The FINAL workout of this year’s CrossFit Games Open was released today and it includes a lot of Wall Walks, a variety of barbell movements, and 100 total Calories of Rowing.
My primary goals in the video below, which runs a little longer than most, are to show some technique suggestions while explaining WHY I recommend each them. I really hope that you find the reasoning behind each of them to be helpful. If you watch the video below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
As we wrap up yet another year of the CrossFit Games Open, I’d like to thank each of you who stopped by to hear what I had to say about the workouts. When the clock counts down and you get ready to crush 25.3, I hope you can hear me saying…
The 2025 CrossFit Games Open is here! Today, they released the first workout of the three-week worldwide competition and it looks like an awesome AND accessible kick-off to this year’s Open.
Three main pieces of advice for this one:
1- Practice foot and hand placement for your Burpees over the Dumbbell. Your hands should end up in front of the DB so that when you jump or stand up your feet will be directly next to where it sits on the ground. Since you’re not required to stand all the way up before jumping over the weight, remind yourself to “Stay Low and Go!” Don’t waste any time taking extra steps or risk missing directly over the weight. Deliberate movement here will help ensure that all of your rep attempts count.
2- Keep Dumbbell Hang Clean-and-Jerks as efficient as possible by prioritizing a tall chest throughout the rep. Laying on the ground and getting up over and over again for the Burpees will likely lead to some lower back fatigue. Forcing even more hingeing with the DB complex will only make that worse. I’m going to attack these like a quick little Russian Swing to get the DB to the shoulder and then immediately link into a smooth Push Jerk. While Push Press reps may be possible out of the gate for some, it’s simply going to require more upper body strength to press the DB to a full lockout. A smooth Push Jerk will conserve shoulders even more, allowing for more powerful Burpees later on in the workout! I also plan to repeat reps with the same arm until I *start to* fatigue before switching arms. The first few rounds won’t be a problem at all, but one the rounds of 12 or 15 hit, I’m sure switching hands will be a welcome break. That said, despite the fact that I feel fairly proficient alternating reps with a DB, I think it will end up being an unnecessary use of energy to switch so often. As long as the goal is to aim to keep sets unbroken, just try to complete consecutive reps with one arm, and switch to the other arm before you get close to failure!
3- Lunges will likely end up being the “rest” portion of this 15-minute workout. While most athletes will have the ability to come out swinging and sprint these, as the volume continues to grow for Burpees and DB reps, it may be more and more difficult to maintain a faster Lunge pace. Instead, keep your chest tall and eyes across the room, your entire front foot flat on each step so that your vertical front shin allows for smooth steps every time, and try not to over-extend your steps whenever possible. Use this time to shake out your arms and reset your heart rate before getting right back to your DB!
From a pacing perspective, I think most athletes should approach this one as a marathon, not a sprint. Anyone can complete the rounds of 3, 6, and 9 at breakneck speed. If that means you’re spending the last 5 minutes standing around trying to catch your breath, though, that doesn’t make too much sense to me. Give this one an 8.5 out of 10 effort out of the gate and see if you can make it through the entire 15 minutes without really needing to stop at all!
In the morning, I’m going to try to record a video briefly demonstrating some of these key points. If you come back and watch it, please let me know if this advice helps!
Regardless of your experience or ability level, if you’re going to try this workout: Good Luck, Have Fun, I Believe In You!
It’s time for the FINAL workout of the 2024 CrossFit Games Open!
Three main pieces of advice for this one:
1- Which version of this workout are you looking to attack? Some athlete who are choosing to complete this as prescribed may not have the strength or skill to complete the heavier Thrusters or Bar Muscle-Ups. If you fall into that category, your workout is 50 Thrusters and 50 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups. Stay unbroken for as long as you can on the barbell and do as many sets as you need to on the Pull-Ups to keep it moving. Bottom line, if you’re not expecting to be able to put a dent in the second part of this workout… CRUSH the first part for a faster “tie-break” time!
2- I think most athletes should take the approach of breaking up everything sooner than they think they need to! The “5 rounds of 10 Thrusters and 10 C2B PUs” may very well end up being a trap. If those numbers make it seem like the tempo can really be turned up on the first part of the workout, it may lead to significantly larger breaks and more potential failed reps when you get to the second part. Instead, take quick rests but leave some in the tank every time you pick up the bar or hop up on the rig. Make the CHOICE of when to rest, don’t break because your body can’t hold on anymore.
3- Metered rest and intentional pauses. A split second pause with the barbell locked out overhead in a strong position can give athletes a moment to take their next breath before going into the next rep. Try your best not to hold the bar in your front rack position unnecessarily. Another game I’d like you to play is to try and set a specific number of BREATHS that you’ll allow between sets. If we rest until we’re “recovered” that time will get longer and longer the more fatigued you are. If you look at the clock to use a certain number of seconds as your break time, you’ll need to do math. (I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to do addition when I’m gasping for air.) Instead, count to a specific number of deep breaths and then really work to get right back to the workout!
If you’re interested, watch my video and let me know if this advice helps!
Regardless of your experience or ability level, if you’re going to try this workout: Good Luck, Have Fun, I Believe In You!
If this Open helped you identify some ways that you can improve your fitness game, congrats! If you ever want to chat to see if you think I can help you make some of those gains, let me know. I’d LOVE that chat with you! I hope to see many of you back here next year!
Week one is done and it’s time for the second workout of the 2024 CrossFit Games Open!
For most athletes, my main piece of advice is going to be to move slower and to break things up more than you think you need to for the first part of the workout. A 300m Row can be a misleading distance and if you come out too hot it’s going to be really tough to sustain that pace later on into the workout.
I feel like most athletes should plan to *not* hang onto the Deadlift bar for large, unbroken sets. Instead, work to find what rep range is repeatable while allowing good technique. I absolutely suggest using a switch grip on the bar, too. As you get deeper into this workout, remind yourself to keep your chest up and back flat. The cue I use for myself is to actively brace my core before every single rep and to drive myself away from the floor using my legs. Don’t less this movement come from your back!
The high volume of Double-Unders in this workout are going to catch up to some people in the later rounds. Large sets may be possible early on, but when you realize that you may be three or four HUNDRED reps in by the end, working to complete 50 reps unbroken each round might not make the most sense! My advice is to break them up on your terms early on, take a quick breath, and then get back after it. For athletes who are proficient, breaking them into a set of 30 and then a set of 20 may help keep your heart rate under control for longer.
I don’t think this workout will be WON on any one part in particular. That said, I think it can be LOST by pushing too hard on any one part too early on. Trying to hold a comfortable pace between 1:50 and 2:00 on the row and then completing the Deadlifts and Double-Unders in 2-3 quick sets is likely where most of us are going to see the best results. If you feel great at the ten or fifteen minute mark, by all means turn it on and finish strong!
If you’re interested, watch my video and let me know if this advice helps!
Regardless of your experience or ability level, if you’re going to try this workout: Good Luck, Have Fun, I Believe In You!
How has it already been a year since my last blog post?!
The first week of the 2024 @crossfitgames Open is here! Workout 24.1 is a 21-15-9 descending ladder of Dumbbell Snatches and Lateral Burpees over the Dumbbell.
My goal was to break down my advice into three easy steps. First, be sure that each rep of Dumbbell Snatch is as efficient as possible. Don’t turn this into a curl with a press-out! Then, for the Burpees, eliminate the guesswork when it comes to hand placement so you can be as consistent as possible, and…. “Stay Low and Go!”
If you’re interested, watch my video and let me know if this advice helps!
Regardless of your experience or ability level, if you’re going to try this workout: Good Luck, Have Fun, I Believe In You!
A lot of people claim to not be very competitive in the gym. Sometimes those same people register for the CrossFit Open and immediately turn into absolute psychopaths! What do I mean? Well, our sport created a verb that describes an action taken by thousands of humans all over the world for a 5 week period each year.
That word: Leaderboarding
What in the world is leaderboarding, you ask? It’s the absolute obsession with knowing the current rankings of an athlete/athletes throughout course of the Open. “Can you use it in a sentence, please?” Yes, I can. My company lost 40+ hours of productivity out of me over the last month because I spent almost all day every Monday leaderboarding by just hitting refresh on the my internet browser so I could watch my worldwide ranking drop by the second. Leaderboarding.
Why is this an obsession for so many of us? I think there’s a few reasons:
It’s crazy to put into perspective just how many people play this little game we love called CrossFit. When over a quarter of a million people sign up to do the Open, and you know that likely doesn’t represent even close to a quarter of the people who CrossFit and just don’t sign up the event, it really makes us realize that this thing people called a fad nearly a decade ago, is still very much around. Being a part of that community is pretty cool.
You’re just dying to know how you stack up in your state, your country, the world! Does it really mean anything to know that on workout 18.3 you were the 29,537th best person who registered for the Open? No. But it’s still really cool to know for some reason!
Competing against your friends can be really fun! The CrossFit Open is the only competition I’ve found each year where you can go head to head with friends in your gym, and friends all over the world at the same time. I still haven’t found another at this scale that allows for real-time ranking and updating of results for so many fun events.
This is my least favorite reason, but perhaps the most accurate explanation as to why a lot of people really leaderboard… to get justification that they are “better than” certain people, or be given fuel to add to the fire as to how they know other people aren’t as good as they claim to be. A score that’s better than yours gets posted by someone you beat day in and day out at your gym. An athlete you competed with last summer at a local event who couldn’t clean 225lbs, suddenly posts a new 1RM of 355lbs. You do a dry run of 1 round of the workout with no weight at all, and the score you see posted by another athlete is 2 minutes faster per round and they also used a heavy kettlebell. Did they cheat? They must have. Steroids? Yep, probably. A judge who counted every single one of their no-reps because it’s their best friend? You bet that’s what happened.
It can be infuriating to work really hard to perform well during the Open, and then feel deflated because of reason “x, y, or z”. As the most intense few weeks of CrossFit for most of the world approaches, all I can do is ask you to take a breath and relax. Unfortunately, there will always be people who try to bend the rules for their own gain. There will always be athletes, gym owners, and judges who think that submitting a score that isn’t legitimate is alright for some reason. But here’s the thing to remember: There is literally nothing we can do to change them.
My advice for you is simple. Enjoy the Open. Check how you stack up against the rest of the world for five fun workouts. Hey, click refresh a few dozen times, I know I will. The only that I ask of you, is that you don’t obsess over your ranking. Don’tlose sleep because of another person’s results. And the most important message I hope you take to heart: Don’t ever associate your self-worth as a human being with how you rank in a fun exercise race competition. We’re all so much more than that.
Put on your blinders, get to work, and have some fun!
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