After focusing on HYROX for most of the season, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr announced last week that she will accept her CrossFit Games invite and shift her focus to earning her eighth Fittest on Earth title in Albany, NY, next month.
On Saturday, she posted a YouTube video featuring her first day of Games training.
- With her daughter Willow in tow, Toomey-Orr started with conditioning, followed by a high-volume strength session that included clean pulls, cleans, shoulder presses, and front squats.
Between sets, Toomey-Orr chatted about HYROX training and how much easier it was on her body and her recovery than training for CrossFit the entire year.
- “My body, from doing HYROX, has been so nice. It feels really good,” Toomey-Orr said. “I’m hitting numbers, and I’m like, ‘Oh wow,’ that’s what it feels like when you feel fresh.’”
These numbers include a 190-pound snatch that she said felt “effortless.”
After her strength work, Toomey-Orr did a gymnastics skill session with legless rope climbs and wall-facing handstand push-ups, followed by some “chill” accessory work.
Although her body feels great, Toomey-Orr also admitted the first day of Games training “always hurts.”
- “It’s definitely physical, but it’s like mental, as well. Can I hold this pace and all that?” Toomey-Orr said. “I think it’s really important to constantly check in, remember your way, remind yourself it’s not going to last forever.”
That being said, she finds training for the Games a lot more fun than training for Semifinals.
- “The Games training is definitely way more enjoyable than throughout the year. I think. If I look back on it, leading into Semifinals or Regionals training, that was boring…So there’s a lot of fun [training for the Games], but with that fun comes a lot of pain,” she said.
The Big Picture
While the seven-time CrossFit Games champ said she doesn’t enjoy the pain that comes with training, it’s something she’s learned to live with.
- “I think there’s some kind of addiction to, when you know you have worked hard and you’re at that point where you have trained so hard for that competition,” she said. “To take the floor at that particular stage in your training cycle and you feel so good. You feel like you’re invincible. You feel like you can keep going all day long.”
If Toomey-Orr gets to that place in the next 25 days, it’s hard to imagine she won’t finish the weekend on top of the podium. Yet again.
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