CrossFit BenchMark Girl WOD (Grace), adjusted for masters as they did in the Games (where athletes 16 to 70+-year-olds competed) was a new challenge. We had to present RX loads for the 65-69 age group, the 70-74 age group, the 75-79 age group, and the 80+ age group. We had athletes representing each of these age groups!
From the 2014 Crossfit Games when Double Grace appeared as a workout for all age groups, loads scaled down from 135/95 for 34 years old and up, to the Open Workouts every year where CrossFit adjusts the RX of the workout for ages 35 and up. Most of the time the load break doesn’t appear until 55 years old at which time the load is reduced to accommodate an age-related adjustment in strength. After all, at 52 (Coach Sam here), I don’t expect to be judged against my 26-year-old girlfriends who throw 95 pounds around like it was nothing! We’re grateful to CrossFit for continuing to accommodate the mature athlete and their love for competition. Our athletes wanted to know what their load would be for this workout if this was the Open – how exciting! This “Sport of CrossFit” has to fit all ages, and in doing so, it also has to see that regardless of age, we’re competitive, and keeping us interested in this sport requires showing how at age 80 an athlete can compete with his 40-year-old son and his 17-year-old grandaughter (this actually happened!).
So, we used the Open loads for adjusting a ground to overhead (not listed as a snatch but a cluster, a clean and jerk, or a thruster (even though thrusters aren’t ground to overhead)). The typical load adjustment for the Open is taking the load from 139/95 to 95/65 for 55+. Recently we’ve seen adjustments for the 60+ category too. We looked at CrossFit.com’s scaling for RX and scaled loads of these movements in the Open for the past several years and determined appropriate loads per age group. However, for this event we allowed the athletes to choose the loads for safety.
After 16 heats of 4 athletes at a time, we concluded with everyone finishing Grace successfully and with a TIME!
In addition, we raised funds for the organization Barbells for Boobs. We’re still receiving and submitting donations so we don’t have a total but our fundraising page will conclude with well over $500 raised!
What a great cause in the month of October for Breast Cancer Awareness! We focused on prevention and health this year, especially in this time of COVID where our lifestyles are the one thing we can control to help prevent this, as well as other modern diseases.
Below are the scores – we scored by load not age at this event. We’re so proud of these efforts! Next year – regardless of age – we beat our times. That’s the goal. That’s the sport. That’s proving fitness!
