Granite Games returning

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Are you ready to prove your physical fitness to all of West Texas, and potentially the United States? 
CrossFit Snyder will give you just that opportunity next month.
“On Feb. 22 we’ll be at The Coliseum. We’re having the Granite Games Spring Throwdown,” said Kendall Riggan, owner of CrossFit Snyder. “It’s the final of a three-event series where CrossFit Snyder was the host on all three events. We co-hosted the fall one with T-Bone CrossFit in San Angelo, and the winter one, we hosted with CrossFit Wild West in Lubbock. This third one we’re going to host here. Last year we had so many teams we had to move it to The Coliseum, so this year I just booked The Coliseum so that we could have it out there.”
The event will involve teams consisting of three same-gender competitors. There are two levels of competition, Riggan said. 
“Scaled, which is like beginners, and then Intermediate, which is people who have been doing crossfit or functional fitness for a while,” she said.
Riggan said this is the second round of Granite Games competition for Crossfit Snyder.
“We hosted one back in January 2019. We had teams come from Hobbs, Lubbock, Abilene, Sweetwater, San Angelo, Midland/Odessa, Big Spring and basically everywhere in between,” she said. “One of the teams, they had athletes from several different affiliates, but they were one of the top women’s teams going into the nationals. Last year we had over 50 teams, and we hope to have that many again this year.”
While the specific events that will be included in the competition have yet to be announced, Riggan said they will test strength, conditioning and flexibility.
“It will be several different events. The teams will work together to complete each of those events, and what they’re really doing is just testing capacity,” she said. “That’s different for everyone, and the workouts are intended to find out who really is the fittest, which team is the fittest, out of each of those. There’s a strength component, and then the others will combine strength components and conditioning and gymnastics as well.”
Riggan defined “crossfit” as “constantly varied functional movement executed at a high intensity.” 
“That’s the official definition,” she said. “What that means, ‘constantly varied,’ every day is different, ‘functional movement,’ movements that you need in everyday life. As an example, a squat is basically getting up and down out of your chair. So obviously we’ll build capacity over that squat. Build weight, increase the load. Everything we do in here has some functional component. That’s what we mean by ‘functional,’ you need it for daily life.”
That really boils down to developing health and fitness for a lifetime, she added.
“A lot of people think that crossfit is for super-intense athletes or elite-type athletic maneuvers and things, but it’s really not,” she said. “It’s just for people who, fitness is important to them and they want to be healthy for as long as possible.”
Riggan said the top 10 teams in each division from across the nation will travel to the national competition to compete for the national title.