The Quest For Level V

"What keeps you motivated?"

Ever thought of that before? What keeps you going, each day of your life? Be it career, family or fitness, the way to stay motivated is to have goals.

I've been CrossFitting for about 2 years plus now. In that period, I have seen some amazing improvements in all aspects of my fitness. And I just love the challenge of constantly varied, functional movements done at high-intensity. Yes, a mouthful, but that's what CrossFit is all about.

The question is, where do I go from here? Which brings me to the point of this blog. My current goal for the next 12 months is to achieve the fitness and skill level of a Level 5 athlete, using this Athletic Skills chart(courtesy of CrossFit Dahlonega) as a reference. And to that end, I will be using this blog to document my progress in my quest for Level 5.

The first step would be an assessment of where I currently am. I'm 28 this year, weighing in at 70kg, height at 166cm. Below are the requirements for a Level 5 athlete, with my current PRs in bold next to it. Text highlighted in red are skills that are at Level 5 and above:-

Hips

- Pistols: 25 per leg (To be tested)

- Back Squat: 2x Bodyweight (PR: 137kg, Goal: 140kg)

- Deadlift: 2.5x Bodyweight (PR: 181kg, Goal: 175)

- Vertical Jump: 30 inches (To be tested)

Push

- Push Ups: 60 on rings (To be tested)

- Bench Press: 1.5x Bodyweight (PR: 3RM @ 100kg, Goal: 1RM @ 105kg)

- Shoulder Press: 1x Bodyweight (PR: 77.5kg, Goal 70kg)

- Handstand Push Ups: 10 full range (To be tested)

- Dips: 50 on rings (To be tested)

- Dip: 1 with Bodyweight (To be tested)

Pull

- Rope climb: 20 foot climb, 2 trips, touch & go, no feet (To be tested)

- Squat Clean: 1.5x Bodyweight (PR: 95kg, Goal: 105kg)

- Pull ups: 40 dead hang (To be tested)

- Pull up: 1 with 1 x Bodyweight (PR: 55kg, Goal: 70kg)

- Muscle up: 15 (PR: 10 with full lockout)

Core

- Overhead Squat: 15 reps x Bodyweight (To be tested)

- Front Lever: 15 seconds (PR 5 seconds)

- L-sit: 1:30 (To be tested)

Work:

- 2 DB/KB clean & jerk: 150 reps in 10 minutes, KB@24kg (To be tested)

- Sandbag carry: 1 mile with 3/4 x Bodyweight (To be tested)

- 800 meter run: 2:20 (PR: 2:54)

- Row: 6k row in 20:00 (To be tested)

- Mary(5 handstand pushups, 10 pistols, 15 pull ups): 15 rounds in 20 minutes (PR: 14R + 5, 10, 10)

- 1 mile run: 5 minutes (To be tested)

Speed:

- 400m run: 1:04 (PR: 1:03)

- 500m row: 1:25 (To be tested)

- Snatch: 1.25x Bodyweight (PR: 62.5kg, Goal: 87.5kg)

As you can see, quite a fair bit of testing and work to be done. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be testing myself on all the remaining skills. Once my skill assessment has been completed, my training plan will be put into place.

Any thoughts, comments and suggestions that you may have for me would be appreciated. Over and out.