The Three Stages of Post Open Training
Congratulations on completing the 2018 CrossFit Open! We know it feels good. Even if you didn’t do as well as you wanted, you should feel pretty great about finishing a five-week long competition. It takes a lot of discipline to stick to a routine of pushing yourself to your limit every Friday, and sometimes again on Sunday or Monday. We know you are super eager to start getting after your training, so you can work on all of those annoying movements that may have held you back this year. Lucky for you, we’ve been around long enough to see every single open, so we know the stages people tend to go through.
We want to help you get the most out of your training and using the jump in motivation and energy people feel after the open can be really great! We also want to make sure you don’t fall victim to the crash most people feel soon after. Below are the three stages we see people go through after the open. You can also just scroll to the bottom to see our advice for training after the open and how to get the most out of it!
Stage 1 - The Exciting Post Open Afterglow
“Holy shit that was so much fun! I did a competition and the workouts were really challenging, but I did it! I feel really awesome about doing something I didn’t think I was capable of and I can’t wait to do this again.”
Stage 2 - Do All The Things
“I need to get better at pull ups and handstand pushups right now, oh and I need to get stronger so I can deadlift 225 faster, and improve my endurance because I hit a wall in some of those longer workouts. Oh ya, and double unders, F*&#K double unders, I was there all day. I will do all of this tomorrow and I am going to get so much better I can’t even wait.”
This stage usually lasts about 3-5 weeks at which point stage 3 hits hard.
Stage 3 - Reality Check
“What was I thinking, I am never going to be able to get better at all of these things, this is really hard work, it’s going to take forever. Ugh.”
This is where most people quit and revert to giving 80% on most workouts. They stop caring about acquiring new skills, doing extra work, attending specialty classes, or working with a coach, etc.
Look, we know you are excited right now, and we are excited for you. We want to help you get better, and trust us, you will! Here’s what you can do to make sure you avoid the crash. Talk to a coach! Come up and talk to us about your open experience. Tell us what the hardest thing for you was and what you want to be able to do by next year. We can listen to all of your goals and help you break down everything into a manageable plan. We can tell you what to focus on first, how to modify certain workouts to aid in your development, what extra work to do during open gym, and much more.
The greatest part of The Open is realizing it isn’t just for the elite who are trying to get to regionals and the games, but about your own personal athletic advancement. Keep striving to do more! We were all gifted with this really cool thing called the human body. It would be such a waste to not see what it is capable of.