Blog Post: What Is The CrossFit Open & Should I Enter???

What is this CrossFit Open and should I do it??

'Tis that time of year again. Christmas has been and gone, you are back in the Box trying to work off all the excesses that "the most wonderful time of the year' brings with it, hoping that you will find your "lost Fitness" somewhere within one of these WoDs.

But did you know the best thing about "losing Fitness"? It's the journey to getting it back of course! (FYI you didn't lose anything, you gained a wonderful rest period with your loved ones and your body will thank you in the long run).

Here at CrossFit CBD we program for GPP, (or General Physical Preparedness). This lends itself really well to real life year-round Strength & Fitness, but you always want to have some certain goals, or timelines in mind at various points of the year if you will. Be it for a local comp you have coming up or the run Melbourne 10km in winter, or indeed the CrossFit Open this summer/autumn.

The upcoming CrossFit Open "Season" is only 4 WEEKS AWAY which offers us two things in which train for. (More on that later).

First let's actually take a look at what the CrossFit Open actually is. If you are a seasoned CrossFitter then you may well already know all of this. If this is you then feel free to scroll down if you like and skip this bit. If however you are fairly new to CrossFit (or you are reading this and don't even know what it is at all), then read on. (If you seasoned guys & gals want a refresher then of course read on! Lol).

Let's start with the bigger picture and work back.

CrossFit has now spawned its own sport. The sport of working out has become a real thing and now there are dedicated athletes who are full time professional CrossFitter's. *Just a side note here, The Sport of CrossFit and the training methodology of CrossFit are two separate things nowadays. The 1% train for "the games" and the 99% (that's us!) train for life with a sprinkling of sport here and there.

Now back to all this games talk. The highest level of the CrossFit Games season is the actual Games itself. Held every July/August over in the USA it's the pinnacle of the competition season. To get there (and only 40 men & 40 women plus 30 teams get to go! Not inc the masters categories), you need to qualify through a regional level competition.

These regionals are broken down geographically into about 7-8 "super regions". Ours is known as the Pacific Regional and includes us Aussies, New Zealand and pretty much all of Asia. So the pool is massive! They take about 40 men, 40 women & 30 teams to regionals to vie for a spot at the main show in America. Of these Men, Women & teams they will only take the top 5 of each!!

Now to get here (to the regionals) you need to qualify in the Open in your region. (Hurrah, we got there at last!). The Open is a worldwide online CrossFit competition. We down here compete alongside New Zealand in the "Australian Region" to try and get to the regional level.

As mentioned before there are only a few spots up for grabs and last year with about 9,000 men & 7,000 women entering from our region alone you need to be pretty darn handy and Fit in order to claim a spot. Now in all reality we are well aware that we mere mortals who train but once a day for 4-6 times per week aren't going to make it there as an athlete. Sorry to burst that bubble. 🙂

We can however get there as a spectator! The regionals are held in Wollongong, NSW & it's a great weekend away with your mates to watch some high level Fitness, drink some beers and give Reebok your cash for the latest & greatest shoes released. Get up there for a good time!!

Back down to earth now and this CrossFit Open is our "grand finals" if you will. It's a 5 week event where a new WoD (workout of the day) is revealed every Friday. We are then given 4 days in which to take part and submit our scores. We know what you are saying. "5 WoDs in 5 weeks?? Is that all??" Trust us when we say 5 is plenty!! They are all highly intense and challenging workouts. You give it your all and you won't need anymore from Dave Castro!

Now you're probably still wondering what the big deal is about. It's just a bunch of workouts. I do this most days on the ROD. Yes you do but this time round its a bit different. We haven't designed them - CrossFit HQ have. There is an element of excitement to each one too. Knowing that you will be getting scored adds a touch of spice to things and this, albeit small, competitive aspect can unearth extraordinary results.

It's a global event with an estimated 350,000+ entering this year you can compare yourself to people all around the world as well as peeps here in Melbourne.

Having the Open in our horizons adds an element to our current training too because we can try to program as well rounded as possible to make you a better chance at getting some great results in the Open. It's also a chance to be tested 5 weeks in a row and see how your Fitness is stacking up. This is the first thing to train for that we spoke about above. Having this coming up gives you clear & concise goals over these next 4-10 weeks. This is why you are seeing a ton more calories, wall balls, double unders, high rep, intervals and also the goat/weakness classes being programmed. We want to prepare you as well as possible so whatever they throw at us (and they always throw a curve ball at us!) you are going to be capable to handle the task.

The second thing to enter the Open for is to set yourself future goals for the rest of the year leading into next years Open. We will prepare you as best as possible and we are confident you all (if you have trained consistently) will be as Fit as fudge come the Open.

However there will always be something that may cause you strife and scupper your workout. It could be grip strength, wall ball rep ability, chest to bar pull ups getting the better of you. Whatever it may be you would now have a clear idea of where you would want/need to improve on after the Open has gone. That is what competitions are there for, to test you and unearth weakness. Without being tested you can very easily go through life not knowing where your improvement is needed. This concept can be carried over to your everyday life too.

Use the Open as a way to expose what it is you need to work on and also give you cause for celebration for when you find your strengths in them too!

I (karl) have already entered and am throwing my hat into the ring for a 6th time. 5th offical time (1st time for me was unofficial and I wish I'd entered back then!!). Nevertheless I still have all this data to look back on and see where my Fitness has come and perhaps more importantly where my weaknesses lied at the time. Without this data I wouldn't be aware of what I needed to work on to become better & in turn more Fit. For instance last year told me that in no uncertain terms that my double under sucked & my heavy lifting wasn't where i wanted it to be. Safe to say that over the past year i have been trying to attack these moves as best i could. fingers crossed i see improvement this year!

Now of course we aren't all just about the competition. It's a community affair too with us all gathering together to cheer each other along. We will look to do the Open WoDs on Saturday mornings (more info on that nearer the time). We have a BBQ on the last weekend to celebrate a job well done and we are sure there will be a few bottles of champagne being had after each week itself! We may even try to organise an evening out together for some food & drinks on that last Saturday (around March 25th). 🙂

Even if you care nothing about being competitive it is still a fun packed 5 weeks. The atmosphere is more alive than ever on the ROD and the general mood is fantastic. It'll cost you $20 usd to enter. You'd spend more than that on a sandwich and coffee out in this city today on your lunch break so why not put your hat in the ring and come the 25th February we will all throw down to "17.1" and start the rollercoaster ride together. At the end of the day sometimes its better to have come last than to have never entered at all..