Hey ShedHeads!
As most of you are aware, CrossFit holds “The Open” each year, leading to Regional Competition, which leads to The CrossFit Games in California.
What you also might know, is that we participate in The Open… and have each year; even back in 2010 when all events were held locally as opposed to worldwide internet based competition.
It’s fun, kind of stressful sometimes, but fun nonetheless. As a Coach who programs for the gym and multiple individuals, I don’t necessarily enjoy having to be a slave to 5 weeks out of the year of unknown WODs, but the people want it, so we endure and forge ahead!
The Open can do some cool things… but it can also go the other way!! The fact is that Castro doesn’t care about hurting your feelings or smashing your morale. The Open is set up to be user friendly, but in essence will weed out those who haven’t acquired the skill sets Castro deems as “basic CrossFit”. But with that being said… at least now we have a Scaled Division, and multiple age divisions… so it’s somewhat of sign that they actually care about you and I a little bit!!
The upcoming Bros & Bras sessions will be training opportunities to expose you to what we know is coming… skill work that is too time consuming to program into daily WODs, and specific training scenarios that will mimic the dose response of an Open WOD.
So let’s hash out some data… Here’s what we know!
Castro loves the following movements (which we have seen all 4 years)…
double unders
muscle-ups
t2b
wall ball
thrusters
chest to bar pull-ups
3 out of the past 4 years, we have also been exposed to…
deadlifts – moderate to heavy
box jumps/step-ups
burpees in all variations
ohs
The other stuff…
g2oh or snatching
hrpu
variations of the clean (& jerk) – cyclical to max effort
shoulder to overhead
rowing
hspu
Time Domains…
He gave us 7:00 time domain all 4 years, and 10:00 3 out of 4 years…
The average time domain for each WOD across the years is 10.5 minutes…
Last 2 years the final WOD has been task oriented… for time
Shortest time domain was 3:00, but incremental in fashion based on strength, fitness skill level
Longest time domain was 20:00 in 2011
So there you have it! Pretty valuable information that will act as fuel for our Bros & Bras sessions!
The truth of the matter is that we know that 30-50+ of you will participate in The Open this year, and even if you approach it with the mentality that you “don’t care” about your performance or ranking… the truth is that once it’s over, you can’t hide the fact that it was really important to you!! We have seen it every year, so this year we are using the Sundays in January to help you out!! Colin and I hope you will enjoy these opportunities to learn and grow as The Open draws near.
Tomorrow is the first session… and every Sunday in January from 10am – 12pm we will have a session. Participation is unlimited, but some of what we do may be subject to change if we have an overwhelming response (so we may be creating teams, or partners and training as such). If you want to attend all 5 sessions, the cost is $100. If you would like to drop-in to some, it’s $25/drop-in. You can email me to reserve your spot (pjneill@ptd.net) Please bring cash or check made out to “cash”… also, please be responsible in paying for your session as opposed to showing up under the impression you will “pay later”!
We are looking forward to a fun beginning of the year, and getting you guys ready for the 2016 Open!
cpj & Colin
