The Crossfit open is kicking off on 21st of February this year, and we are more excited than ever, as we will get to celebrate this with two of our awesome CrossFit communities; CrossFit Nidus and CrossFit Portishead.
If you are new to this madness, the CrossFit Open is the official start of the competitive CrossFit season.
For five weeks, there will be a new workout released by CrossFit Headquarters every Thursday night, and we promise you that as the weeks progress, you will go to bed with butterflies in your stomach from excitement/anticipation of the next test! Everyone then gets until Monday to complete the prescribed workout, taking as many attempts as we wish (although one and done is the most sensible choice) at which point we submit scores for the global online leaderboard, and compare ourselves to the rest of the world, from the complete newbies to the pros.
In the previous years, the top 20-30 people would then make it to the next stage to compete at the CrossFit Regionals, with the top 5 athletes from there making it to the CrossFit Games.
This year is very different as the CrossFit Headquarters decided to step away from all the Games hype and scrapped Regionals all together. There is a new system for qualifying, and no one really knows what the Games will look like, but that’s a topic for another time.
However, for the majority of us, nothing changes. The CrossFit Open is a great test to see where our training has taken us so far, it’s a perfect opportunity to set benchmarks for years to come, and it’s a great way to see how much you have improved if indeed you have taken part in past. There is usually a repeat of a workout from previous years, making this more relevant. From a coaching perspective, it’s a great opportunity for us to identify any weaknesses in our programming.
We believe the open is for absolutely everyone. We would love for all of you to take part, as it is also a celebration of our growing community. Even if you can’t do all movements, you can still sign up and be part of the event. You will simply go as far as you can in the workout. There is an RX and Scaled version of each workout.
It is not all about the leaderboard. We would encourage all members to treat it as your own personal test, exposing your weaknesses, making the most of your particular strengths, and using the leaderboard and other people’s better scores as an inspiration and motivation for your training. There is no such thing as a sh*t score, also known as an excuse for some not to sign up. Unless you are aiming to make it to the CrossFit Games, giving the workout your best effort is all that needs to happen. You can only control your effort; the results will vary. This is all about giving it your best shot, attacking the workout with the right attitude and supporting each other.
We are going to run the Open as an in-house competition with heats and judges. The atmosphere is always buzzing, and year on year we see people achieve things they didn’t think were possible. It is a very different atmosphere to your regular classes, and this is intentional, as we recognise that the competitive nature of CrossFit Open is hard to recreate otherwise.
CrossFit Portishead will be all about Friday night lights, with pizza and beers afterwards. CrossFit Nidus will throw down on Saturday with whatever beverage and food you can stomach at that time. Members can choose either gym depending on what day suits them better.
All that remains is for us to say ‘Let’s do it’, we promise you, you will not regret it!!!