14.1 Crossfit Games Open Workout

And as the Open comes to its final week, we are handed a devious workout! The mastermind himself, Dave Castro, has presented a workout to the masses that is a TASK oriented workout rather than a TIME oriented workout. What this means is that we dont have the clock to “save” us!! This is the first time that a workout of this type has been presented in the OPEN and now the range of possible finish times will be all over the place.

For some, this workout will take over an hour and will obviously present its self with some amazing community stories. But we saw the absolute best of the best in our sport go head to head today! Thats right……it was a battle of CHAMPIONS!!! Oh and it was the boys and girls all playing on the same field! Talk about an equal playing field!

Lets take a look at this workout and some thought of what will be the BEST way for you to attack it!!!

The workout:

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps

Thrusters (95#, 65#)

Bar Facing Burpees

OBJECTIVES:

PACING:

Yes you need to go “fast” but this will be a relative idea. The more important idea is to pace yourself so that you DO NOT have to stop! And what this means is that you DO NOT want to start out going to hard.

MOVEMENT:

Because of the number of reps (168 reps total!) It will be important to move as efficiently as possible!

MOBILITY:

The body points you want to hit before you start will be hips and ankles for the squat, and shoulders for the front rack position and the drive overhead in the Thrusters. For the Burpees, make sure you get those shoulders ready for driving the chest off the floor, low back for hips kipping up and hip capsules for good folding of the body as you get to your feet.

LETS GET INTO IT!

First 2 Rounds (21, 18 reps):

It will be imperative for you to pick a tempo that does not tax you. With this being said, I would use the “Rich Froning Jr” technique on the Thrusters. What Rich does VERY well is how he is able to “rest” during thrusters. He will actually pause at the top of the movement so that he is able to breath. Many people will feel the 95/65# as light and actually try to pop the bar up and even pull it down to speed up the turn over rate. This is great if you are doing Fran, but this is NOT Fran. In fact its almost a double Fran in Thrusters! The race is NOT won in these first 2 rounds, but it can be lost here.

The burpees will have a similar way to “conserve” energy. Now everyone can blast out burpees. But what I have seen always happen is that athletes will go really fast up to 20 burpees then hit a wall. It doesnt make any sense to slam yourself into the wall like that here. The strategy I’d use here may seem like cheating but it has its place in this workout: Make the burpee a “step-back, and a step-up” movement.

Lets look at how that process would go: step back as you go to your hands and then lay on the ground, raise your chest up by bending from your knees, then step one of your feet up to your hands, bring the other foot up (dont worry about standing totally upright) so that you are right at the bar, hop over the bar turning in the air and step back and repeat. This will save some shock on your shoulders and triceps so that you have more gas for the upcoming thrusters

Yes, this will be slower that if you were flying back and forth but what we are shooting for is to be able to maintain and NOT STOP!!! Conserve but dont stop!

Rounds 3 and 4: (15,12 reps)

Now we are into our pace. If you went out too fast you are feeling it now!! If you paced correctly then we want to start to think about building. Your goal should still be to make your sets of thrusters unbroken. Rest as you transition from the thrusters to the burpees.

Rounds 5,6 and 7 (9,6,3 reps)

If you arent hurting yet, then you need to get going! You should see the LIGHT AT THE END IF THE TUNNEL!! For the thrusters, if you dont feel like you can increase the speed, DO NOT PUT THE BAR down. Rest at the top! For the Burpees, go back to the classic burpee. Use a kip to pop your hips up as your feet come forward. Get them as close to the bar as you can so you dont waste time with double hops. EMPTY THE TANK!!!!

If you already did it, congrats!!! If you still have to do it, go over these strategies. As always, you need to mind where your “red-line” is. Dont let the excitement of the Open make you get to crazy to early. The object is to finish strong!!!! Good luck to all of you!