The 2nd annual Xtreme Box Top competition in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida is happening in T-minus 4 days and the 40+ registered teams are preparing to bring the heat to not only claim the first-place $21,000 cash prize, but guts and glory as one of the best boxes in South East Florida.
Team Training Pit, representing their three locations (Boca Raton, Hallandale and Ft. Lauderdale) is one of those teams. In fact, they hosted their own internal tryouts in order to determine which five men and five women would represent them at the competition.
“We like to get our most competitive athletes to train together as often as possible and often times all of our schedules conflict. So we had a throwdown tryout on a Saturday for all of our competitors in order to fill the team spots,” team member Marcelo Pimenta said. They caught most of the tryout session and workout-prep on video in order to ensure all interested athletes had a fair shot at competing on the team—an internal Video Qualifier.
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Now, with a fully stacked team, the 10 athletes say, even though this is a first time for most of them competing together, they are keeping their eyes on one thing. “Podium, it'll be the first time a lot of us compete together but we are still going for a podium spot,” Pimenta said.
Additionally, this weekend’s competition means something more than just a hostof grueling workouts for the team. “One of our team members who works for the Ft. Lauderdale fire department recently lost a fellow fireman, lieutenant Kevin Johns, to an accident on I-95. Weplan to compete in his honor and the Lauderdale fire department will be there,” Pimenta said.