The CrossFit Open: why should I bother?

The CrossFit Open is upon us, and it’s time to get to business. 

My home box, CrossFit Perpetu, has been getting everyone on board, but I figured it would be a good time to do a post all about The Open for new CrossFitters or just those that are interested in finding out exactly what The Open is all about.

So, what is it?

According to crossfit.com,

“The CrossFit Open is the world’s premier test of fitness. Since 2011, the five-week five-workout online competition has accurately ranked the fitness of thousands of competitors.”

In a nutshell,  for five weeks starting today, February 25th at 5 p.m PT, a new workout is released that CrossFitters all around the world can opt to do. By signing up for £20, and performing each of the five workouts before Monday evening, you will be ranked among every other individual who has done the same workout. This is how athletes get ranked and chosen to compete in CrossFit competitions such as the notorious CrossFit Games.

Since it’s the 2016 CrossFit Open, the first weekend’s workout will be called 16.1 and the one posted the following Thursday will be 16.2 and so forth until 16.5 is reached.

Still intimidated by all the possible workouts that may be revealed? The exact workout, standards for movement, explanation video and scorekeeping card will all be published on Games.CrossFit.com late each Thursday night.

An example of one of last years workouts can be found here. This was 15.5, or 2015’s fifth and last Open workout. Don’t be intimidated by the beast that is Brooke Ence. Just watch her fantastic technique while you gain an understanding of the sorts of workouts done during The Open.

Now, if you’re still on the fence about signing up, chances are one of the below thoughts has ran through your mind…

“There is no way I will rank high enough to make it to regionals so why bother registering?”

“I just started CrossFit and still have no idea what some of the moves even are.”

“I am scaling pretty much every workout I do, so what’s the point?”

“I’ll do the workouts but don’t care to see where I rank amongst everyone else.”

“It’s obvious if I keep doing CrossFit I will improve immensely before next year so why pay £20 to compete when I already know my strengths and weaknesses?”

If any of the above thoughts or similar have crossed your mind, then you should do The Open.

I have been doing CrossFit since June 2015, and while I have seen immense improvements in my fitness level and benchmarks, I still scale plenty of workouts.

Double unders? I have just started to finally get the hang of them.

Pull-ups? On a good day I can do four strict ones.

Pistols? Don’t ask.

There are plenty of “Rx days,” but I still show up to my box 30 minutes before class to work on FUNDAMENTALS.

And so while I am asking you to sign up, I almost did not.

Why?

My goal is to be able to complete every move that I currently can’t do. So if I can do them by 2017, my ranking will undoubtedly improve ten-fold

But talking to my fellow CrossFit friends, I soon realised that even if you aren’t going to regionals anytime soon, and still have plenty to work on, it would be ridiculous not to go ahead and give it  a go.

Read my main reasons below

1. Take the first step: From regional athletes, to young professionals and grandparents, if you are a member of a CrossFit gym you can sign up for The Open. How cool would it be to see your scores for the next five years on the CrossFit website? I can’t think of a better incentive than knowing that if I do my first open this year, at age 27, that five years from now I will be 32 and still participating in The Open and only getting fitter and healthier with each year.
2. Community: One of the main reasons to do The Open is because of the immense amount of community encountered. This is without a doubt one of the most exciting aspects. Before you even enter your CrossFit gym, your adrenaline will be pumping. I guarantee you will open up new doors to your own potential. You’ll see yourself achieve what you didn’t think possible, and I guarantee it will be in part because of all the people cheering you on to finish.
3. It’s you versus…you: Surprisingly, a lot of people that sign up, even the biggest names in CrossFit, such as Pat Sherwood, hate competition. Lets face it, it can stress people out. But like Pat says his recent YouTube podcast,  The Open is all about tracking your own progress and holding yourself accountable. I am an extremely competitive person and while some people think The Open might be all bout your ego and comparing yourself to others, it isn’t

              You get from The Open what you put into it.
   It’s all about find out what you are truly capable of achieving.

    

4. Scale, scale, and scale some more! There is an Rx portion on the score board for The Open as well as a scaled version. I certainly won’t be doing every workout Rx’ed. We already know how I feel about pull-ups. But that’s ok. I had to let my own ego go a bit. I know that I won’t rank as high doing a mix of Rx’ed and scaled workouts, but at the end of the day, my purpose for completing The Open is to compare 2016 to 2017.

If I can’t convince you to join The Open, perhaps Andrea Ager, one of my favourites female athletes in the world of CrossFit can…

This will be my first CrossFit Open and I am beyond excited. What’s more is that it will serve as an immense benchmarking tool.

Check back every week for my take on The Open workouts I’ve survived along with videos and photos.

Click here to sign up now. You know you want to.

For more details on the open, check out their official Open page at http://games.crossfit.com/about-the-games/the-open

Or, check out the below podcasts
Open Bar with Pat, Ro and Boz
Barbell Shrugged