Bellevue’s rep as a ‘fit’ city just got a little bit more legitimate thanks to Northwest CrossFit.

The gym, located at 12121 Northup Way, Suite 100 in Bellevue, is one of two official CrossFit affiliated gyms owned by Jake Platt in the greater Seattle area that can now call itself the fittest CrossFit gym in the world.

Members representing Platt’s Northwest CrossFit gym recently took home that title when they won the 2009 CrossFit Games Affiliate Cup, defeating 96 other teams representing official CrossFit affiliated gyms. CrossFit, a fitness program created by Greg Glassman, a former gymnast in the 1970s, is seeing a surge in popularity in the region thanks to its use by police and fire departments, U.S. Navy Seals and Army Special Forces and its open-source model. A core strength and conditioning program, the program has more than 12 million participants worldwide.

And now, member’s of Platt’s gym can proudly call themselves the fittest of all CrossFit participants.

“We went into the event with middle of the road expectations,” Platt said. “We decided to go at the last minute, and I just took some of my trainers and athletes who I thought would do a very good job.”

Each of the 97 teams from all over the U.S., Canada and Australia, had six members; three women and three men. Platt choose six members with strikingly different backgrounds; the men’s side consisted of Alex Vlaski, a former UW tennis champion, Paul Zavaglia, a UW student and Northwest CrossFit trainer and Zak Middleton, a computer programmer at Microsoft. For the women, Platt selected Issaquah police officer Laura Asbell, former Seattle University track and field athlete and now-Northwest CrossFit trainer Amanda Barelli and Lindsey Dion, another of Platt’s trainers and a former University of Oregon basketball player.

“They are some serious competitors,” said Platt, who served as the team’s coach. “From computer programmers to police officers, we pretty much had our bases covered.”

The games, which took place July 10-12 in the hills of Aromas, Calif., kicked off with three grueling events on the first day of competition, each performed by two men and two women.

The game’s first event was a three-rep overhead squat lift, plus a max total of pull-ups in three attempts. Dion gave the team a big boost with a 185-pound max on the squat, 50 pounds more than any other athlete.

“We immediately jumped ahead by 50 points,” Platt said. “It was pretty cool coming out of the first event in fourth place.”

The second event was a stadium workout, which consisted of six different separate lifts or events that four of the team members had to complete for time. Platt’s squad came out of the event in first place.

“We were going crazy,” he said.

The third and final Friday event was a 500 meter hill run relay, with each team member taking a turn running a hill before the team would run the hill together after each individual, meaning the final competitor would run twice in a row. Northwest CrossFit finished in third place, giving them a commanding lead overall and practically guaranteeing a win Sunday, as long as they didn’t come in last place in the final workout.

“It wasn’t a shoe-in,” Platt said. “We were thinking ‘OK, game on.'”

The final workout consisted of eight seperate workouts: 75 squat cleans, 150 toes to bar, 150 box jumps, 75 thrusters, 35 muscle-ups, 150 burpees, 150 double-unders and 300 walking lunges.

“It was absolutely hideous,” Platt said. “CrossFit didn’t pull any punches.”

Northwest CrossFit finished fourth in the final workout, and took home the Affiliate Cup title.

“I’m just blown away that we did as good as we did,” Platt said.

Though the Affiliate Cup workouts featured extreme events designed for the top flight CrossFit athlete, Platt encourages anyone to come in and give the “sport of fitness”, as CrossFit describes itself, a try.

“I love the fact that we have such extremes in here,” Platt said. “We have elite athletes, soccer mom’s, people that are overcoming knee surgeries…the community aspect is so amazing.”

More information on CrossFit, including videos of the event and definitions and instructions for all lifts, can be found at www.crossfit.com. Those interested in learning more about CrossFit in the Bellevue area can go to www.nwcrossfit.com or call the gym at 206.526.5425.