At Alchemy no event gets more members excited about their fitness more than the CrossFit Open – and it is rapidly creeping up on us!
The Open, which kicks off in February 24th 2022, unites amateur athletes from around the world. Each participant — no matter their skill level — is asked to do five workouts over five weeks and see where they stack up within the larger community. You don’t have to be a superstar or seasoned CrossFit vet to get the most out of the Open. There are a wide array of divisions and modifications available to ensure every skill level can be a part of this special competition.
We encourage everyone to come out and participate and typically will have nearly 300 Alchemy members take part!
Wondering how to prepare for something like this? Don’t worry our classes will put you on the right track!
But if you want a few focus points to make sure you perform to the best of your ability here are three:
Pay attention to conditioning
The Open isn’t really a heavy lifting event. More often than not, the focus is on performing light, fast movements over a longer stretch of time. That means it’s really important to have conditioned yourself to working harder and faster for longer. So, what can you do to get yourself ready for those kinds of challenges?
- Dial back the weight to prioritize muscle endurance over absolute strength
- Pay attention to your pace and breathing and try to stay constantly moving with short rests
- Up your class attendance or fitness activities. By increasing your activity from three to four or five workouts a week and you’ll accelerate your improvement.
Work On Your Skills
We will have programming designed to get you up to speed on all the movements you are likely to see. During the strength or skill portion of the class, use the next few months to build your skills rather than testing your capacity. Getting that first toes to bar or pull up always feels amazing and it starts with developing the fundamental strength and skills.
Stay honest
It happens every year. An athlete at the gym who always puts up high scores during our weekly ‘performance’ style workouts, falls behind. The reason for this is often hard to swallow or admit, but getting caught up in the competition and failing to pay attention to form or being honest with finishing the correct amount of proper reps happens. In the Open we can’t get away with this because we help count each other’s scores to make sure we submit accurate numbers for our competition. Over the next two-and-a-half months hold yourself to a higher standard. When your pushup doesn’t hit your range of motion, don’t count it. This kind of honesty and rigorous work ethic will vastly improve not only your Open performance but your lifelong performance as it helps avoid injury.
Apply these tips and you’ll be ready to crush the CrossFit Open this February.
Broder McNeill is a coach and co-owner at Alchemy CrossFit