With the annual fitness testing over for most of us, it’s time to reflect fondly and take a careful look at what The Open has taught us! The Open is a chance to see how CrossFit is evolving, get the best of yourself with the community, and (if you like) take the opportunity to seize the specific details of exactly what you should prioritise in your CrossFit workouts. If you’re interested in CrossFit performance, then this next paragraph is definitely for you!
To understand with better clarity, first you must look at what the workouts were and then put yourself into the equation. For example, whilst a lot of people will be quick to say things like ‘snatch more’ and ‘link toes to bar’ - whilst these things might be true, there is often more going on. Snatching more can be dependent on many different things, such as overhead range of motion (pausing whenever doing overhead lifts), or is it that your technique needs improving (taking on feedback and creating a pathway to the next step), or is your base support strength (squats, deadlifts and presses) lacking (Build/weightlifting classes)? Just as improving toes to bar could mean, grip strength (more hanging/less mixed grip on deadlifts), hip and abdominal strength (consider swapping to v-ups in classes to isolate the area more).
On top of this, it could be execution, or fitness. Were you held back because you were too out of breath? Say you can regularly perform sets of 5-10 reps of X movement, but in The Open you were unable to. Was this down to going out too fast (execution) or were you really working at your best execution and just couldn’t squeeze one more rep out (probably, just more fitness).
It’s usually a combination of lots of things - but if you care enough to make improvements - then having a list of these things can help. It can help you pick the classes that involve more of what you’d like to work on, and have conversations with coaches about how to perform the workouts to get the most benefit for your goals. Don’t be afraid to ask the coaches, or if you prefer you can book in a call with me!
Set yourself up for success, and don’t wait another 11 months to start practising something!
CrossFit - Back to Training
As The Open is over, that means we’ll be getting back to the way of training that’s helped us see so much progress over the last year. That means focussing on certain areas of our training that will benefit multiple things at once (that’s how I always look at what we do). But first, we’ll be continuing with a little post-Open work. Essentially we’ll be taking a snapshot of exactly what we’re capable of, in the areas that The Open didn’t allow us to test. As you’ll have noticed, we have some 1RM lifts making their way into classes (you can expect to see this across almost all regular lifts) as well as some classic CrossFit workouts and some repeats of our own (such as the CrossFit Putney Bleep Test)!
Once I’ve got this crystal clear image in the next few weeks, in combination with The Open, I’ll have a better idea of exactly which direction to head into next. The goal is always to keep everyone at the top of their game, whether it’s for your first push-up, muscle-up or however many kilos you’re looking to lift - we’re going to be there every step of the way.
Olympic Weightlifting
(testing is on week commencing 27th March)
1RM snatch
1RM C&J
5RM romanian deadlift
1RM back squat
Build
(testing is on week commencing 27th March)
5RM front squat
10RM DB bench press
1RM strict press
1RM strict pull-up + Max reps bodyweight pull-ups
10RM barbell row
Gymnastics
Muscle-up month! Get up to the bar, and then what? Get above the bar! No pre-requisite strength required, just turn up and get yourself ready to collect all the tools you need to learn your first muscle-up. Bar and rings, kipping and strict - we’ll be going through the do’s and don’ts for each of them, so you’ll have a much clearer roadmap of what to work on.
