Crossfit Open 14.1 - Garret Fisher vs. Marcus Hendren

When HQ first announced that the live throw down for 14.1 would be between Garret Fisher and Marcus Hendren, I was a bit underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, both of these guys are extremely upper echelon Crossfitters. They boast Games experience and they’re both young enough for us to assume that they’re best days are ahead of them. While Rich Froning deserves to be the favorite until he decides to stop competing, both Hendren and Fisher are very serious competitors for the crown and/or a podium finish. Did I say I was underwhelmed? What the heck was I thinking?!? Crossfit only started these live throwdowns last year but I think this one is the second best matchup on the men’s side that we’ve seen, second only to Froning vs Khalipa. Let’s take a look at how these two young guns stack up:

Measurables:
Garret Fisher is 22 years old and reports himself as 6’1, 210 pounds.
Marcus Hendren is 25 years old and reports himself as 5’10, 198 pounds.
My only thought on this is that I was surprised Fisher outweighed Hendren. Fisher looks like the leaner athlete but I guess that’s what an extra three inches does for you. There’s obviously a three year age difference as well.
Experience
Garret Fisher, as best I can tell, started competing in CF in 2012 when he finished 29th in Northern California in the Open (285th overall) and finished up a very respectable 7th at Regionals. That didn’t earn him a spot in the Games but the then 20 year old proved he would be back. Last year Fisher cemented his spot as a Northern Cali beast, taking 4th in the Open (50th overall) and nailing down third place in a very tough region to earn a trip to the Games. He beat out solid Games veterans like Pat Barber and Gabe Subry. His first trip to the Games wouldn’t be a disappoint either as narrowly edged out Hendren for 5th place, including top 5 finishes in Row1 and the Burden Run. Fisher was solid and consistent throughout the Games, getting off to a solid start with top 10 finishes in each of the first four WODs and ended the weekend with three more top 10 finishes.
Marcus Hendren, again as best I can tell, also started competing in CF in 2012 when finished 11th in the Central East in the Open (141st overall) and followed that up in a 4th place finish at Regionals (behind two Games Champs Froning and Holmberg). His first trip to the Games culminated in a solid 7th place finish that included two top three finishes. Last year Hendren had an eventful ride to the Games, finishing 3rd in the region (42 overall) in the Open, but then having to make a mad dash on the final day of Regionals to earn his return trip to the Games. In the first four events at regionals, he placed 9th or worse in three of them, but in the final three WODs he notched two wins and fifth to squeeze out Nick Fory by a single point for 5th place (again behind two former champs). At the Games, Hendren again got off to a slow start finishing 37th, 10th and 24th in the first three workouts. Once he got going though, Hendren put on a show finishing inside the top 10 on six of the nine remaining WODs.

Head to Head
Obviously since both these guys were at the Games last year, we’ve got some data to compare since they were doing these exact same WODs in the same conditions. In the 12 scored events from last year, Fisher holds the head to head advantage by finishing ahead of Hendren in six of the events. Hendren can boast four victories and they actually tied in two events. Fisher had six top 10 finishes and two top five finishes while Hendren had seven top 10 finishes, but only one top five, although that was first place overall finish in the Zig Zag sprint.
When you go back and look at Regionals, Hendren really dominated Fisher although the times out of the Central East were incredible across the board out of that region last year for whatever reason. Hendren posted better times/lifts on six of the seven events when compared to Fisher, although Fisher was in the top 5 in all but one event, whereas Hendren only posted three top five finishes. If you go back even further, Hendren posted better numbers on three of the five Open WODs from last year.
So is there a conclusion somewhere in here?
The honest answer is I don’t know. Fisher and Hendren are both amazing CF athletes, they’re both going to post awesome numbers and most likely be back at the Games in 2014. As to who will win this throwdown, I think the data says it should be Hendren. Hendren performed better in the Open and Regionals phase last year and his worst events at the Games were ‘unconventional’ CF WODs (37th place in the pool and 24th in the marathon row). This WOD should be very basic and conventional. I think the only reason I want to pick Fisher is because he’s more visible during the offseason. He works out with Jason Khalipa and my personal favorite Miranda Oldroyd (aka Shoulder Meat) at the NC Lab so I can at least see some of what he’s doing and who he’s working out with on a daily basis. I know he’s getting pushed and getting better. So now that I think about it, on the off chance that Miranda stumbles across this lowly blog, I have to pick her guy (call me Miranda, let’s talk :-) ).
Garret Fisher will win the live throw down at 14.1!!
You can of course watch it all live on the Crossfit Games site Thursday, February 27th. Be there and be ready…..(seriously Miranda, call me!)

Crossfit Games Open 2014

The Crossfit Open is just around the corner and I for one, can’t wait. Even though I’m far from a competitive Crossfitter, I love the Open competition. I enjoy the competition it breeds within a gym and I relish the idea that somewhere Rich Froning, Jason Khalipa and Talanya Fortunado are all doing the exact same WOD. As the excitement builds each week I spend hours each day thinking, strategizing and projecting what I think the WOD for that week will be (spoiler alert: we’re never right because Dave Castro is an evil genius) and regardless of what it announced, the excitement instantly turns into frantic preparation. How quickly should I start on the 7 min of burpees? Should I try to go unbroken on the 75lb snatches? The bottom line, for 90% of us Crossfitters out there, the Open is our big stage. While my main goal of doing CF every day is to just be a fitter human being, I really enjoy the feeling of being a competitive athlete for these five weeks. With all that said, I decided to do some predictions on the Open, interview style (because we all talk to ourselves right??):

Will we see any new movements this year in the Open?

Interesting question and I thank you for asking. There are three years of history to consider here when looking at movements from previous Open competitions, but I’m going to narrow our sample size even farther. I think the first year, HQ wasn’t entirely sure what they wanted to the Open to accomplish. Sure they wanted to find the fittest and I think they accomplished that goal but I think when you look at the three Opens in total, 2011 stands out as the least “inclusive” and it’s by a considerable margin. Start with the 11.1 and it opens with 30 double unders. That knocks out a sizeable number of CFers instantly. Double unders are a fairly high skilled movement and any time to you introduce a highly skilled movement first in a WOD, you are going to lose a large number of your population. In the two years since then, both 12.1 and 13.1 started with burpees, a movement every single CF can perform at their own speed. 2011 also included a WOD that was made up entirely of heavy squat cleans and a third WOD that included heavy overhead squats. Both of these WODs don’t fall under the “inclusive” portion of the Open. With three WODs out of five (well techinically six because of HQ error), the 2011 Open wasn’t very ‘inclusive’ at all. Since then the weights have been light and the higher skilled movements have been buried with WODs so that everyone can at least post a score.

So you didn’t really answer my question, will there be any NEW movements in 2014?

Oh forgive me, I started talking and totally forget where I was originally headed. I think HQ is comfortable with what they’ve presented in the past two years and I don’t see them changing up the formula too much this year. I think we’ll see at least “repeat” WOD, but if there is a new movement, I think it’ll be introduced to clear up some of the controversy last year. Box jumps are a difficult thing to judge, especially on a video submission, but you they need to keep some form of jumping or explosive movement as a component of the Open. My solution to that problem: Burpee box jumps. I think we see them this year and that’s the new movement. There I answered your question.

So that’s it, burpee box jumps? What about bar muscle ups or handstand pushups, running or rowing?

I don’t think bar muscle ups would be used simply because I’m not sure how many garage gym-ers have the equipment to do that movement. Handstand push ups are a possibility, but they’ll be buried deep within a WOD, much like double unders and muscle ups have been the last two years. As for running, rowing or Aerodyne work, that’s too difficult to judge in a video submission. There’s no chance of those showing up.

Check back later today or tomorrow and we’ll hit up predictions for 14.1, including what the WOD will be and who will win the live announcement battle between Marcus Hendren and Garret Fisher.