Open 2017 – Time to Sign Up

Officially, the CrossFit Open is phase one of determining “The Fittest on Earth.” For 5 weeks (starting this Thursday) a new workout will be announced live on games.crossfit.com. Affiliates have from then until Monday at 8pm to submit scores. At the end of the 5 weeks CrossFit will have a select few heading to regionals (none of us – sorry).

Unofficially – and the fact for 99.9% of Open competitors – the 5 weeks is an awesome test of community and how that community pushes out individual success. For 5 weeks, 20-30 members of 410 will wait eagerly for the next workout to be announced. We will strategize and game plan and poke fun at one another. We will check the leaderboard one too many times. We will repeat a workout or two that we know we can do better at than just a day before. We will take it too seriously. And that is what makes it awesome.

This year will mark the forth open event for our gym. Our first year was a group of people that had just started CrossFit. No one knew what the Open was but most signed up anyway. As a coach, it has been a great joy to be able to look back on that first open and see how far people have advanced.

In that first Open our very own Coach Stephanie could barely do a double under. I recall her going out and buying a special jump rope just to try the workout again. In fact, many of the 410 members couldn’t do double unders back then and many got their first during that event.

I also recall Coach Ryan not being able to do a single chest-to-bar pull up. It was him and I at the 6am class and he tried for 8 minutes to get one but no luck. I may have given him a rep or two out of pity.

A year later and we had a whole new slew of personal bests. For the first time ever muscle ups were at the front end of a workout. Three people got their first muscle up that year.

See, the Open isn’t just a competition. Sure, there is a competitive nature to it but it is more of a community event than anything else. It is a way to push yourself past where you thought you could while your community supports you and cheers you on.

The Open also forces us to try things we may otherwise normally scale. What better way to practice double unders than being served them for 10-12 minutes? Or what better way to practice the RX wall ball than to be given 75-100 of them?

Why I love the Open?

·       It pushes clients to do things that amaze me and them

·       As someone that took sports very seriously it is fun to have that back for a few weeks

·       It brings the community closer together and gives us all shared stories

·       It shows who may have some bad math skills when counting their reps on the normal day-to-day 😉

This year we will be making it more of a community event than ever before. Following each open event we will be heading out for a low key get together. Each week will be something different and each week everyone is invited (see board at gym for details).

You can complete the Open events as many times as you would like and at any time a judge (anyone registered for the open) is available. Scores can be submitted anytime between Friday morning and Monday evening. We urge people to do the events on Saturday morning with as many of your fellow 410’ers as possible. However, you can complete the workout during a class or open gym if you aren’t in the way.

So, who is ready to grab a dumbbell with me?