In mid April, I headed down to the Australian Fitness Expo which is held every year in Sydney.  The Australian Fitness Expo is basically a show of the best fitness related businesses have to offer and it is a massive event with all shapes and sizes attending (see some of the pics below).  At the fitness expo, the average punter gets to hang out with elite bodybuilders, fitness models, strength athletes and professional sportspeople who all get brought down by their respective sponsors.  Highlights for myself was exchanging grip training tips with America's Stringest Man Derek Poundstone and talking nutrition with bodybuilding legend and 6 time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates (pictured to the left).  Also because it is dominated by supplement companies, you cannot help but walk out with two or three showbags loaded with protein samples, tee shirts and magazines.  In fact, don't tell anyone this but I almost made myself sick from eating too many protein (cookie, bar, shake) samples on the first day.

Anyway the reason I was there was that the editor of Mens' Fitness (for whom I used to write) invited me to compete in their inaugural Australia's Fittest Bloke competition.  On a whim, I said why not and started to make plans for the event.  I had blocked out a month to train for the competition but unfortunately I got sick twice with some of the most nasty flus I have ever had: once in the first week of training and the second in the week of the event.  Which by the way is no excuse, athletes have won gold medals suffering from all sorts of colds, flus and infections.


The competition was essentially a Crossfit Games with the event being run by Mick Shaw from Crossfit FX.  The first heats consisted of a variation of their "Fight Gone Bad" workout and was 3 one minute rounds of the following: max pull ups, max 40kg push press, max calories on the rower, max box jumps and max 40kg high pulls.  The two competitors with the highest total amount of reps got through to the semi finals.  After watching some of the first heats, I was actually really impressed with the competitors efforts and strength levels.  Anyway after chucking down some cold and flu tabs and telling myself to harden up the heck up, it was time for my heat. 15 minutes of some of the most intense exercise I have ever done later and I finished fourth or fifth in my heat.  The reason I couldn't quite remember was after the heat I was moving slower than a paraplegic turtle and I had this ringing in my head so I couldn't quite hear what anyone said to me for 30 minutes after the heat finished.

Although I was a bit disappointed not to make it through, it was a great competition, I had a good time at the fitness expo and caught up with a lot of colleagues there.  If the fittest bloke competition is run again, I will definitely be a part of it.  However I definitely need to allocate more time prepping myself with Crossfit workouts for that sort of event.  As they say, "the best way of training for a sport is the sport itself!"