We currently have 23 CFKI members signed up for the CrossFit Open. This is the actual online competition run by CrossFit each year, rather than our Intramural Open. I love that we have 23 athletes stepping up to take the challenge! But I think we should have more. My goal with this blog post is to convince one more person to sign up today.
I get emails from people or comments at the gym of, “I feel like you were writing that blog directly to me.” In general, that is not the case. But if you are signed up for the Intramural Open and planning to do the three weekly workouts, but not signed up for the CrossFit Open, I am now writing directly to you.
If you are currently training with CrossFit, then you should enter into the CrossFit Open. Part of what CrossFit is about is measuring our results so that we can see improvement. This is the only fitness program that I know of that does this on a consistent basis. We track our results every day in the gym, and it becomes that much more important if we do a CrossFit benchmark workout, like “Fran”. These are named workouts that we repeat on a regular basis so that we can see if we are getting stronger, faster, more skillful. The CrossFit Open is the ultimate expression of that “measure to improve” idea within CrossFit. Every year we take on the challenge of The Open as a benchmark test. Over the course of three workouts, we will test different aspects of our fitness and come up with an overall result. You can see what percentile you are currently at compared to people that are in your age group, in your city or state, country, or the whole CrossFit world.
So once again, you should do the Open this year, no matter your experience level. If you don’t, one year from now you will be very disappointed in yourself for not having data on where you were in your fitness journey in the spring of 2024. Do it for 2025 you, and you’ll be able to see your growth year-over-year.
Guess what? The workouts are going to be hard, but only because you’re going to push yourself to do your best. Because guess what? You’re a badass, and that’s why you decided to go all-in on your fitness game.
A common question: Should I “Rx” the workouts or do the Scaled version? Bottom line – in the Open, if you can do the workout as “Rx”, you should. If you can do 1 rep and meet the Rx standard, do that. If you scale the workout, you will be ranked on the Open leaderboard below everyone that did the workout as “Rx”. Remember, this is not a regular training workout, this is a test. Max out what you can do per the Rx standard, and then move on to the next training day where we will encourage you to scale the workout as needed to get the best outcome for that day. If you can’t safely meet the Rx standard of the Open workout, then we will absolutely scale the workout and get the highest score possible that way.
Again, treat The Open like an annual test. What did you do on a test when you were in high school? You did your absolute best, tried your hardest to get the best grade possible. The same applies to your effort in the Open. On Friday, or whenever you “take the test”, you are going to give 100% effort and max out your result – fastest time possible, most reps possible, heaviest lift possible. This is not a training day, this is not supposed to get you more fit. This is a test of your fitness right now.
Follow this link to check out more about the 2024 CrossFit Open, and get yourself signed up!
Ryan