Testing Fitness and what to prepare for.

If you wanted to test how fit you were, you likely wouldn't be able to do so with a single component of fitness, (i.e. endurance, strength, power, etc.). You would need to know what encompasses fitness, and how to test those things. Understanding the above statement will help you better prepare (even though the competition is only a few short weeks away) for the CrossFit Rampage Christmas Throwdown. Pulling random movements out of a hat and assigning reps and round to them may be a lot of fun, but may not formulate the best plan for testing overall fitness. It seems as if some competitions are doing more "CrossFit" testing rather than "Fitness Testing" which are starting to become two different things. Well, we don't want them to be so. Having said that, then what might we need to look at in order to test fitness, through CrossFit? Dodgeball? A max effort strength test is always a good idea right? Well, lets hypothetically take one of the strongest powerlifters in the world, and lets pretend he has never performed a snatch before. Now, take a top level CrossFitter who snatches 250+. Likely the CrossFit athlete will beat the 1,000lb squatter due to technical efficiency/speed/power/flexibility. So, do the Olympic lifts measure pure strength? No. Do they measure strength to some extent? Of course, but there is also a high level of power/skill/coordination/flexibility needed to perform well at the snatch and clean and jerk. So am I saying that those are bad tests of fitness? Absolutely not, they are phenomenal tests because they measure multiple components all within one lift. Am I saying it is a bad measure for a pure "strength" test? Yes. Don't believe me? Refer to the 1,000lb squatter getting beat in the snatch by a CrossFitter. When measuring absolute strength, who is really stronger?... Exactly. So to sum this up... in testing fitness, a true strength test, might be better served up as something from the world of power lifting. In opposition to the last statement, in testing power (speed-strength as some might call it) skill, coordination, flexbility, and lets throw balance and "athleticism" into this, what might we look at? The Olympic lifts. Wa-Laah! Now, we can correctly call our Olympic lift a test of these things, and not solely "strength." Are either of these saying that we are going to have a max power and/or olympic lift? Maybe, then again, maybe not. However, we are testing fitness, and these are components of that. Lets reach further into power. Due to the technicality of the Olympic lifts, one must practice them exclusively to become highly proficient at them. This should be understood by anyone who has tried these movements, i.e. they're not easy. So is it fair to say, you are only as powerful as you are good at the ever-so-technical snatch or clean and jerk? NO. Now we can start to understand that measuring "power" on its own, may not be best suited to one modality (Olympic lifting), but rather by numerous things. I've seen max height box/broad/triple jumps in competitions and loved them. What about the shot-put? Great test of power, though do CrossFit gyms practice it, no, so don't expect it. These are great tests of power, and they take out the specificity of training for the Olympic lifts to be good at them. Speed is a component of power, but is only half of that equation. Speed is determined by the rate an object covers distance; or, how fast you move. Are we testing speed by doing 3 rounds of box jumps burpees and wall balls? Not necessarily. Likely, noone is ever moving at 100% of their max speed potential during this workout. If I were to line you up side by side on a football field and say first person to the other end wins, are we doing a better job of testing for speed now? I'd say so. Disagree with me if you want...and be unprepared for testing speed. When we think "stamina" and "endurance" we need to take a closer look into the exercise physiology of the body. There are 3 energy systems of which I am not going to dive deeply into, but we'll briefly discuss them. The first one, the ATP-PC system is responsible for short duration, 5-8seconds, 100% max effort power movements. Think 40yd dash, max effort lift, max distance jump, etc. The second system, Anaerobic Glycolysis lasts about 30seconds-2 minutes (some say its shorter, some say longer), think 400m sprint, "Grace", "Fran" a long volley in volleyball. Lastly, the third energy system, the Aerobic System begins shortly after 2 minutes of continuous physical activity and lasts indefinitely. This system does not allow for a very high power output, but can last a long time. Think soccer game, swimming across a lake, any endurance events, Murph, (or most all hero workouts)..etc. So when trying to test fitness, it would be of our best interest to test work capacity in each of these energy systems. For the short duration, ATP-PC system, an Olympic lift could possibly work, but again, due to the technical demands of the lift, we may not find the individual with the greatest work capacity in under 10seconds because frankly, they might suck at Olympic lifting, but be amazing at the 40yd dash. Take home note: Be ready for something short & powerful, (under 10 seconds), something short & very high intensity (2 minutes) and then some things lasting longer than 2 minutes- classic CrossFit Workouts. Other things that are noteworthy when testing fitness include muscle endurance, gymnastic skills to an extent (kinesthetic/body awareness), pushing/pulling strength, grip strength, running ability, pacing, and lactic acid removal ability. No need in explaining all of these, but be ready to see things that test all of them, within a days worth of workouts!