Whanganui teams at NZ’s biggest functional fittness event

Primal HQ teams in the Nationals at Mystery Creek.

The 2024 Team Nationals competition for “Finding The Fittest” took place at Mystery Creek Events Centre over Labour Weekend.

Two hundred and thirty teams competed in a functional fitness competition. Teams consist of six members —three male and three female — placed into three divisions Elite, Rx and Scaled.

Primal HQ team Primal Pink.

Whanganui gym “Primal HQ” had four teams entered — one Rx and three Scaled. “To have four teams enter from our gym, which was only established 12 months ago, to say we are proud is an understatement,” said Alana Oxtoby of Primal HQ.

“An idea of opening our own gym and building an awesome community of like-minded people to train with was a small dream of ours. Never did we think that we would be taking four teams away to the biggest functional fitness event in New Zealand one year into business,” she said.

All smiles from Team Primal Pink.

The weekend consisted of eight workouts with a ranging time cap of 9-20 minutes. It was Shrek themed with WOD (Workout of the day) names such as ‘A Date with Fiona,’ ‘Shreks Catch’ and ‘Go on Donkey.’

The workouts entailed functional fitness movements such as thrusters, wall walks, deadlifts, toes to bar, rope climbs, handstand walking and many more. Not to mention movements requiring a “Worm” consisting of 200kg worth of sandbags to move from the ground to your shoulders.

The surprise event of Saturday night in the torrential thunderstorm was a 42k Run split between the team “Lord Farquad the 42nd” no one will ever forget.

Primal HQ Team Primal Silver.

For the WOD, a great deal of communication and planning was required from all team members for a successful attempt.

Primal HQ gym did very well, with two teams placing in the top 30 and two teams with an admirable effort the entire weekend.

Primal HQ Team Primal White.

“The highlight of our weekend was seeing how much all our members were enjoying themselves. We had fun, a lot of laughs and a very good time,” Oxtoby said.

“We are very excited to see what we can bring to Team Nationals next year with already passing comments of our crew wanting to compete.”