Labelled the largest participatory sporting event in the world, the CrossFit Games is fuelling aspirations at Nantyr Shores Secondary School in Innisfil. With support from the school management team and a new CrossFit specialty course, the title of Fittest on Earth became more accessible for Nantyr Shore students.
Currently, 10 members of the CrossFit course are competing in this year’s worldwide qualifying round, the first step of the CrossFit Games. The event is a three-week virtual competition involving hundreds of thousands of athletes. Every week until March 14, the event will be releasing a series of gruelling workouts, and the participants will have four days to record and submit scores.
“We practice the given workout before competing to make sure form and execution of the movements are done safely,” said Jared McCord, health and physical education teacher at Nantyr Shores Secondary School, and also a certified CrossFit Judge.
The participants who succeed in the qualifying stage move on to the quarter-finals, and eventually to the semi-finals and finals, which will be held in Madison Wisconsin, from Aug. 3 to 7.
In addition to supporting athletes to properly complete the execution, the school is filming the athletes’ workouts within strict requirements to submit their results online.
Due to the vast number of participants, McCord believes the qualifying round is the greatest challenge for her pupils. “CrossFit is growing worldwide, making it more difficult each year,” he said.
He said, “The students are quite nervous as they anxiously wait for the release of the weekly workouts.”
McCord started the CrossFit course at Nantyr Shores in the fall of 2020. He realized that high school students could benefit from this type of high-intensity workout while advancing in their extracurricular activities.
“Fitness teachers at Nantyr Shores often incorporated CrossFit style workouts into their programming, but we never had a specialty course," he said.
So far, the reception has been positive, with the number of course participants increasing to 27 students from 18 students in the first year.
Although athletic performance is the main focus of the program, McCord believes that CrossFit also enhances the community atmosphere promoting an environment where all athletes motivate one another.
“When attending a CrossFit centre, one will quickly see how community-oriented the athletes are," he said.
The initiative has the backing of the Experiential Learning Department of the Simcoe County District School Board.
“None of this would have happened without their generosity and support throughout the process,” he said.
As McCord advocates for more CrossFit programs at other schools, he noted that more and more professional athletes nowadays are using CrossFit in their off-season to prepare for their upcoming seasons.
“We are hoping that CrossFit will continue to spread in Ontario high schools in hopes of eventually offering OFSAA level competitions," said McCord.
Meanwhile, the Nantyr Shore athletes hope to survive the CrossFit worldwide open round and make history by being the first students in the school to advance to the quarter-finals of the competition.
