Emily Bridgers is a familiar name on the leaderboards -- she took the No. 1 slot in the South East Regional CrossFit competition in 2014 and placed sixth overall at the Games. Last year she stood on the podium at the 2014 Garage Games, a feat she’ll attempt to repeat this weekend at the 2015 Garage Games One in Suwanee, Georgia.

 

“We’re very excited to welcome our returning champion back,” said Eric Richards, founder of the Garage Games. 

 

Bridgers faces stiff competition. Jessica Phillips, veteran Games competitor and Grid athlete, will face off against Bridgers in the elite women’s division. Phillips’ husband, Grid teammate Brandon Phillips, will compete in the elite men’s division.

 

Although the elite division promises to be an exciting spectacle with heavy weight (read: 185-pound axles for the men’s farmer’s carry), Richards says the Garage Games are designed to get more beginner and mid-level athletes competing.

 

“We want to make it a spectator sport, but we also want to open the door for more athletes to try competitions,” he said. “In the past we kept WODs a secret until the competition, but we realized competitors wanted to know what they were going to be doing before they would sign up. It helps level the playing field for the newer athletes.”

 

With more than 850 athletes competing in youth, teen, beginner, scaled, elite, masters and team divisions, Richards and his staff have carefully crafted workouts to test skills and push athletes.

 

Every division performs a version of the “Do Work” WOD - a combination of sled pulls, ground-to-overhead lifts and farmer’s carry - and a thruster/squat clean AMRAP that also throws in some burpees and pull-ups for good measure. See a complete list of WODs here.

 

In addition to testing athletes’ strength, Richards concocted an additional challenge for team competitors: Strategy.

 

“Last year we hosted a WOD requiring teams to submit what reps each member would complete prior to the competition,” he said. “Some teams tested out the WOD twelve times before submitting who would do what and others just made guesses, which didn’t work in their favor.”

 

This year, Richards said he’s not requiring teams to submit anything before they arrive, but before they compete in the “Know Thy Partner” WOD they’ll have to tell the judges what weight each member will be lifting to reach a team total of 10,000 pounds for squat cleans and 8,000 pounds for shoulder-to-overhead, with each weighted rep counting toward the final tally. The additional kicker -- teams only have 12 minutes to complete as many reps as possible and once a team begins a movement they must complete that movement before moving on.

 

“I love these WODs,” Richards said. “They’re not just a test of fitness, they’re a test of intelligence.”

 

Now in its sixth year, the Garage Games have evolved and expanded, said Richards. A new addition to the event this year is the Attitude Open, hosted by the American Weightlifting Federation. 

 

“We hosted 250 competitions in 2014 and we’re hoping to increase that to more than 300 in 2015,” Richards said. “We started in 2010 with 186 competitors and we’ve grown every year. We’re helping to bring the competition of CrossFit to the world.”

 

 

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