Living BIG at Regionals

by Austin O'Neal

Describe your liveBIG adventure.

Over Memorial Day weekend of 2016 I had the honor of competing in the CrossFit Central Regional competition. This three day event was a gathering of the fittest athletes from anywhere in the 15 midwest states. In order to even be invited to compete, there was a five workout qualifier (aka the CrossFit Open) which is spread across five weeks earlier in the year. All athletes wanting to compete at Regionals are instructed to perform, film and submit a score for each workout which would then be validated by CrossFit headquarters. Only the top 20 males and top 20 females from each of seventeen worldwide regions are invited to compete as individuals at the regional level. 7,590 male athletes completed all five qualifying workouts in the North Central region and I finished 11th place. Qualifying for this event has been the fuel to my fire that has driven me the past year and a half and which has also become a very transformative personal journey.

Before I tell you about my experience at Regionals, I’d like to define what liveBIG means to me. I’m a firm believer that there is no wrong answer to what living BIG means and it’s going to be different for everybody. For me liveBIG is:

To find your “something” such as a profession, belief, lifestyle, journey, adventure or anything that brings out the best version of yourself while also giving you a sense of fulfillment to a level in which it resonates and inspires your peers.

As you can see, my definition is broad, but has three criterion that I must meet:

1. There needs to be “something” to focus your efforts on.
2. You find joy and fulfillment because of the “something”.
3. You can pass on this feeling and hopefully inspire the world around you to be better versions of themselves. 

How did you prepare for Regionals?

I’d like to back up a bit more and talk about how I found my “something”. Like many people, it was right in front of my eyes for a good portion of my life. I had always been an athlete and played sports from elementary school through college. Unlike a lot athletes who just like to play the sport itself, I’ve always loved training and preparing in the off-season. It wasn’t until the end of my collegiate wrestling career that I realized I loved training (more specifically working out in the gym) more than the actual sport I was playing. Coincidently, that was also around the same time that I found CrossFit. The whole concept that CrossFit was both a training regimen and a sport that I could compete and win really blew my mind. I could take my love for off-season style training and turn that into my sport of choice. In CrossFit, I found my “something”!

Going forward I knew that I wanted to completely immerse myself in my new found “something”. Nothing else in my life even came close to giving me the rush or sense of accomplishment that CrossFit training did. It was definitely a high every time I training and I craved that feeling with every breathe I took. It was this feeling that ultimately led to my desire to set the goal to qualify for the CrossFit Regional competition. I quickly learned that in order to make my bid for regionals possible I was going to have to make big changes to my lifestyle. 

At the start of this whole journey I thought my routine was dialed in. I was a full time CrossFit coach living in Indianapolis and training to the extent that I thought I would need to succeed. I followed a blog style training template to perfection, ate what I thought was a “good” diet, and took supplements that I thought were helping. It wasn’t until an eye opening first appearance at the 2014 Granite Games Pro-Elite competition that I had my first chance to compete head to head with some of the best CrossFit athletes in the world. I got time capped on nearly every workout and finished almost last place. When I got home from the Granite Games, I sat down, defined my priorities on paper and committed to refining every aspect of my life in order to reach my goal of making it to regionals. I knew that success wouldn’t come overnight and was prepared to do whatever. The following are the steps I took over the next year and a half:

October 2014: Hired a top level OPEX coach to design a custom program for me.
January 2015: Begin a sport supplementation regimen (pre-workout, post-workout, daily vitamins, etc.) given to me by my coach and I strictly followed.
March 2015: Participate in my first CrossFit Open - I would place 32nd in the region and not qualify for regionals.
September 2015: Officially made a career out of CrossFit coaching in order to spend more time at the gym.
September 2015: Competed in my 2nd Granite Games Pro-Elite competition - had a stronger showing and paced 31st overall.
January 2016: Created a lifestyle completely focused on training: Moved 100 yards away from the gym, began practicing daily meditation, weekly physical therapy, improved work to training balance
January 2016: Began working with Performance Driven Labs to refine my diet/nutrition.
January 2016: Competed in the South Loop Games competition: Placed 4th overall among a field of other regionals qualifiers.
March 2016: Competed in 2nd CrossFit Open - placed 11th in the region and qualified.
May 2016: Competed in my first CrossFit Regional competition.

What were the toughest aspects of your journey?

As you can see from my timeline, I had to completely embrace my “something” and go all in if I wanted to get to Regionals. This included making sacrifices as well as intimidating life changes. In a short period of time I had entrusted my training in a coach (who I wasn’t sure I could afford), signed a lease on an apartment to be closer to the gym (which was slightly outside of my budget), and started a job where success wasn’t guaranteed. One thing that I’ve learned along my liveBIG journey is that as stressful as things got, making difficult decisions and changes only got easier the more I focused on my end goal. 

My training regimen remained relatively consistent up and through the 2016 Open. My coach had me regularly train twice a day as we built volume into my routine. The added volume would help with making multiple attempts at the Open workouts. As we got closer to the Open, my coach had me perform workouts from previous years to see how my scores stacked up to past regional athletes. At this point, things were looking good.

During the CrossFit Open, training was entirely based on how my body was feeling and how my first attempt at the weekly workout played out. I would perform my first attempt at the workout Friday afternoon. This would allow me time to fully recover for a second attempt on Monday. 

The first two weeks of the Open went as planned placing me in a top 20 spot. It was week three that gave me my biggest scare. The workout was a seven minute AMRAP of light power snatches and bar muscle ups. If I would have settled for the score from my first attempt I would have placed 428th in the region for that workout and have no shot at going to regionals. I tried the workout the next day with a different strategy and performed even worse. After taking Sunday off, I would have one more chance on Monday to get it right. The workout weighed on my mind all weekend. On Monday afternoon I performed my last attempt and to my amazement I was able to improved my score enough to finish 33rd in the region for week three. I finished the last two weeks with solid performances and ultimately landed in 11th place overall. 

Immediately after the open I was only given 4 days off from training. When my training resumed, coach had me in full on regionals prep. On weekends we would do competition simulation where I would perform three days of regional style workouts. These workouts were heavier, higher reps and there would be three training sessions most days. Once the actual 2016 regional workouts were announced, my training became specific to the movements and demands I would face in competition. I was lucky that the Central Regional took place the last of three regional weekends. This would give me the most time to prepare. 

There was one workout in particular that gave me the most concern. It was a Regionals variation of the workout “Nate”. It would be the first time CrossFit would utilize a strict muscle-up in a workout and this was a movement I could barely perform (let a lone 40 times). My best attempt in practice for this workout would only be 3.5 out of 10 rounds completed in the time cap.

What were the most rewarding aspects of your journey?

If you remember in my definition of liveBIG, my “something” needed to give me joy and fulfillment. While I’ve mostly enjoyed the process of training, every decision and sacrifice, regardless of difficulty, truly paid off when I got my invitation from CrossFit headquarters to compete at regionals. I already knew that I had scored high enough in the CrossFit Open and that my videos would probably be verified, but it wasn’t until I got that official email that it really set in. This was one of the happiest moments I could remember in my life and validation that I was on the right path.

I will say, even more happiness came at Regionals when I stepped out on the competition floor for the first time to a cheering crowd knowing that I not only earned, but deserved to be competing amongst the fittest in the region. This was a year and a half in the making and I was going to try to enjoy the experience. 

After simulating the workouts in the gym, I thought it was a reasonable goal to aim to finish the weekend in the top half of the field. Knowing ahead of time that I wouldn’t perform well in several of the events, my coach and I had planned for me to go out HOT in the workouts I was more confident in with the hopes of having a few top tiered finishes. I don’t like to make excuses, so despite having a PR performance in regional Nate (completed 6 rounds of the muscle-ups), I performed poorly throughout most of the weekend and finished 32nd place out of 40 competitors. 

With that said, while I wasn’t happy with my showing at the 2016 Regionals, overall I walked away knowing this was an important step moving forward. Instead of picking apart the things that went wrong, I’d rather acknowledge what my goal was at the beginning of this journey. I wanted to make it to the 2016 Regionals as an individual competitor and did exactly that.

What’s next for Austin?

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I want to qualify and win the CrossFit Games some day. That dream crosses my mind, but I know it’s part of a longer term goal and plan. For the time being my immediate objectives are to continue training hard and attacking my weaknesses. My training for the 2017 CrossFit season has already begun with a lot of focus on gymnastics and mobility. I’d like to continue improving my rankings at various competitions and become more comfortable competing on a bigger stage (I will get my next chance in September 2016 when I compete at my third Granite Games Pro-Elite competition). Finally, after my last event at this year’s Regionals weekend, I came off the competition floor knowing exactly what my goal for 2017 will be… I not only want to make it back, but I want to be in the final heat on Sunday competing for a podium spot. 

I’d like to thank everyone for supporting me through my journey. My coaches, colleagues and the community at Windy City have played a critical role in helping me liveBIG! The final part of my liveBIG definition says that my passion for pursuing my “something” should inspire other’s to be better versions of themselves. While there is no way to quantify this, I’ve noticed a lot of dedication and positivity amongst my clients, the competitive team and the greater Windy City community the past few months. I’m excited to keep pushing and see how far I can take it.