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The CrossFit Open is upon us.  Every year for five weeks beginning at the end of February, CrossFit HQ releases five workouts to complete and submit scoring on the CrossFit Games website.  The Open is our test of fitness.  CrossFit defines fitness as “Increased work capacity across broad time and modal domain.”  The ability to do work in less time or more work in a set amount of time.  The open gives us the opportunity to test that and see how we compare to ourselves (from year to year), other members in our gym or other CrossFitters worldwide.  CrossFit is the only fitness training method that offers this kind of test and gives us a purpose and goal to train for.

Here is what your coaches have to say about the Open and why they do it.

Jay:

I have done the Open since it’s first year in 2011.  Each year is a new set of challenges and each year there are repeat workouts for a direct comparison to previous years.  Unfortunately for me, getting older, being a gym owner and now a dad make the year to year improvements harder to come by.  The best part about the Open are the personal achievements.   During last years Open, I was 4 months out form a rotator cuff repair surgery.  My goal was purely to participate and log a score of at least 1 rep in each workout.  It was the first time I was trying most of the movements since before my surgery so I had no idea how I would do and really had no expectation.  To my surprise, I was able to do every workout, and more than 1 rep in all of them.  This was a huge accomplishment for me since I had really done nothing of any intensity for at least 6 months, maybe longer.   I know this year returning to my old form is still a little way off, but I am excited to see improvements from last year .

Becky:

I do the CrossFit Open because eventually kettlebell snatches will come up and then I’ll be a games athlete purely for fun. As an athlete I can watch my direct improvement year to year, even when it’s slight, and as a coach I love watching the gym come together on Saturdays. Seeing people meeting each other, seeing new and experienced athletes alike cheering for each other, and seeing my team crush Bryan’s team an overall camaraderie develop between all us crazies who do 150 wall balls for fun on a random weekday.

The Open is a particularly cool time of year, because no matter where you are in your training you can participate and log a score. If you’ve ever wanted to try a competition or NEVER wanted to try a competition, the open is the most supportive environment you could ask for.

Come in, do the work, meet some new people, go grab a beer or drag out the BBQ one
weekend!

Bryan:

I do the Open because I like to test myself in competition. I have always enjoyed learning new activities and sports, but doing so requires training. I would consider myself a slow learner, so becoming proficient at anything for me has always required a lot of training, luckily I have developed relentless determination, mostly out of necessity. Whether its been football, shooting a rifle, rugby, CrossFit, or Brazilian Jiu jitsu, I have always challenged myself to learn new things. When I first started doing CrossFit I immediately loved the competitive nature it added to exercising, something I had always done, but never in a directly competitive way. In 2011, about 6 months after starting CrossFit, the first CrossFit Open workout was announced and this new competition was taken up a couple notches. Now the competition moved from the 4-5 people at the class I was competing against to the worldwide arena. This was the first time someone was judging and counting my reps, so I knew everyone was being held to the same standard. Now I was able to see how I compared to the truly elite level athletes (a humbling experience) and my friends who were doing CrossFit all over the country. While I have accepted the fact that I’ll never advance beyond the Open in the CrossFit games, I still think it worthwhile and very important to formally test my progress every year during the open. My training all year is fun and keeps me in great shape, but as spring rolls around each year I start to get that feeling that only competition can give you. So whether it’s against your classmates, your friends, your family, Rich Froning, or yourself…..GET OUT THERE AND TEST YOURSELF, COMPETE!!