“The Open is a chance to show the world what our
athletes (not just our top 6, but all of our members) can do! This group works HARD and puts in so much
extra work outside of class. I could not
be more proud & am ready for the world to meet them!” –Emily Wagner
The Open. It sounds so daunting. “Open” is typically used as an adjective, not
a noun. Except in Crossfit. The Open is a time where Dave Castro
(director of the CF Games) says, “Hey world!
This is your chance. Come test
yourself against 140,000 other people just like you.” The Open is the beginning of the 2014
Crossfit Games Season, which is the road to crowning the fittest male, female,
masters & team in the world. A brief
explanation of the Crossfit Open is as follows:
For 5 weeks starting on Feb
27 (through Mar 27) a workout will be announced on Thursdays. All participants
of The Open will have until the following Monday, 8pm Eastern Time, to complete
& enter their score online.
You may attempt the workout
as many times as you’d like during that time period. If you think you’ve got a shot at regionals,
all of your wods must be video taped.
From this pool, the top 60
individuals & top 30 teams from each region progress to the next stage on
the road to The Games…Regionals. For The
Cov & Triumph, it’s the Central East Region. It is one of, if not THE most competitive
region (especially for the men). Rich
Froning, Scott Panchik & Dan Bailey were the top 3 men in the region &
finished 1, 4 & 8 respectively at The Games in 2013.
This is an opportunity to see
where you stack up to 140,000 others, the fittest in the world & also the
person next to you in class.
When in your life are you
ever going to be able to test your fitnes vs. the world? That’s pretty incredible. Crossfitters like tangible, measurable, real
results. There is no better way to track
those results than to sign up for The Open.
Lately, I’ve heard quite a
few people saying how impressed they were with their progress when they went
back and looked at their Open profiles from last year. Sometimes you have to look at where you were
to see how far you’ve come. This is a
great opportunity to help you do that.
The Open is a reminder of progress.
“The open is a
goal. A test of how far you've come, and a lesson in how far you have to go. A
measuring stick. Something to work towards. Something to push yourself for. A
reason to try and get better, and to work harder. And something you experience with all your
Crossfit friends. It brings everyone together.”
-Ian Laverty
“I’m extremely competitive & I am always looking at
where I rank compared to everyone else, and that is extremely motivating. But, for the open I just focus on myself
& seeing how far I’ve come. It
really is gratifying! Oh, and the fun we
have at our box after all the heats are completed is pretty cool too J” –Monica Smith
For the majority of us, the
road to The Games starts & ends with The Open. Of the 140,000 people that participated
<5,000 moved on to Regionals. That’s
the top 3%. By the way, CF Cov has sent
a team to regionals in 2011, 2012 & 2013.
WOW! I’m going to make a bold
statement & say, we’re sending 2 teams this year. Yah, I said it.
The Open is the survival of the
fittest.
“Everyday I come in the gym & do whatever wod is
posted. I try my best and I work hard,
but during the open I put it all out there and leaving nothing in me when I’m
done. The photo here is after I finished 13.4. During no other wods do I end up on the floor
like this gasping for air and having someone (Nate) come to console me and ask
if I’m OK. The open reminds me about how
well this 37 year old body can still move, that I can compete and beat people
that are 10-15 years younger than me. I
see how far I’ve come since I started.
Yet, it also keeps me humble and reminds what I still have to work on,
and my challenges will never cease. I
always have to push myself. This mindset
starts in the gym but carries over in my daily life. The sense of community & comaraderie of
Crossfit stands out at the gym stands out during the open more than any other
time. It’s the community that brought me
there in the first place. Yeah, we cheer
each other on during the daily wods, but during the open, people (including
myself) go home with no voice from screaming so loud the entire night. I might not ever beat Rich Froning or Jarrett
Baston J but the open definitely makes me feel like my own little champion”. –Steve Buelterman
“An unseen
benefit of the Open is the chance to see our more elite members really hit the
wall. If you haven’t done the Open
before, it is almost nice to watch someone who is leagues ahead of us(average
Joes) fitness-wise still hit their own wall.
It’s what Crossfit is all about – pushing yourself to your limits as an
individual and as a community. Seeing the athletes with dazed looks like we
experience is encouraging, and watching them push through it gives us
inspiration to do the same. When do you
ever see Jarrett get tired in the middle of the same wod you’re doing? In the Open, that’s where! “Jarrett gets tired?? I get tired too!” –Chris Nieman
For
the rest of us, we do it for fun. We do
it to track progress. We do it to try to
be better than last year. We do it to
compete against the person next to us. We
do it to drink beers & eat copious amounts of bacon & “paleo” baked
goods with 75 grams of sugar per square inch during the potlucks following the
Friday Night Throwdowns.
The Open is for everyone, regardless
of skill level.
“This is my 3rd time registering for
the open. It’s incredible to see, every
year, how you have grown. From my first
year of not being able to even lift the perscribed weight, to thinking, ‘this
is doable’. It’s about checking your ego
& pushing and competing with yourself.
Plus, there’s a bacon party.”
-Sarah Tomasetti
“Many of us don’t give 100% every single wod. Some of us Average Joes have had a bad day at
work, or got hammered last night, or forgot their lunch that day and are
running on 6 coffees. The Open, however,
is a special event. Even the average
guys and gals competing tend to remember they have a hard wod coming up where
everyone will be watching. That bit of extra pressure motivates most of us to
push ourselves on every Open wod. In
short, it’s another aspect of the Open that makes it a truer benchmark of where
an average Joe might stand fitness-wise against his everyday compatriots. An added bonus is that you can also measure
yourself against the various celebrities that compete in the Open… for instance, last year I managed to lose to
Schmidt from the tv show The New Girl.” –Chris Nieman
Throwdowns? Yes, Throwdowns. In previous years they were held on Friday
nights. You sign up for a heat, you give
it your all, you cheer on your gym-mates, you eat, drink and be merry. The design is enough to incite a bit of
competition in everyone. It gives you
the adrenaline boost you need to do just 1 more rep before putting the bar
down, but it’s relaxed enough that you have a good time. You meet people from other classes that you
may not otherwise get to know. You are
pushed. You have fun. You do it again next week.
The Open offers a sense of community
for Cov & Triumph.
“I do the open just for fun, the challenge & to set
a marker for the next year to see how far I have come. But my FAVORITE part is the community &
how it brings everyone from the gym & around the globe together to workout,
hangout, cheer each other on & just have fun!” –Audrey Owczarzak
“The Open is a chance to see how far you have come &
how supportive our community is of one another” –Michelle James
“Even if you don’t care or relate to any of these things
it’s worth doing the Open for the after party.
For newer members to CFC, there is no greater benefit to your long term
happiness and success than making some friends at the box - and there is no
better place to do it than at the post Open partying five Fridays in a row!”
–Chris Nieman
No comments:
Post a Comment