Fort Belvoir, Va. (Sept. 11, 2014) - More than 100 servicemembers and civilians from the Fort Belvoir community braved soaring temperatures and stifling humidity to put months of training to the ultimate test at the Kawamura Human Performance Center's inaugural Who's The Fittest competition, Saturday.
The event, sponsored by the Fort Belvoir Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation and hosted by Joe Castro, KHPC fitness program director, pitted a roster full of highly prepared two-person teams in a grueling fitness competition among military services and units that included a mixture of strong man, power lifting, and CrossFit exercises.
"(Participants) competed in two categories: the open bracket for athletes ages 18-44, and the master's bracket for participants ages 45 and older," Castro said. "In addition, there were six separate divisions: Open Male, Open Female, Open Mixed, Masters Male, Masters Female and Masters Mixed. The event was open to military (active-duty, Guard, Reserve), a Family members, DoD civilians, and affiliated ID card holders 18 years of age or older.
"We also encouraged partnerships from local military installations and military CrossFit affiliates to support this event and also to participate," Castro added.
Each team engaged in eight challenges, which included dead lift, wall ball, box jumps, pull-ups, farmer's carry, partner prowler push, partner tire flip and partner 1,000-meter row.
KHPC staff selected the wide variety of exercises to ensure that all participants, regardless of skill and experience, could compete on an even playing field.
"We chose these eight exercises so anyone could compete in it; they're not very technical and anyone can perform them with practice," Castro said. "Judging was very simple and easy as well.
The combined reps or weight of each team member (produced) the overall score in the dead lift, wall ball, box-jump and pull-up events. For the dead lift, competitors had 15 minutes to attempt as many successful lifts before reaching a max dead lift. In the wall ball event, competitors completed as many wall-ball reps as they can in two minutes. For box jumps, competitors completed as many jumps as possible in two minutes, and in the pull-up event competitors had to complete their maximum number of strict pull-up reps in 60 seconds.
"The combined time was used for the overall score for the farmer's carry, partner prowler push, partner tire flip and partner 1000m row," Castro continued. "For the farmer's carry, competitors had to pick up two separate weights (35 pounds for females and 70 pounds for males), one in each hand, and run or walk 100 yards as fast as possible. In the partner prowler push, each team was required to develop a strategy to push 260 pounds on a prowler sled 100 yards as fast as possible.
In the partner tire flip, teammates flipped a tire 100 yards as fast as possible. Lastly, for the partner 1000m row, teammates had to strategize together to complete 1000 meters on the Concept2 rower as fast as possible."
The top overall scores of each of the eight exercises determined "Who's The Fittest" in each division.
According to Deborah Peterson, DFMWR fitness specialist, the event not only provided community members a unique opportunity to compete but also showcased Belvoir's new fitness center.
"This event really goes hand in hand with the whole CrossFit concept, and there are a lot of big CrossFit competitions around the country every year. So, we thought, why not do it here?" she said. "We're a CrossFit facility and we have all the equipment."
Peterson added that the massive turnout for this inaugural event promises to make the Who's the Fittest challenge a highly anticipated event in the years to come.
"I think next year registration is going to blow up," she said. "It's been a great event today; we have places where people can warm up and practice at the prowler sled, rower and tire flip stations before the main events. It's just going great and people are really enjoying it."
For the participants themselves the Who's the Fittest event, combined with the weather, proved a major challenge that demanded a total commitment of strength, endurance and willpower.
"This was a tough challenge; fortunately, my partner here is a monster," said Chikiya Jackson of his fellow team member, Adrian Montero after the duo wrapped up the prowler sled push and tire-flip events. "We didn't really train for this, except for our regular workouts. The (Kawamura Human Performance Center) was very well suited for the training."
"The prowler sled push was definitely hard on the legs and backside," added Montero. "I could feel my muscles really tightening up during that race."
For Dave Delacruz, an active-duty servicemember at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, a veteran weightlifter and fitness enthusiast, the challenge turned out to be an opportunity to put his level of personal fitness to the test but was also a great way to promote the KHPC.
"I've been doing CrossFit for about three years now, and I work out at this facility every day," he said. "They have all the equipment to play with -- the platforms and jump boxes. They also have the sleds and it's hard to find anywhere in the metro area that has those. So this is not bad at all."
"This is a great competition," added Gerard Hall, a regular CrossFit practitioner at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling who, with his Team Bolling Geezers teammate, Yuki Riley, claimed 1st place in the Masters Coed Division. "I'm going on my third year of doing CrossFit and I did the CrossFit Oakland Games two years in a row before this."
Despite the intense weather conditions and the highly taxing physical challenges, each competitor survived the event and made the inaugural Who's the Fittest challenge a sweeping success.
For more information regarding specialized fitness programs at the KHPC, call (703) 806-4647 or visit http://www.belvoirmwr.com/Facilities/SportsFitness.
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