Well the CrossFit Open is over for another year and I thought I would reflect on the experiences of the last five weeks.
Marie and I could not be happier with the support, sportsmanship, high standard of movement and general camaraderie that we were witness to over the last five weeks. It makes us very proud of the gym that we operate and reminds us that we get to do what we love for ‘work’ everyday. The success of the open relies on the honesty of the affiliates and regardless of the widespread lack of standards that have gone on outside of our four walls, I am proud of the standard that we maintained and you can all hold your heads high knowing that your score on the leaderboard is real.
We encouraged you all to enter the Open not because we really cared about your ranking but because we knew that it would push you to do great things and I am confident without a doubt that in some way or another, each one of you is walking away from the experience having been inspired either by your own or someone else efforts. We have seen numerous people hit weightlifting PR’s (multiple times), perform movements for the first time and perform multiple reps of movements that in some cases may have only be learned in the days prior. Awesome work.
Each week this year we handed out prizes for the spirit of the open. Firstly, congratulations if you have been one of these winner but please be well aware that just because you may not have received one of these prizes that we didn’t notice your efforts. Each week there were several people that made the short list and if we had a longer competition or more prizes, many more of you would have been recognised.
The big take away in all of this is that you are all capable of doing spectacular things when it comes to the crunch and you can take this experience and apply it to your day to day training in the gym. Imagine the progress you could make if you approached even just one of your daily workouts each week in the manner that you have approached the Open workouts.
Personally I have obviously been disappointed to not make regionals this year but I decided last year that I didn’t want to play the safe road and keep making regionals only to get crushed when I got there. I took a bit of a risk this year by focusing on movements, WOD’s and loadings that should have seen me go better at regionals but unfortunately it looks like I got the balance of conditioning vs strength/technique work out of whack.
Looking on the bright side, for every success or failure I learn something valuable not only for my future progress but for the quality of coaching and programming that I can offer in the gym.
Next year I plan to offer a splinter competition called the ChrisFit Open and it will only be open to competitors who are under 5’6″ and 65kg. The cost of entry will be $19.95 (cheaper than the open) and all proceeds will go towards the purchase of human growth hormone so that I can come back to CrossFit bigger and better. All workouts will be couplets in the sub five minute range and will frequently contain strict HSPU and Muscle-ups. Who’s with me?
Chris.
