Why YOU Should Sign Up for The Open

“The Open is coming!!  The Open is coming!!” announced Coach Liz in her New England accent as she drove through the gym on her trusty Bulldog Scrubber steed.  “We have to get ready!! We have to squat below parallel!  We have to do pull-ups with our chin over the bar!  We have to learn how to do Double-unders!!!!!”

This was just one of my many dreams the other night as I woke up and realized I hadn’t yet signed up for the CrossFit Open, 2022 edition!  But never fear, I woke up, grabbed my computer, skimmed the Morning Chalk-up to see if Dave was back yet, and then SIGNED UP.  I’m in!  And here’s why you should be in too:

1. Everyone else is doing it.

I know, this reason doesn’t work on your mom, but she doesn’t read these emails so I’m gonna go with it.  Seriously, all of your friends at CFKI will be competing every Friday for three weeks, and having a lot of fun with it.  We’re going to do a fun “Intramural Open” (more to come soon), much more fun than college intramural basketball (they never passed to me), and one way you can score points is just by signing up for the Open and logging your score!  The Open is a really fun community event, and you’ll want to be part of it.

2. You did it last year.

This might not apply to everyone, but for those that have done the Open before, you have history!  And what do we know about the effectiveness of CrossFit?… we measure to improve!  We will most likely not repeat a workout from last year, but we might repeat a workout from several years ago.
Even if you don’t directly repeat a workout, you’ll be able to see what your ranking was from years past – in our CFKI community, in the great state of Maryland, in the good ol’ USA, and even in the WORLD.  And then this year, you’re going to smash that ranking!
We know we all have off years, but even if you think you are less fit going into the Open this time, you have to make your mark again, now, so that you have that history once again to compare to.  I can point to the year 2016 when I came into the Open really banged up, but I still took on each workout with whatever I could do so that I had a consistent flow of data on my where CrossFit performance output stood each February/March.

3. Challenges are good for your soul.

The CrossFit Open is a challenge.  There’s no way around it!  Because each workout means a bit more – we’re putting our results out there for all the CrossFit world to see – you’re going to put maximum effort into each one.  And it’s going to hurt.  You might even feel like something didn’t go as well as it could have, and with a little strategy change, you’ll repeat that workout that you know is going to hurt again, maybe even more this time.  But this is where we GROW.  When we step up to a challenge, and give it our all, get knocked down and stand back up ready for the next one.  Maybe we’ve learned a little bit about ourselves through the experience, physically or athletically, sure – but maybe more importantly about our heart!

4. Challenges are bad for your ego.

And to be clear, we don’t like your ego.  At a traditional Japanese meal, you must leave your shoes outside the door.  At a CrossFit box – in order to be as successful as possible – you must leave your ego outside the door.  The lack of patience for excess pride and vanity in the CrossFit community is evidenced by the lack of mirrors on the walls and scales in the bathrooms.  We know when you look good – when you’re high-fiving your buddy for putting out their max effort on that last run, or when you just show up to a class on Friday evening to meet your goal of 3x/week even though you could be doing something else slightly more fun.
The Open will provide a true, unbiased snapshot of your fitness, given that we all have to perform to a standard.  Those that put a lot of emphasis on a daily basis on beating all of their peers in the gym sometimes get a bit of a bruised ego when they’re held to that standard by a judge other than themselves.  And that’s good!  This is just another opportunity to grow as an athlete, as a teammate, and as a person.

We have about four more weeks to prepare.  Let’s focus on our skills, and our endurance.

The first Open workout of the 2022 season will be released on Thursday, February 24th and we will complete it as our class workout that Friday.  You must submit your score by Monday evening, giving you time to repeat the workout if you would like (I’ll have some thoughts on that in a future message!)

When you’re ready, sign up for the Open here!  Then, grab a buddy and tell them to do the same.  The more the merrier!!

Ryan

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