More than 140 of the region’s best athletes will fight it out for the right to be called the fittest in Suffolk this weekend.
The Suffolk Games mixed pairs competition, which will be held at Inspire Suffolk on Sunday, will see 72 teams of two tackle four gruelling CrossFit workouts over the course of the day.
CrossFit is known as the sport of fitness, and is one of the fastest growing sports on earth. It sees athletes tackle set workouts to see who can finish the fastest or complete the most rounds.
In this case, that means the teams taking on four challenges – known as ‘WODs’ in the CrossFit community – with six heats of each designed to push the competitors to their breaking points.
“They are all tough,” said Matt Brennan, of CrossFit GFP in Ipswich, who is organising the event along with colleagues at the town’s CrossFit ISC. “I want to say short and sweet but they’re very high intensity and when you have people around you pushing themselves to the limit, you will too.
“It’s extremely exciting to watch – everyone will be giving it all they can.”
The first challenge for athletes will be ‘Power Output’ - a minute each of deadlifts, hang cleans and shoulder presses, plus two minutes of sprints, interspersed with short rest periods.
‘How’s your grip’ will see athletes have to complete various 50 calorie rows followed by tyre pulls, kettlebell swings, and skips.
‘Carry’ is a 12-minute test of sandbag lunges, burpees and deadball carries, while ‘Descent’ is a 40/30/20/10 rep finisher of barbell lifts, deadball carries and tyre flips.
Brennan says the sport continues to grow, and next year the Suffolk Games will run three events for the first time – a same sex pairs event on April 22, a teams event for fours on July and the mixed pairs battle on October 14.
“It’s really taking off,” he said. “Last year we did one event, this year we’re doing two and next year we’re going to do three – we’re really trying to put it on the map.”
The action starts at 9am on Sunday and spectators are welcome. For more information, or to enter next year’s events, visit www.suffolkgames.co.uk.
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