Men's CrossFit Total—2020 CrossFit Games

athletes making their way onto the competition field and here is their starting list. What's unique here is that they should go in order from fifth place to first. That first place actually has an advantage over what has already been achieved. Yeah, and you know, we already know. That Matt Fraser has so much strength off this field, he's one of the ones with the highest

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from the last time we did this in the game, so he's definitely going to be one to watch, I mean, obviously, it's Matt Fraser, Of course you're going to be watching the start, it's going to be Jeffrey Adler and again he's one of the strongest guys on the field so be curious to see how he does.

We didn't see it when they did this last thing. Very good, good starting weight for Adler and again. With only three lists, what is the approach you should take for an event like this? Well, I think it's like with the classic type of Olympic lifting, when you only have a handful of numbers like this, you want to hit 75, 80 percent, get something on the board that you're comfortable with, get going, move, lift a heavy weight for the third or second and then go for the fences on the third, that's what you want to do if you miss one. you have to catch up and then defend all the time, that's what you don't want here because when the time comes, the strong will survive.

It's all about your strong guys and you need to have something on the board next, we know. Olson for his first attempt, well for Noah, now it's also unique to this event, in particular, you have that 44 to 45 second rotation, so you have a good three or four minutes before you go to the middle, but you only have three You try and you can't get off. and wait, it's pretty reminiscent of what a weightlifting competition would be, yeah, yeah, I mean, so you know why that first lift is really important, you want to have a good lift to start with, but you don't want to come out too heavy and then . miss it and then you'll really like it, you know, stand with your back against the wall and try to fight those moderates that look like 455 on the bar, if I know the plate colors correctly, good easy start for moderates.

We, well, we didn't hear anything, we started it, but very loud, this is what I love about this guy, he just comes with youthful confidence, it's like he doesn't know he's supposed to have a hard time with it, but look . in the power, a nice tight big breath gets to that level and there wasn't even a hiccup, there wasn't one, you usually have that sticking point, there wasn't any sticking point and that's the number one lift that's going to set the stage for many things. of these other athletes and a lot of that relates to the feeling again of the speed of the bar, not necessarily how heavy the bar actually feels for these athletes, how much first attempt at 4 25. nice, easy, easy, but that's what we want you to want for your first The lift is something you know you can do, yes, but not so far that you have to do a massive jump for that second attempt.

That second attempt will be key and the quants as his one rep max for the basketball was 445 so that's only 20 pounds away Fraser will be the next overall leader after two events he has 455 on the bar , okay, and it's nice to see how strong you are taking that big breath, really held, hug that spine and what I like is that he has that. olympic lifting power look at that nice bounce from the bottom use that momentum to lift it through that sticking point good lifting another part of that is looking at the difference in techniques between athletes especially when you look at foot position oh yeah how tight it's matt Fraser but when Noah Olsen shows up it's the big difference in setups for these apps oh yeah it's an olympic lifting setup versus a powerlifting setup jeffy adler we're down let's move on to our second round he had 450 the bar had a successful 425, the number they hit will be displayed on the front of their lane, so look at that, wow, what's in this, so 455, that's five, ten pounds off your one rep max. for back squat, but look at him and Again, you know, look at the speed, no problem, he didn't even seem worried about it and really you know, we've been curious to know what Jeff is going to do, how he's going to handle this mentally, he seemed confident , trusted. there and they just go in and out they're also going to be next with a pound attempt now we're looking at back squats we've got three different lifts back squat strict press deadlift these are one of those where you need to build up some weight.

On the downside, you're not going to get a big advantage on strict pressing, these guys don't do that at all, so if you have the opportunity to go big, you've got to take those 10 or 15 pounds, because how much difference are you going to make? have on the strict press? I mean that number really goes down, so you talk a little bit about foot position here, Noah's foot position is nice and wide and what that does is you bottom out right parallel, you're not doing a lot of extra work. and going down to that successful extra depth lift for noel olson 435 in the medeiro books, he hit 455 at his starting weight but only jumped 10 pounds to a 465 pound attempt on his second try, i think maybe it's a game trying to see if the other guys are going to take a big leap, you know well, that seems too easy, yeah, yeah, you know, okay, again,

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, maybe it's a rookie move, um, very strong, there could easily be gained another 10 pounds just to carry that.

Push the field a little bit, you've got to be able to get a hit on some of these guys, push the field if you can because if you get the chance, especially where he's sitting, if you get the chance to push someone like Matt Fraser or even Samuel Quan what do you have? to do that push you have to do it now quant had a successful 425 45 on the bar again I mean someone is smaller I would have thought it would have been a more aggressive jump uh again very easy move I mean Geez, that could be the lift Fastest I've seen so far from any of the competitors.

There is a bit of styrofoam in those shapes. This looks like my 135. Matt Frazier 455, first successful attempt. It looks like the target on the side could be a 475. This would be the heaviest weight we have seen put on the bar. Good lift, nice and easy, and okay Matt, he's got the cushion, he's got plenty of space between him and the rest of the field, he doesn't need to go. crazy and again, he's not overly aggressive, I mean, with what he's capable of doing now he has a one rep max at 485, so he's still close to that, yeah, but we know we've got a couple more lifts to go. we're We're going to be able to add in there with the deadlift, especially well, we necessarily know that Fraser just hit 475.

Adler is up there and chose to hit 470 for his last attempt. We talked to Jeff before about this and we said, Hey, you know? what you have to do some hits you have to try it as an attack is attack matt is actually what this is what it really comes down to you have to want to attack matt look how easy it was, he couldn't, he couldn't. I've done more, although he seems a little surprised at how well he did, maybe, but even with his one rep max, I mean, he's on the list for that 465. I just think it was too easy, look at that that showed up and I think that's why he said that the second lift is so important that you do it right that you get right on the edge because the third rep should be the correct advance, of course, I didn't forget him dead, no Olson was 435, this looks like a 455 for Olsen, oh yeah honey, I love it anyway. the fact that it's the only time we get to hear the athletes, yeah, you know, usually it's just people yelling and screaming, but I like to have that cute yeah baby, it's cool, you see Noah stayed a little bit stuck there in the middle. and that's the one we're hoping to sleep on for a third oh yeah honey and that's the sticking point we were talking about I was hoping to see more of those around here um and that's when you're really pushing yourself to that limit so here comes the ability to The 480 barbell set the heaviest weight we've seen is Matt Fraser's 475.

Well, now he's fine, now we know he's a rookie, maybe that was the plan. Let me not use too much weight in that second round so that it attracts only Matt. so far and then he makes the jump now and that seemed easy, I mean he moved it with that 480. Monderos moves to the first so far, we still have two lifters left, but 480 is the heaviest weight we've seen so far. 460 on the bar now 445 again seemed so easy I'm surprised it's only a 15 pound jump, yeah okay that's a nice easy lift well I guess you know I was probably thinking "Okay no I'm going to go as far as before." Gotta get over Noah, maybe the jump to maybe the jump to Frasier was going to be too much, so you know where you need to jump again, nice and clean, nice and clean, so 480 is still the weight to beat Fraser.

He hit 475 on his Second lift and now the way he's going is 482 wow so Fraser will have the heaviest weight yet and that would be it for the back squat so now we'll go from the back squat to the strict shoulder press by above the head and we will look again. where is your foot placement, I mean this is classic Olympic lifting style, not power lifting, saw all the way down able to use it, they call it stretch reflex and at the bottom that little bounce, the body is braced and is capable of supporting much of that weight.

Alright, we just found out that it's actually 492. So it wasn't just the two-pound jump, but it was a 12-pound jump from what Madaros had put at 480. And what that does for Matt is it gives him a mattress for the deadlift because in the deadlift you can have a very easy to have a 20 pound swing on a deadlift so being able to use that to your advantage when you know you have the ability to do it is going to be huge so your The listed results of backswing Matt Fraser will take the top weight. Now we'll add up all the weights to determine who wins event number three, but he has a 12-pound lead over Mederos Adler in third place, 10 points back as he moves toward first.

The Adler shoulder press rep has the bar loaded at 190. I would say more for the strict press is when you do those nervous jumps because it's a very sensitive lift because you can have days where you do pr for 20 and you can have days. where you're below your pr by 20. and if the bar path isn't just perfect, you go from an easy lift to feeling like you're 30 pounds heavier than you need to be 205 on the bar for noah olsen, that's why I thought that we would see more aggressive weight shifts in the back squat because you can do that a little bit, but it gets very complicated with the shoulder press because you can't lower the weight, so I imagine people would be a little more timid on this one. case the back squat 205 is not good for any olson 205. 205.

I love that he's going to talk about this all the time, but you can see what he was doing trying to get his head back out. the way he almost leans back slightly to twist his body which just changes the angle of his arms a little more to make it a little easier i think noah's weight might have been 195 with that blue plate on his side and he's asking to go to maybe maybe now with madeira the way he's setting up here I thought he would have started a little heavier uh just with the way he was moving the bar in the reloaded event before, I mean he didn't have no problem with that bar going overhead, this is a straight practice of strict pressing versus a pull, but again, there's still a lot of shoulder strength you need with that and we saw Matt fail on that lift, a strong move and enjoyable again and again. maybe this is okay, let me do my first lift, let me be a little more aggressive and get to that peak on that second lift and then go, you know, just swing for the fences on the third one, but nice and solid.

I mean oh one thing from Adair, the guy has some long arms and that's not conducive to good strict pressing, yeah he really does, he really does 185 to start for samuel kwan, third overall in weight

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lifted coming out of the back squat, well, well, that. It would take a solid first lift to get anything on the board, you can even see he saw the same thing, like let me get a good number, but look how I mean, he looks really strong, it's crazy, the squats and deadlifts are so good a lift that looks powerful because you have a lot of weight, the weights look very small here, but that strict movement makes it very, very difficult to do.

Fraser's first lift will be at 185, leading the total so far with that 495 or 92-pound backstroke. squat wow easy easy and along with the strict press you feel like you have to find it find your way your hands feel comfortable how does the path of the bar feel? ThisFirst rep feels like you're feeling the lift, I mean. We've all done it, but when you get heavy you just have to understand what the vibe of the strict press is going to be today, yeah, totally, I mean, you have to feel like you have to put up with everything a little bit.

These athletes have done, you know these lifts a million times, so that's nothing new, but you come here knowing that you have the pressure of only three lifts, you have to make each one of them as perfect as possible, do them right. , now one. of the things with the front with the strict press that you have to be careful with, yeah, when you take the bar off the rack and you do that step back, you almost want to go into that push right away and I thought Jeff was I'm going to spend a too long time the bar gets heavier and heavier the waist longer look how long how much pause there was So I mean, if there was one more second or one more millisecond of that, that bar would have started moving down, what I mean, shift that weight completely, yeah, that's definitely a step back and press oh yeah, I've lifted it, I can't get it off you as fast as you can, okay, here's 205 for no Olson, 195 on the first try successful and that's good, so 205 for Noah Olsen and it's that a lot of times you look at body weight in relation to what maybe your strict. the press would be the goal, you know, they say bench-weighted benchmarks are to at least strictly press your body weight as a benchmark target and noah is 190 ish, like being 15 pounds heavier, that's a good strict press for the targets and you can tell The way his body was moving he was adjusting his body to go under that so you saw him really lean back to try to get that arm that is very classic, like the Olympic style of the years 1970, you know, clean and press, you know where you lean back for it. well, speaking of the 70's, the mullet is up when madaro says 175 on the bar, well and i have to say i honestly expected more on the slide bomb, now you said he has more time, although you know he has long arms. and that the longer your arms are, the more of a mechanical disadvantage you're going to have, man, I think I would have moved his hands a little more because you can see when he was pressing, his elbows were out, so if he can keep his forearms up and up and down keep that vector force in the same direction that will be the best, the best direction 200 bars for Samuel Quan successful in his first attempt.

Well, that would be good for Quan. The heaviest weight is still Noah Olsen at 205. And what I really like about the way Samuel has shown himself so far is that in these first three events he is confident. I mean, we talked about him coming with the chip on his shoulder and I don't see the chip. I see some confidence, so right now he has a quiet confidence, hey, Matt Fraser, going up to 200 pounds nice and easy, nice and easy way, so the second round of strict pressing ends as you move to the third and final round with Matt Fraser's 200 pounds. he will keep him in the lead so far even though the heaviest weight was put by noah olsen in the strict press as adler moves up to 207 so that's more what we expect to see is again the game within the game not olson. he went up to 205.

Adler went up two more pounds to 207. And Adler needs this, he definitely needs to do this and he needs to take some risks. You have to remember like he knows we're in a three-day competition here, but the worst. what you're going to do is fifth in the world, so that being the case, make some changes, do it, you know, that should be told to everyone except Matt, it's like second, third, fourth or fifth, What does it matter? Do it, that's good. 207 for Adler and that should be something new that I'm proud of, okay, look now, hopefully, something like this you know how to light the fire in him a little, make that pr very happy with who you should be, that's cool, uh. since he does a great little bicep stance, but now he needs to ride, he needs to use that energy, that confidence, that feels good, something he's proud of and likes to keep going, hey, Olson got 205 on his first try or a second attempt is like 212 on the bar but it won't be enough and if you see it I don't know if we can see it from the side on the replay or not, but the bar runs out. in front of him a little bit, he couldn't lean back and keep the ball in the straight path of the bar, that's why the bar just went back down.

I see him pushing, he leans back and the bar actually moves forward literally about half an hour. inch by inch I just want to be able to get underneath and that's the crux of it, you come up with something as delicate as a strict press, everything has to be perfect when you get to these top levels absolutely, it's like 180 182 of aderos oh you know , almost, but I liked the fact that he came out right away and tried to do it. I didn't know. He knew he was going to be a heavyweight, so we tried to do it, but again that bar is. not in that straight line, you just won't be able to get up above your head, sami quant will be next 207 on the bar, so adler's 207 207 olson's attempt is 205 as the second best we've seen so far, Yeah. 207 is good for almost tying the heaviest weight we've seen in the strict press again.

We're not getting individual scores per event, but it's positive reinforcement for him starting the deadlift, oh, but this is the quiet confidence we had. Speaking of which, we really hope to see, look at that cute battle, he puts his head back under, locks his arms and what I like was the little nod he gave to himself right after it wasn't a, he didn't give a itself the bicep stance, but it was fine, but a little knot and I tried it and if you're going to get stuck in a position, placing that bar over the top of your head instead of in front of your face is where you want to fight .

That's a huge 210 for Matt Fraser and that's good for Matt Fraser, so he's two for two of the heaviest weights we've seen. Oh man, yeah, you know he's the champion for a reason. He's definitely the champion for a reason. I love the fact. who let that game develop, you know, with Adler and Quan and then just steps up, adds a couple more pounds and just puts a nail in it, well, here's the benefit of being in first place overall and get last on top of everyone so you can play that game so Fraser gets the tightest press of the group, reducing what he did for the back squat 210 tie for second place between adler and quant no olson at 205 and madaros uh 175 and again you could see that it's one of those, you either have it or you don't, it wasn't a deficiency per se, it was just him, it's just not a good drive for him, no, it really isn't, but it What's impressing me right now is that Fraser is lifting more than the last time we did this in the last few

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, he's already up almost 30 pounds just based on those two lifts, we haven't hit the deadlift yet, even with the final movement, we have the deadlift, we will start with Adler.

As we have for the first two rounds Adler sitting almost like a man, he is now 25 pounds behind Matt Fraser, in total, a good lift looks very strong now these athletes have their coaches on the sidelines, allowing them to decide what weights they want to choose and what weight they have. They have already been done, so they have the advantage of having their coach there for them. No Olson getting ready for the first try of him looks like 405 495 oh yeah, they got the little blue wow and if you look at their hands like you would. I don't normally see a heavy

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deadlifter using that double overhand grip.

Usually you'll see that alternate grip, such an impressive move from Noah, a big lift, sure, he looks at his hands, not just his hands, but his feet, his feet are super wide and again. What wide feet do is your arms get in the way and drive your knees and it changes everything again that power vector that you're trying to do, so Olson just hit 495. Madarios has 495 on the bar and he's going to make a move here just because the tight pressure he's had is way behind the field after that decent little lift. I saw a little problem there, so I really don't know how much further up it can go.

I think he's going to have a little bump, a little hiccup on the rear end, but when he gets there you can see how he started to get a little obsessed with it, so what that tells me is okay, how much higher can he go? Can he gain another 40 pounds? I don't know, it will be difficult or another, even another 25 pounds. Samuel Quan opened with 4.75, okay, nice. easy speed off the ground, easy and you know, I think it was a good decision to make um just feel some of that heavy weight, prepare that nervous system to handle some of that heavy weight before you jump on something and shock it. or scare him 10 seconds matt 485 on the bar for matt Fraser he has already taken the biggest toll on both the back squat and the strict press well, nice opening lip for matt Fraser and again just like I was talking to quan I think it's you You know, pick a weight that you can feel, feel some weight, feel it on your body a little bit, then you can do your attack jumps and you can also have your trainer on the side and say, "Okay, how much do you need to do?" your weight?" jump if you did big squats, like Matt did, and you also did the heavier overhead press or the strict press, now you have that cushion that you can work with, so you don't need to overextend for no reason, like I said before.

Matt led the first two, but with such a big weight discrepancy here, Adler scored 5 35 and is now going for 552, which we just heard would be a personal best attempt for him. I don't know what he just said because I don't speak French, but other than that, I was fine, I think I can go up, but look at that, and honestly, that wasn't the cleanest lift in the world, I was like two inches away from his body. Yes, he actually moved forward, so it really puts a lot of stress on his lower back, but he moved easily through that and we said before that Adler is going to ride that emotional wave of confidence, yeah, tight pressure, as you can see, it's starting to pay off for the deadlift 5 32 on the bar for Olson was successful on his 495 attempt on his first.

I like the way he just melts into that first pull. Look, this kind of setup is prepared. There is not much speed in them. You can see this. Everything really lights up. it engages all those muscles in that back, that posterior chain and just slowly pulls it up in a beautiful lift, so Noah discusses what his third weight was going to be, it's going to be successful measures 495 to start 517 whoa, that was almost like a representative of Dave Castro, right? That's how long it took him to get up, but he got off the ground well and I like the fact that he didn't stop, he let that power build up in his body and little by little he got the bar moving.

Momentum definitely fought against it, yes Samuel Quan was set for 525lbs, he's a soft criminal right now. I just have to say that from start to finish he is a good smooth criminal and we have seen it in the squats, the strict press and the deadlift. just in there makes this thing out of the word sing is not a word, we haven't really seen a friction point on any of the elevators so far, we haven't seen any real struggle or speed either, yeah. well like I said it's just a nice soft strong lift okay Matt Fraser might be lining up for a 517lb attempt so that will be good for Matt Fraser.

Now, here's the crazy part: he won the back squat, he won the strict press, but with the way Adler is lifting 50 pounds over this right now, he might not win the event just because of the deadlift, he would. I know and you know, it's still a solid lift, I mean, that's more than he did last time in the game. so I take that back right under it made about 10 pounds less, but I was already done before, so like it was in the same realm, you know, right in the same area where it was, but you're right, like Adler did. , I want to say that.

The deadlift was crazy, he just did that last thing last time, successful 550 lift for Adler, this is the one he hopes he can take it over the top to win an event, wow holy cow! Look at that 567 pounds for Jeffrey Adler, it's incredible. with which you can make such a big leap in a pr that you had already conceded is the games, but holy shit, I mean, I'm telling you I really didn't expect him to have yeah, I really didn't expect him to have so much driving, I mean From what we saw before, I thought it might be broken.

I hope he can really use this to, you know, drive it the next few days. No, Olson hit 532, this will be 5 40. He was long again. you really melt into that, into that repetition and keep pulling knowing you can get there, just trying to be patient, letting the bar move and never stop, yeah, and you know, I think some people were like, well, it's rounding a little. a little bit, but what happens here is that when you talk about the position of power and safety, if the back does not move, it moves, if it breaks, how does themovement, it's just fully prepared, it's bracing for impact, total 540 pounds of impact in total. right, mederos is up, this is your last 550 lift on the bar, oh wow, I thought I was over that hard, sticky part at the beginning. um he just had to lift it up on his knees so it was a little sticky here at first. but he kept fighting, I thought it was like, oh, okay and then all of a sudden someone turned on the magnets and it just stopped the bar in the air.

You know, I mean a big effort, a big try and that's what I needed to do, I think. He should still have attempted that 5 45 attempt on the bar for Quan who won't move an inch so he'll be left with his last total 529. It would be good for Samuel Quan who is still 12 pounds heavier than Fraser at 5 17. and Matt Fraser will be the last to lift for event three Fraser hit 5 17 on his last attempt he's sitting around 25lbs 25lbs out 35lbs out he lifts 5 35 on the bar for Fraser all right judges some eyes crossed On the floor, you saw it, I think it's important to see that battle, we want to see that battle and I think you know what's good for Jeff Adler, he needs to be looking Matt in the face, Jeff, congratulations on your first win.

Congratulations to the city for you down here. Several of those lifts were your new personal records. Tell us what happened on the floor. I did the best I could, I think. I increased my back rig by five pounds and there's still some room, oh, so I'm happy about that. I was aiming for 455 back squats, so I did a little better on my two-pound press, that's always the case, it's always two pounds. It's never more than that of course, uh, and then in the race I didn't know exactly what Matt was doing and I knew he was like we were probably the two of us that were competing for first place, so I just put 567 on the weight. dead he was.

It's like it's a hit or miss, so I got it, so I'm happy about that, that's great, congratulations. Now I was going to ask how much of this was your preparation knowing what you can and can't lift with your trainer here and how much. There is no game to this because what you can lift is what you can lift. I'm pretty confident with heavy weights so I just like the deadlift I just put it on and I just have to lift it and my body just lifts what I asked it to do so that's it. I'm happy with these numbers because I haven't been training that much strength in the last few months because obviously that's not a weakness of mine, right, but yeah, I'm super happy and I can do it without a belt, there you go, yeah, congratulations man, good job .