I want you to listen hard and listen closely. The Open is a long, hard five weeks. If you plan to do your best, it’s the most focused time for nutrition, sleep and stress levels. Every week we dive deeper into this thing, the more taxed you become. The programming in these five weeks is grueling, and you will feel worn down, but you will also rebound just in time for another one to be released the following Thursday!
The point of your workouts mid-week is to focus on recovering your body and muscles from the week behind, but also preparing you for the week ahead. Since you have no idea what’s coming next, some of our programming is repetitive from the last Open workout you just completed. This allows your body to flush the system by repeating the same movements that initially taxed you, but it also prevents us from doing too many reps of something that might show up in the next Open workout. For example, if we did a ton of pull ups on Tuesday, and then 17.2 had sets of 50 pull ups in it, you might be bummed that you just completed so many pull ups earlier in the week because now those muscles are fatigued.
So be patient in the programming and have faith in your body. It might not feel like 1 million dollars on Monday, but with lots of water, sleep and good food, you should be good to go by Friday.
As for soreness, it’s expected right? You’re giving your Open workouts 110%, which means your body is going to fight that much harder to make itself feel better again. It’s OK that you’re sore. It means you went really hard. It also means that you care. Both fantastic things, and things you should be proud of. However, if you spend too much time thinking about how sore you are, and how this hurts and I’m going to tell all my friends about how horribly in pain I am, particularly doing any movement in the gym, then your negative (even though very valid!) energy starts to make everyone else think, “Man, you’re right. I’m so sore. I can’t do this.”
To put bluntly, if you’re sore, just keep it to yourself. Focus your thoughts on, wow, I did way more reps than I thought I could. Or jeez, I really pushed the fastest pace I could in the final two minutes. Reward your mind’s positive, acknowledge the negative, and then choose to talk about something else. Cool? Great.
Now for the rules of completing the Open for the rest of the five weeks:
- Try REALLY HARD to do it with the rest of your friends and #harpoonnation on Saturdays at 8:30. The energy is THE BEST. You get to meet new friends. You also get very clear standards and tactics that we learn throughout the course of the work on Friday. If you HAVE to be in the first heat, please assign your heat the minute that you walk in. When you pick your heat time, also sign up to judge someone. It’s kin to doing jury duty. It’s your civic duty for CFH.
- You may complete the Open workouts on Friday or Monday in class time or Open Gym Time. There are several windows available throughout the days to make this happen. That being said, you MUST coordinate with someone to be your judge BEFORE you simply show up to class. Most of you were lucky enough to have even numbers in class of the folks that wanted to do the Open. This week, you MUST plan ahead. Or get on Ab’s team, because he is one rockstar Captain last week who came and counted at almost every class :).
- Take a 0 for the week. You’re all adults, so if you simply cannot make it to the class times provided, you will just have to take a zero. Our coaches are working really hard to give you the best advice, energy and time to your Open scores WHILE focusing on doing their best as well. The hours are the hours at the gym. We have them assigned for a reason. Meaning, it’s incredibly important to go to class on Friday, Saturday or Monday.
***Our gym does not currently have hours on Sunday. To be very frank, stop asking around if you can go in on Sunday. The gym isn’t open on Sunday yet. We don’t have enough resources in many ways to make that happen yet. Do it on Monday!
If you are competing in the Worldwide Open, you must submit your score EVERY Monday at 8pm. You can find instructions here:
https://games.crossfit.com/help/article/225
Your score will not show up until I have validated it and the servers have refreshed. So be patient.
Awesome job on week one. The energy, team spirit and work ethic was AMAZING. Now, onto week two!
How you score points:
1. Teams are given 1 point for every athlete who completes a given Open workout.
2. Teams are given points for every athlete who finishes among the top 2 women or top 2 men in the gym per workout.
5 points to No. 1, 3 points to No. 2.
Categories are:
Women’s RX
Men’s RX
Women’s Scaled
Men’s Scaled
Masters Women’s RX
Masters Men’s RX
Masters Women’s Scaled
Masters Men’s Scaled
3. Teams are given 5 points if they win the “Spirit of the Open” award on any given week, including Week 6 (your secret “fun” event.)
4. 1 point for submitting your score on time (by 8pm on Monday!). You MUST write it on the whiteboard at the gym. After this week, it will be listed on white sheets of paper above the bench.
5. 1 point for your first time hitting a new skills, such as toes-to-bar, a muscle up, or a heavier weight (think** PR) for the FIRST TIME EVER. You don’t get a point for PRing your number of reps of one movement in a workout.
6. 3 points if this is your first time reaching “RX” in a workout
7. 3 points extra (at the end, your Captain must coordinate this!) if you participating in every Open workout.
8. We will conclude the Open with one final food & drink event, that may or may not include beirut, rowing, and actual celebration.
CAPTAINS: It’s your responsibility to tally your team’s points and report them to me on Tuesday!
Lastly, please go in and edit your CrossFit Games Profile to be a part of our TEAM! The first image is the OPEN Roster listed as the affiliate. The second image is who is listed on the team. Below the images is a link on how you can change it.
https://games.crossfit.com/help/article/41