To hear Adam Neiffer tell it, the team that represented his Vancouver gym at a national fitness competition was nothing special.
“The six individuals who competed on our team were not unique at the gym,” Neiffer said. “Everyone here could have done the same thing.”
Strong words, those.
All the team from CrossFit Fort Vancouver did last month was earn the title of World’s Fittest Gym at the 2010 CrossFit Games in Carson, Calif.
Joining Neiffer on the team were Nathan Loren, Jessica Core, Marie Rochat, Riss Rodriguez and Ryan Smith.
DID YOU KNOW?
• The fourth-annual CrossFit Games, an international fitness competition, were held July 16-18 in Carson, Calif. A team from CrossFit Fort Vancouver won the championship.
• CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) is a training program with affiliated gyms around the world, including five gyms in Clark County.
• The CrossFit Games are not limited to CrossFit affiliated gyms, though most of the participants were from CrossFit gyms.
“I knew we would do well for ourselves,” Loren, 37, said. “This is above my expectations, for sure.”
DID YOU KNOW?
• The fourth-annual CrossFit Games, an international fitness competition, were held July 16-18 in Carson, Calif. A team from CrossFit Fort Vancouver won the championship.
• CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) is a training program with affiliated gyms around the world, including five gyms in Clark County.
• The CrossFit Games are not limited to CrossFit affiliated gyms, though most of the participants were from CrossFit gyms.
Over three days, the team completed a series of exercise challenges designed to test every aspect of fitness — from strength and speed to recovery time and endurance.
Competing with 65 gyms from around the world, CrossFit Fort Vancouver ran away from the competition to win the CrossFit Affiliate Cup. By placing among the top 10 in every event and finishing first in two of them, CrossFit Vancouver scored 18 points, less than half the score for runner-up CrossFit New England.
This was the fourth year of the CrossFit championships, a competition open to any gym. The process starts with sectional and regional competitions, with top teams at 13 regional contests invited to the Home Depot Center in Carson for the championships.
Competitors arrive at the CrossFit Games without knowing what is in front of them. They learn of each challenge shortly before their starting time. That prevents teams from practicing for a specific obstacle course or series of exercises. It is designed, Neiffer said, to test the preparation that athletes did in advance of the contest.
The events combine regular exercises with unique tests — from carrying a teammate across a field to tossing a weighted ball against a wall.
“If they do throw something weird at us it may be awkward, but your muscles are fine tuned and you can do it,” Core said.
Members of the CrossFit Fort Vancouver team had some competitive experience. Neiffer, 26, is a former small college football player who first discovered CrossFit training through some fellow fighters of forest fires.
The Ione, Ore., native was training and coaching at a CrossFit gym in Portland before opening CrossFit Fort Vancouver in April of 2009. He said the gym now has about 60 members.
Rodriguez, 30, competed at the NCAA gymnastics nationals while at Oregon State. She joined CrossFit Fort Vancouver in 2009 to get in shape for a half marathon. Smith, 23, played football and baseball for Camas High School.
Loren, from Washougal, was introduced to CrossFit by a friend who was training for an archery elk hunt.
“After I tried (CrossFit) one day, I was hooked,” Loren said. “I was challenged every day, and competing with myself to get better.”
The CrossFit Fort Vancouver group decided to enter the team competition after several of its members were top finishers at a sectional contest in the spring. CrossFit Fort Vancouver won a regional title in May, sending it to Los Angeles with confidence.
The team did the hard work before heading south. Team members each trained at least five days a week beginning in March to build the fitness that carried them to a championship.
CrossFit Fort Vancouver placed sixth in the first event, a combination of heavy thrusters, pull-ups, and buddy carries across the stadium field. A convincing win in the second event — it measured deadlifts, single leg squats, rowing, and maximum weight lifts — put the Vancouver team atop the standings.
CrossFit Fort Vancouver maintained the lead during the final two days of competition. The weekend culminated with an obstacle course that included rope climbs, sandbags, gymnastic rings, medicine balls, and large wooden walls to negotiate. By finishing a close second in that race, Fort Vancouver clinched the crown.
“We tried to celebrate, but we were all so tired,” Core, who lives in Gresham, said.
When Neiffer suggested that anyone from his gym could have accomplished what the championship six did, he wasn’t downplaying the accomplishment. Neiffer explained that anyone who wanted to push for a spot on the team was welcome — and that anyone who went through the months of intense training would have been able to give a strong effort.
“The goal was to compete, to push ourselves,” Neiffer said.
Members of the 2010 World’s Fittest Gym team are eyeing challenges from triathlons to cycling. But in 2011, they also will be pushed by the challenge of defending their title.
“It would be nice to show that it wasn’t a fluke,” Loren said.
