It’s that time of year. Christmas for CrossFitters. The CrossFit Games Open. For those of you that are new to the community and will be participating in you very FIRST CrossFit Games Open let me break down exactly what it is. The Open is the preliminary stage for the CrossFit Games. Anyone who aspires to compete at the Games, must participate in the Open. The Open is the online portion of the competition. CrossFit HQ will release a workout every Thursday for 3 straight weeks. Participants will perform the workouts in their gym, under the watchful eye of their coaches and submit their score online via games.crossfit.com. The top 20 finishers in the world automatically qualify for a spot in the Games. The winner of each COUNTRY also qualifies for a spot in the Games. The remaining spots can be earned via sanctioned events that take place in various countries all over the world leading up to the Games. Now, why is it important to do the Open if you KNOW you’re not going to qualify for the Games? The Open is the greatest measurement of health the world has to offer and I firmly believe that. Sure, blood tests are great but I know plenty of people who have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels who wouldn’t be able to keep up with someone almost twice their age in an Open workout. The Open lets you know EXACTLY where you fall on the totem pole in comparison to people in your age group. Did you finish in the 90th percentile? How about the 80th percentile? What if you finished in the 20th percentile? You would immediately know just how much ground you need to make up to push your fitness into a respectable range compared to those in your age group. Make no mistake your fitness is a snapshot of your health. The two are 100% related. There is no man behind the curtain here. If you are not fit, you are not healthy. I don’t care what anyone’s blood panel might say; if you can’t run, jump, lift and handle getting out of breath you have a problem. The Open is the yearly check in you should be having with your doctor. It’s the standard we should all hold ourselves to. This is where we find out if you’ve been working on your deficiencies or hiding from them. Learn about yourself. Learn about where you need to improve. Not to mention the Open is just a great time to build relationships with those in your community. There is nothing better than forming bonds through shared struggle. So, we hope to see you guys on the leaderboard and in the Open! (Sign up here!)
