My argument was that until this point, the league might have been attractive to those perennial non-podium-level regionals athletes who were looking for a different outlet, but that once Lindsey signed with the league, it somehow became viable – because now the sport had a name, a star.

I overestimated the impact that big-names such as Lindsey Valenzuela would have on the GRID League.

I am here to admit I was wrong. We were all wrong, in fact. By “we,” I mean the general public standing on the periphery of the sport, assuming that a league born of CrossFit’s original DNA donors (Tony Budding, CrossFit’s former Director of Media, launched the league after leaving the mother ship) would live or die based on whether big-name CrossFit personalities would attach.

And attach they did, at least early. After Lindsey signed on, Annie Thorisdottir, Sam Briggs, Ben Smith, Mat Fraser, Tommy Hackenbruck, Val Voboril, and Christy Adkins all signed letters of intent. Teams started populating with the biggest names in CrossFit. Maddox, Panchik, Akinwale, Conzelman, and on and on. The likes of Becca Voigt, Alea Helmick, Katie Hogan, Dan “Boomsauce” Tyminski, Kris Clever, and many more came knocking on the NPGL’s door. It was wild.

The Initial Purge

But even before the Vegas Combine in June of 2014, a number of those high-profile athletes had already begun to fall away. Athletes who signed letters of intent suddenly decided the NPGL was “no longer a good fit.” I heard that from several athletes directly as I did some initial poking around as to why, for example, Briggs suddenly dropped off. I got the same response from several other athletes.

It’s possible that “no longer a good fit” meant outside pressure got to the athlete either by way of pressure from sponsors or pressure from CrossFit itself. Without getting into specifics or too much conjecture, I think it was a bit of both. Briggs, Helmick, Maddox, Panchik, Smith, Voigt, and Hogan were gone before the season even got underway.

But the sport was still going to draw crowds because Valenzuela, Thorisdottir, Hackenbruck, Clever, Dancer, and Fraser were all still in, and everyone wants to see Lindsey and Annie move some weight in a team setting. Right?

The early departure of well-known CrossFitters has paved the way for talented newcomers.

The Morphing of Expectations

Then, the first match took place in Madison Square Garden in August. The New York Rhinos versus the LA Reign. Lindsey versus Annie in the inaugural showdown of CrossFit’s biggest personalities, head to head under the new banner of GRID.

Wrong.

Of all of the unlikely stars to arise was a 5’3” kid named Irving Hernandez , who demonstrated bodyweight wizardry the likes of which had not previously been seen in CrossFit. He crushed chest-to-bar pull ups with lightning speed and dispatched ninety double unders in a matter of seconds. Notice was given that night. Specialists, not generalists, were going to be the stars of GRID.

“In fact, the DC Brawlers, who won the championship in 2014, steamrolled over every team they played, and the Brawlers consisted of exactly zero CrossFit celebs.”

It wasn’t long after that Taylar Stallings made her debut, in a match against the Phoenix Rise. Her unparalleled strength and tandem quadrant-four closing pace alongside Abby Graham became the gateway to her eventual MVP title. Stallings, Hernandez, Lindsay Menery, Valerie Calhoun, Natalie Newhart – all of the names being mentioned over and over as standouts in GRID were not the names we expected to hear.

Battiston snuffs out Dancer. Canavero eclipses Hackenbruck. Voboril and Adkins never see any actual GRID time. Thorisdottir is good, but she’s no Taylar Stallings, am I right?

And the new season? Forget about it. Eric Cardona is going to be the league MVP this year. This amazing bodyweight innovator from the San Francisco Fire has heretofore been an unknown in the sports world, at least insofar as the larger world of CrossFit’s general shadow, and he certainly came out of nowhere in the GRID world. The likes of Cardona, Ryan Elrod, Roderick Holloway, Becca Day, Lindsay Marshall, and more will be the stars of GRID in 2015. People you have likely never heard of – but trust me, you will.

Eric Cardona is my pick for GRID League All-Star in 2015.

What Does All of This Mean?

Does it mean that CrossFitters don’t make good GRID athletes? No. There is still a crossover in the middle – generalists who do well in the sport, but who have to skew one way or the other in terms of ability. For example, Miami’s Nick Urankar skews toward the strength line, Baltimore’s Alec Smith toward the bodyweight side, and San Francisco’s Courtney Walker, a fine regional-level CrossFit athlete, also clearly skews toward the bodyweight end of the spectrum.

It simply means that as a sport, GRID rewards those whom we, as fans, did not initially expect to be so highly rewarded. And tends to favor less those whom we expected to excel. If you think of some of the biggest names in CrossFit – Lindsey Valenzuela, Tommy Hackenbruck, Annie Thorisdottir, and Kris Clever – none had the impact we’d originally expected. In fact, the DC Brawlers, who won the championship in 2014, steamrolled over every team they played, and the Brawlers consisted of exactly zero CrossFit celebs.

“The next signature heard round the world is likely going to be that of someone you’ve never heard of[.]”

This is just a paradigm shift. The shift says you needn’t be a CrossFit Games athlete to make a huge impact on the GRID, and if you are a Games athlete, your value to a GRID team is not guaranteed. GRID is now attracting athletes from every possible avenue of sport, including the NFL, gymnastics, weightlifting, Cirque du Soleil, and more. GRID has Olympians, swimmers, powerlifters, and CrossFitters alike. But the biggest shift is that your resume need no longer start with “CrossFit Games competitor.” In fact, that hardly matters anymore.

The next signature heard round the world is likely going to be that of someone you’ve never heard of – and that person will be the star of GRID 2016.

Check out these related articles:

• The NPGL Signature Heard Round the World
• 2015 Grid League Prospectus
• 5 Grid Players to Watch In 2015
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of GRID League.

The post GRID All-Stars and Why I Was Wrong About Lindsey appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th.”

The DC Brawlers not only won the first Grid championship, but also dominated the season. From the opening exhibition matches in Las Vegas in June to the championship in October, watching the Brawlers pick off opponents was, to those of us who witnessed the birth of and ultimate victory of the Brawlers, nothing short of Terminator-like.

Meaning: they learned at a geometric rate.

GRID Was An Experiment for Everyone

When Grid began, everything was an experiment. Everyone – coaches, athletes, and those of us who weighed in from the sidelines – was guessing at what would make a successful athlete and a successful team. Everyone made a lot of mistakes early on and learned the hard way what worked and what didn’t.

Everyone, it seems, except Justin Cotler. (More on that shortly.)

Coach of the DC Brawlers, Justin Cotler.

For example, it only took Grid organizers a few matches with weighted handstand push ups using a medicine ball to realize the movement didn’t work. Watching a dropped ball roll away into the opposite team’s Grid while being chased by a teammate was all it took for the organizers to say, “Nope. Let’s use a sandbag here.”

“Or consider, perhaps, the biggest miscalculation of all: that big-name CrossFit athletes would make legendary Grid athletes and thus teams stacked with celebrity CrossFitters would be the stuff of champions.”

Or consider race seven, The Ladder. In the Vegas combine, the goal was to “run the table.” The crowd rose to their feet as Jerome Perryman walked intently from bar to bar and completed the entire deadlift ladder. But it wasn’t long before teams and coaches began to realize running the table was a major time-waster. And that what actually mattered was speed, number of bars, and pounds-per-second.

Or consider, perhaps, the biggest miscalculation of all: that big-name CrossFit athletes would make legendary Grid athletes and thus teams stacked with celebrity CrossFitters would be the stuff of champions. You can’t blame coaches for taking this strategy in the early days of Grid. It just made sense to sign Lindsey Valenzuela, Sam Briggs, Annie Thorisdottir, Tommy Hackenbruck, and so on.

RELATED: 5 Strong Female Role Models to Inspire the Next Generation

The Emergence of Lindsay Menerey

Cotler took notice of Lindsay’s gymnastics and overall athletic prowess when his team, CrossFit Dynamix, competed against Menery’s team, CrossFit Adrenaline, in the 2013 CrossFit Games. And what Cotler seemed to intuitively know (Skynet-style) was that in Grid, quadrants two and three are everything. He needed an athlete who could move the team efficiently through the middle of the Grid, and Lindsay was that athlete. 

Lindsay Menerey displaying her gymnastics prowess.

The epic strength of Taylar Stallings and her quadrant four closing partner Abby Graham could only be effective if the team had been moved into quadrant four with a fighting chance – and that’s where Menerey came in. To say this team was built around Lindsay Menery is not an understatement. 

But the Brawlers brought more than that. Cotler and Jeremy Jones of the San Francisco Fire, the second most successful team in the league, were pioneers in some of the nuances absolutely required to win – innovative transitions, living as a team, and a non-negotiable absence of ego. 

“To say this team was built around Lindsay Menery is not an understatement.”

Innovative Transitions

Both Cotler and Jones learned early that transitions were crucial to winning. By transitions, I mean the speed at which athletes hand off from one to the next in any given movement. We saw this with DC in the first match of the regular season in the race two, the Mirror. In this event, athletes need to move the bar down-grid without putting it down and must be ready to start repping immediately. Those of us who watched that match noticed the Brawlers had developed an extremely smooth end-around method that allowed for zero miscuing, no hesitation, and lightning fast return to the reps.

RELATED: When a Single Moment Is the Difference Between Winning and Losing 

Watch the Fire’s innovative squat clean hand off. This was one of many that these two teams pioneered. Saving microseconds meant winning matches. Brawlers win.

The Fire’s innovative squat clean handoff.

Living as a Team

Some teams were loose. Athletes lived where they lived and convened for a camp shortly before the season began. Sometimes, after the matches, they went home. But the Brawlers, the Fire, and the Phoenix Rise had expectations that their athletes encamp for the long haul.

“Where you saw one Brawler, there were always four or five more nearby. They were, without question, a family.” 

The Brawlers appeared to do everything together. Travel, train, eat, sleep, and grow as a team. Where you saw one Brawler, there were always four or five more nearby. They were, without question, a family. 

This closeness led to flawless prep and execution. This was never more clear than in their last regular season match against the New York Rhinos. When DC came in for their match walk-through, it was done with a precision, almost military execution. Few words were said and no decisions were made. Go, hand off, move here, repeat. Any questions? Contrast that with New York’s run-through, where rep schemes and substitutions were still being determined two hours pre-match. It was 2001’s Hal versus Robot from Lost in Space.

RELATED: This Is Fitness: Move Beyond Instinct and Get Uncomfortable 

DC Brawlers in their last regular season match against the New York Rhinos.

The amount of time spent together as a team was nearly proportional to DC’s success on the Grid. Brawlers win.

RELATED: I Have a Dream (Team): When Winning Is the Only Thing That Matters

No Ego

Cotler oversaw the Brawlers with a combination of intensity and love. What you witnessed during matches was an unrelenting insistence on teamwork, excellence, and drive. But as soon as the match was over, he was hugging his kids. There was no room for ego.

In Grid, ego leads to loss of critical seconds. Big personalities lead to demands, which lead to compromises, which lead to loss of seconds. It’s not a big leap. And Cotler would have none of it.

“Big personalities lead to demands, which lead to compromises, which lead to loss of seconds.”

There were no stars on the Brawlers, despite the fact there were indeed rising stars. But Justin Cotler held up athletes such as Ingrid Kantola and Tim Carroll as just-as-important pieces of the success puzzle as those receiving a ton of press. For example, while Ken Battison and Taylar Stallings closed the deals, Cotler knew the rest of the team teed them up. No one was more important than the other. 

Coach Cotler’s pre-semifinal motivational speech.

Each person on the Brawlers exudes humility, and it’s not by accident. Those who formed the team sought these personalities from the initial signings, through the combines, to the draft.

RELATED: The 5 Key Mindset Qualities of Successful Athletes 

Cotler’s Formula for Success

But how did Justin Cotler know all of this before the season even began? While other teams were amassing celebrities with highly polished signing videos, Cotler signed Taylar Stallings in a parking lot.

We may not know the answer to that question, but I believe we will see other teams emulating Cotler’s formula for success in 2015. Which means DC may have its hands full with hungry challengers. But knowing Coach Cotler, he’s already three steps ahead.

Photos courtesy of NPGL.

The post How Did the DC Brawlers Dominate Grid? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It’s Not Over ’til It’s Over

Over the course of the evening matchup, the lead had changed hands a number of times and excitement was running high in the BankUnited Center on the University of Miami campus. But as race eleven got underway, the Rhinos immediately began manhandling their opponent and each element saw Miami further and further behind. By the time the chest-to bar pull ups began, it was over.

And then…

New York’s Ben Stoneberg began a slow slog through the mud as he lunged two heavy kettlebells overhead from one end of the grid to the other. On the Miami side, Julian Serna started the same movement and, in what might have been considered a strategic error, subbed out and was replaced by Marco Coppola. Critical seconds were lost.

But on the other side of the grid, Ben Stoneberg had ground to a halt within inches from the finish line. He struggled to keep the weights overhead, stumbled a few times, and kept getting called back by the ref. The crowd swelled into a frenzy as its home team overtook the Rhinos in the final two steps of the overhead lunge. With that, the Miami Surge’s Nick Urankar sprinted to the final element, five snatches at 225lbs, banged them out unbroken, and the race, and match, went to the Miami Surge.

And a Sport Was Born

Yes, the concept of Grid began many months earlier, when Tony Budding conceived of the idea of a new sport and began talking with prospective investors and team operators. Yes, combines were held in various cities and a draft took place in July. But all the while, no one was certain as to how this would all play out. Would the races work? Would people come? Even as a TV deal matured, and the Madison Square Garden season opener loomed, all of those involved with Grid were unsure as to whether this airplane that we were assembling in mid-air as we were flying it, would stay aloft.

Critics certainly had their day. I received a number of private messages saying things like, “No way this works. Not a chance.” My response was always, “Just wait. Wait and watch.” There were comments about how local throwdowns and regionals are attended by, at best, box supporters and family. How no one comes to watch a functional fitness event where they have no skin in the game. Those loyal to the other functional fitness world were fond of saying, “Meh, not interested,” or having fun with hashtags like #standsareempty and other clever little hijinks.

As for me, I never had a doubt. I was immersed in it. I could see, up close, the excitement generated during these matches. The world at large would have to experience this excitement for themselves. On August 30 in Miami, they did.

Making Their Own Stars

Even as a number of high-profile athletes bailed out due to sponsor pressures – Briggs, Smith, Maddox, Cho – concern percolated at low-boil. Meaning, how does Grid pull interest from the existing world of CrossFit without the big names?

By making their own stars. That’s how. In a cosmic dose of functional karma, Grid quickly elevated athletes like Taylar Stallings from the DC Brawlers and Irving Hernandez from the New York Rhinos, effectively rendering the so-called “big names from CrossFit” issue moot. Danny Nichols from Phoenix became a star on Sunday, August 31when he anchored every single race and helped bring the Rise to victory. Nichols and Irving Hernandez, who might never even get a chance to participate in the CrossFit Games, became stars on the grid.

And, if anyone was rooting for the league to fail, Nick Urankar settled that with his five touch-and-go snatches. What we experienced in the house that night was the birth of Grid. The crowd got it. They were in it. They embraced their hometown team and the celebration of the Miami Surge victory was real.

Grid Has Arrived

The following night, in Los Angeles, after witnessing the epic battle between Miami and New York, the Walter Pyramid at Long Beach State experienced a massive surge in ticket sales. And once again, race for race, the noose tightened until it all came down to race eleven, where Phoenix took it in an overtime replay that will go into the Grid history books.

Until Urankar sprinted down that line toward the 225lb snatches, Grid was a massive jigsaw puzzle disassembled and reassembled for each match in each city. A tumbler of moving parts that wobbled like a foal taking its first steps, being held up by the sheer will of everyone who wanted it to succeed, from the refs, set up staff, and TV production crew, right down to the athletes themselves. But when Stoneberg stumbled and Urankar brought it home, the camera pulled out to a wide shot of that puzzle and for the first time revealed Grid, the sport.

The world was put on notice this weekend. Grid has arrived, and it’s only going to grow. Better get your tickets.

Photos courtesy of NPGL.

The post The Moment Grid Became a Sport appeared first on Breaking Muscle.