Camille Leblanc-Bazinet’s CrossFit Open 16.1 Workout Strategy

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet’s 2016 CrossFit Open 16.1 Workout Strategy

“Nothing drastic will change on game day. Be who you are. Do what you do. Just a little bit better.”

Key words: Consistency, transitions

Workout:

Complete As Many Rounds And Reps as possible in 20 minutes of:

25-ft. overhead walking lunge
8 burpees
25-ft. overhead walking lunge
8 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Men lunge 95 lb.
Women lunge 65 lb.

Timing:

Attempt this workout twice, once on Friday and once on Monday. The afternoon around 5pm is biologically better, as your body is producing more red blood cells in the afternoon that help you perform better in aerobic efforts. It also will give you time to dial in fuel stores in your body.

Nutrition:

This is an aerobic effort and a little longer WOD. You want to have plenty of sugars in your body and go into in hydrated. Having said that you do not want a full stomach. Start hydrating in the morning. Drink Hydro-x or half diluted Gatorade.

Taper off drinking after 1pm. Your last meal should be around 2pm, nothing too heavy or with too much fat—just easily digestable food. 30 minutes before, get some simple sugars. Fuel-5 or accelarade are good choices.

Warm up:

Focus the warm up on opening the hip flexors and hamstring

Then open the shoulders with a banded shoulder distraction

Then go through a general warm up. You want to get your body hot and heart rate up before the WOD starts. Think of it like revving the engine. Here is what I am doing:

2 rounds of…

500 meter row
10 burpees
10 kipping swings
10 barbell overhead lunges

Strategy:

This workout is about your ability to endure. Consistency and smooth transition will make your score. You never really know how a workout will affect you once you are in it, so the first time you hit it, make a note of your average pace per round.

The big thing is avoiding the red line off the bat and then flirting with it throughout. If you have 15 chest to bars, doing worry about breaking anything up. If you have 10 or less, take 70% of your best and use that as your sets.

There is no excuse to put down the OH lunge and the burpees are your best area to make up ground. Of all the movements, Burpees are longest. Hit the burpees hard each round, you can make up 10 seconds easy. You can catch your breath on the lunge or on the pull up if you use a long kip, not butterfly. Have those tools in your bag. Here is a breakdown of pacing:

Minutes 1-3: Go purposefully a little slower than you think you can go
Minutes 4-8: Push more and try to find your red line where breathing starts to become a little sputter.
Minute: 9-12: settle slightly beneath that redline pace.
Minutes 13-17: This is the toughest part of the workout, do your best to maintain.
Minutes 18-20: Sprint! Go beyond the redline. Use this time period as an important marker for where you are with rounds.

Recovery:

Stretch your butt and hamstrings after and for the next few days. Your butt will be sore. Get your blood moving for 45 minutes on the Airdyne the next day then mobilize