@012546 In isolation these are great events. In the context of the age group season, like most people, I feel there is far too much emphasis on shuttle runs. I'd like to hear Boz comment on why he's focusing so much on that movement for the age group athletes, because I can't figure out what the rationale could be for testing them three times, especially when in each of those three tests you're moving at the same basic pace.
It's true that in the quarterfinals you had to push the final set of fifty to do well, but even then, you were kind of stuck on your standard pace and not really "sprinting" until the final 10-12 reps. 23.2A was a good test of your capacity to hold a particular pace on shuttles. In quarterfinals you had to face the mental challenge of holding on for a large set of shuttles. What would be the reason for testing them yet again when we have the top 30 in each age category?
It's interesting that we saw tall box jumps in the age group quarterfinals, and now "short" burpee box jump overs for both men and women. I wonder why the burpee box jump overs are not the standard 24/20? To encourage people to clear the box on the final set of 20?
It's also interesting that there has only been 40 reps of wall balls, 30 reps of chest-to-bars, and no handstand walking for the age groupers this year. I was definitely expecting a huge set of wall balls for semifinals.
While the thruster/muscle-up piece looks like you need to game it on paper, I think in reality there's really only one strategy that's going to work: do either 1-2 sets to finish the 15 muscle-ups as fast as possible at the top of the workout, and then do thrusters in the remaining time. Maybe another strategy could work, but I think the best scores will use that strategy.
