The Open – It’s An Experience
The CrossFit Open is coming up. If you are new you are probably wondering what that is. In short, it is a worldwide test of fitness with over 500,000 participants. It is the first phase of finding the fittest on Earth. 2017 CrossFit Games Highlights
If you clicked that link don’t get stressed out. That is the final phase. I phase that no one in our gym will be taking part in.
The vast majority none of us will make it to the CrossFit Games but The Open is not really about the competition aspect. In my mind, it is best viewed as an experience rather than a competition. Sure, there is a competitive side to it but when you complete the 5 week test you will remember the comradery, the cook outs, the personal records and the fun more than any competitive aspect.
The Open contains 5 workouts that are spread out over 5 weeks. Each one is released every Thursday night in a way too dramatic live stream. From here athletes will have until Monday at 7pm to turn in their scores. You will have a judge counting your reps (the best part) and the support of everyone around you. There are two options released so if you cannot do it RX then try the scaled version.
On top of all of the good time you will have you will also be setting benchmarks for the future. No where else can you compare your fitness relative to 500,000 other people. You can see your advancement year over year and find areas that you may want to work on improving. In fact, we have seen many PR’s and first muscle ups in the Open.
All year long we preach using lower weights or scaling to achieve a desired stimulus. The Open is the one time to throw that out the door. I am not saying that if you can’t do a pull up that you should try muscle ups. It isn’t about getting hurt. We will not let you do anything that we think is outside of your safety zone. It is, however, about spending 5-10 minutes trying to get that first pull up or double under or handstand push up.
A perfect case study is our good friend CJ. Last year he had been doing CrossFit for about 3 months when the Open rolled around. CJ was still scaling box jumps, pull ups, jump rope and a lot of the weight. The Open showed CJ that he is a very capable athlete. He did his first double unders, jumped onto a 24″ box for the first time, did his first chest-to-bar pull up and did 95# thrusters for the first time. It was a major confidence boost. Some would say maybe too much :).
HOW IT WILL WORK: The workout will be released at 8pm on Thursday night. I will quickly determine workout length and how many heats we will need. I will post a link to a google doc where you can sign up for heat times. This year we will try to get as many people to do it together on Friday Nights. Call it Friday Night Lights. If you cannot do the workout on Friday night that is totally fine (although it is more fun with a large group). You are allowed to do the workout anytime between the release of the workout and 7pm on Monday. Just make sure you don’t interfere with the class and you arrange your own judge.
See you all #intheopen !!!
