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Second week of the Open!  After completing 18.1 and getting a feel for the Open competition, it’s time to put your training and conditioning to work in these next two workouts. This week is an interesting workout, or should we say workouts, and is a little different than anything we have seen before.  Not only does it have a movement that we have never seen before, dumbbell squats, but also throws a variation by having multiple workouts with a common time cap.  This weeks workouts are:

Workout 18.2

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 reps for time of:
Dumbbell squats
Bar-facing burpees

Men use 50-lb. dumbbells

Women use 35-lb. dumbbells

Workout 18.2a

1-rep-max clean

Time cap: 12 minutes to complete 18.2 AND 18.2a

The goal of this workout is to get through the first part of the workout as fast as you can.  Not only is this workout scored on the time that it takes for you to complete it, but finishing early also means that you will have move time for 18.2a.  Now trying to finish as quick as possible doesn’t mean to go all out and crash.  As we saw from the games athletes, this workout can be completed unbroken in under 5 min, but only if you are at that elite level.  For most of the rest of us, this is going to take a bit longer and we aren’t going to have 8 minutes to recover and go for that max effort clean.  Just like last week, this is a workout that needs to be paced, such that we can keep moving the whole time.

Starting with the dumbbell squats, the biggest goal is to not put them down and use this time to regulate your breath.  Make sure each rep counts and that you are below parallel with full hip extension at the top.  You don’t want any no reps.  Also, putting the dumbbells down is going to be a big waste in effort to pick them up again and clean them to your shoulder.  If you need to rest, take a quick pause at the top, get a breath and get back into it.  Try not to take long pauses on the squats.  A key thing to come in and work on before the workout is how you are going to hold the dumbbells during the squats.  The only requirement is that the dumbbells must rest on the shoulders.  Take this time to find a grip that will allow you to relax your arms as much as possible and focus this part of the workout on your legs.

As for the burpees, unfortunately, we are all familiar with burpees and there aren’t a lot of secrets, especially with this years new standards.  This year we must jump back with both feet and then bring both feet forward at the same time.  Stepping back or forward is no longer allowed for RX standards.  However, there are still a couple things to think about.  There is no requirement that you need to stand all the way up, and you shouldn’t.  Try to stay as efficient as possible by finishing the burpee and jumping right over the bar. Also, as you jump, the most efficient it is do a 180 degree turn and set yourself up for the next burpee.  Once again, find a pace on the burpees that is good for you and you can keep up the whole time.  For some, it is best to take a quick rest while at the bottom.  Others find this hard to breathe.  Either way, if you have to take a break, make it short and try and keep moving.  Remember, the faster you finish the more rest you have before the cleans.

There are a lot of transitions, so it’s important to set up your barbell and dumbbell close together and make sure you are efficient between the two movements.

On to the cleans.  Hopefully we have all made it to the clean and there is enough time that we can take a quick breather before the time runs out.  This is where setting up the initial weight is going to be important and depends on your skill level.  If you are a higher level athlete and are fairly certain that you will have plenty of time for the cleans and a little rest before you start, set your initial weight a little higher and work up from there.  The challenge is to try and get your heart rate down as much as possible before you start, but still have time to do as many reps as possible.  For those of us that might finish with less than a minute left, have your bar setup with something that you know you will be able to do even if you are fatigued.  The best thing about this workout is that you can have two people to change out your weights, so if you finish earlier that you thought, you can always have them put more weight on as you slow your heart rate.  It will be a little more difficult to have them rip the weight off as time is expiring.  The worst thing would be to get all the way through the workout and then not get an 18.2a score because you had to much weight on the bar.

As always, have fun and push hard.  This is a workout will challenge athletes at all levels.

Welcome to yet another year of the open. As expected Dave Castro (Director of the CrossFit games) came up with yet another grueling, long, and painful workout.

This year the first Open workout is:

AMRAP 20

• 8 Toes to Bar
• 10 Dumbbell Clean and Jerk
• 14/12 Calorie row

First of all, feel confident going into this workout, as we have worked with the dumbbells, along with toes to bar and rowing in our OPCF workouts.  There is no secret to the strategy of this workout. The biggest thing to think about is setting a good pace and sticking to it. 20 minutes is a long time to keep your motor running and the only way you will get your best score is to pace it.

Start with a good warmup:

Look to prime your body for the movements and get your heart rate up.  Make sure to play around with the dumbbells and see if you can find an efficient movement pattern for the hang clean & jerks.  With both movements, you’ll want to use your lower body to generate power.  Hit some hollow holds/superman holds to prepare especially for toes to bar.  Some quick rowing intervals at your expected workout pace is a good idea as well.  This workout will be very taxing on your grips.

Strategy Considerations:

20 mins will require a steady pace.  Try to relax and settle in for the first 5 minutes or so, avoid going out too fast – then settle in to a consistent pace, staying in motion.

Consider breaking up the toes to bar into small sets, just like in past Open workouts.  Remember that 7+ rounds of this workout will require 56+ total toes to bar.  How do I know how to set a good pace?  Great question.  The best place to start is by thinking about how you deal with these movements in similar workouts.  Luckily we just did a max effort set of toes to bar.  We can use this to set a start range of reps for each set of the toes to bar.  For everyone but games and regional athletes I would recommend breaking your sets, even on the first set, you will thank us later.  If you are very proficient at toes to bar, i.e. can do 25+ in a max rep set, I would recommend breaking these into 2 sets of 4 or a set of 5 and then a set of 3. You may feel like this is overkill on your first set, but breaking up even the first set will help you out not only mentally, but physically, in the future rounds.  This doesn’t mean you should take a big break between sets.  All you need to do is jump off the  bar, shake out your shoulders, then jump back on.  For those of us that don’t quite have 20 unbroken toes to bar, break the reps up even more. 4 sets of 2 or 3-2-2-1 is a good rep scheme. No matter what you choose, you want to pick something that will allow you to take small breaks and not get too fatigued on the toes to bar.

Now that we have the toes to bar figured out, on to the dumbbell clean and jerk.  For most of us, this is not a movement that we are super comfortable with.  For this reason, I would highly recommend coming in and doing some reps of the clean and jerk, even if the weight is less than what you plan to do for the workout.  What we are looking for is to feel as comfortable with the movement as possible without getting fatigued before the actual workout. Once you have a feel for the single arm hang clean and jerk, you will be able to get a feel for how you should pace.  Since you have to do 5 reps on each side, try doing all 5 before putting the dumbbell down.  If you think your grip can’t handle that,  break it up into 2 sets.  Again, try not to take big breaks when switching.  The biggest tip that I can give for this movement is to use your hook grip. It may feel a little odd on a dumbbell,  but it is doable and will absolutely save your grip in this grinder. If you have never used the hook grip with dumbbell, add this to your list of things to go over before the workout starts.   Another tip would be to utilize a push jerk motion, as opposed to a push press, which will help save your shoulder endurance.

The final movement in each round is the rower.  The row is something you will need to simply grind out, but not overdo. Hopefully, as you have been doing the recent OPCF workouts, you know what a comfortable pace is for you to be able to easily maintain a consistent pace and also be able to jump off the rower and jump right into the next movement.  It’s not going to do any good to have a super fast row and then stand there waiting to catch your breath before the next set of toes to bar. If you don’t know what a good rowing workout pace is, I would recommend jumping on a rower before the workout and going all out for 5-10 strokes.  As you are doing this, look at your calorie per hour. A good pace that I try to stick to is 50-60% of this max number. This will probably feel slow, especially the first few rounds, but you should feel as fresh as possible when you jump off the rower. Remember the difference between a 900 cal/hr pace and a 1200 cal/hr pace for 14 calories is 14 seconds. This may sound like a long time, but your slow walk over and break before the toes to bar can easily be over 14 seconds.  Relax your grip on the rower, especially moving back to the catch/flywheel.  Once again, the power on the rower comes from the legs and hips.

Even though you have come up with an awesome game plan for this workout, things always change when you get into it. You might find that you need to break up the toes to bar in smaller sets, that’s ok. Just try and keep moving. The enemy for this workout is going to be standing still and not doing anything.  Transitions will be important: 10 rounds = 30 transitions.  A few wasted seconds here and there will multiply quickly into significant lost time.   Avoid this at all costs. Remember to push yourself, as you probably aren’t going to want to do it again.

Don’t forget a short cool down after the workout, especially for the forearms!

Most of all, have fun, support each other and celebrate your fitness!

Here is week two of the 14 tips to get your best score in the open.  Hopefully you have been thinking about the first 5 and trying to incorporate them into your workouts.

Remember The 40% Rule

I think I first heard about this from an article about Rich Froning.  Apply it to gymnastics – especially Toes-to-Bar.  If your max consecutive TTB is 20, then you really should not be attempting more than 40% of this number, or 8 in this example, at a time.  This works very well, in my experience with many, many Open workouts.  I err to smaller sets as opposed to larger ones, especially at the beginning of an Open workout, for optimum results.

Warm-ups Really Matter

Get that heart rate up to where it will likely be in the workout.  No need to go crazy with this – just do something (I prefer the Assault Bike for a few 20 second sprints), then rest 5 minutes or so before starting the workout.  Remember Open workout 17.5?  Ten rounds of 9 thrusters and 30 double-unders.  If you didn’t warm up properly then this workout got real ugly in a hurry.  Watch experienced rowers before they tackle a 2K test – they are deliberate, spending some time at their desired 2K pace in warmups well before the test begins.

Speaking of the rower, use sprint starts when appropriate on the rower – those of you who are familiar with this know the benefit.  If you want to learn more, talk to one of the OPCF coaches, otherwise we’ll explore this in more detail, along with some other rowing tips, in a future article.

Run Through the Finish Line, Instead of To It.

One of my personal weaknesses.  Don’t slow down in the last 10 seconds, or stop with 3 seconds to go even at the end of a long workout.  Sprint through the line and get that last rep.

Expect and Accept No-Reps

I just accept that my these will happen at some point despite my best efforts, like a missed free throw in basketball.  No need to get angry with my judge, it’s my fault for losing focus.  It’s part of the game, so just let them roll off your back and move on.

Never, Ever Fail a Muscle Up (or Handstand Pushup)

Those of you that have ring or bar muscle ups know that the energy expended on a miss is huge, and will likely impact other elements in a WOD.  It is much more efficient to be conservative with these, so break them down to smaller sets, and move on.

Use Chalk Wisely, or Not at All

This one comes from CrossFit Invictus.  If you must use chalk, keep it at an easy to reach location, like a J-hook, top of a box, or in your pocket.  Not on the floor or in a bucket which just wastes time and energy.

Use Those Green 10# Plates

The 2 green 10-pounders don’t bounce off the floor at a crazy angle.  Super important when you have a lot of barbell reps with 65 or 75 pounds.

Have a Spare Rope Ready for Double-Under Workouts

For competitive workouts, just have a spare nearby in case your rope breaks mid-workout.  At the CrossFit Games they actually provided a spare on the ground next to every competitor station.

Triple-Tie Your Shoes

I still do this before every workout, every time.  The one time I forget this will most certainly result in a double-under disaster.

Hopefully these tips help you prepare for the fun Open season that is upon us.  Good luck and enjoy!

With the 2018 Reebok CrossFit Games Open upon us, we thought it would be good to give you some pointers to help you get the best score that you can.  Who better to give those tips than our very own 2x CrossFit Games competitor, Coach Perry.

Here’s a few thoughts that might help you get your best result – and don’t worry, none of these tips require more volume or intensity in your current training.

Strive for Zero Transitions 

A sure-fire way to improve your score.  You can strategize how to attack a set of wall balls or toes-to-bar, but how about actively planning for the transitions between those movements?  Reviewing video is really eye-opening.  It is truly stunning how much time is wasted by being lazy on a movement transition.  Many of my Open workout re-dos feature reducing transition times more than attacking the actual work differently.

A great example of how transitions really matter: 2016 Master’s Qualifier Event 3:

AMRAP 15:

55 Double-Unders

15 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups

5  Hang Power Cleans 155#

At roughly 6 rounds of work, this workout contained 15 different transitions between movements.  Being a bit slow (say 2 seconds wasted) per transition results in about 30 seconds of idle time.  Think of how many reps, especially of DU’s, could be gained in that time.  The plan was to stay consistent with purposeful, tight transitions, between the 3 movements.  That WOD turned out to be my best Qualifier result for that particular year, even though I did all (90) C2Bs and the Hang Power Cleans as singles.

Carefully think through the equipment set-up.  For three different movements, you should form the smallest “triangle” possible, minimizing walking around time.  Just getting started on the next movement will give you a mental boost as well, even if you need to break up the work.

Fast Singles Are Your Friend

The example of that 2016 Masters Qualifier workout brings up another important tip – “Fast Singles are Your Friend”.  This works especially well for longer time domains.  Workouts with big chunks of bar movements like C2B, pull-ups, toes-to-bar, and even muscle ups come to mind here.  You know at some point you just are not going to be able to string together even small sets of reps – that’s ok, just go to fast singles.  Staying in motion = knocking out reps.

This tip has saved me over the years in many workouts.  If I can keep moving (and NOT stand around looking at the bar), things will work out just fine.  So the next time you are faced with a set of 50 toes-to-bar or 30 chest to bars, break up those reps into small sets early, and anticipate knocking out the last dozen or so reps as fast singles.

Small Sets and Helpful Mind Tricks

To this day I perform wall balls counting in my mind up to 5.  So 25 wall balls is 1,2,3,4,5, five times, even though I’m not stopping the work.  I’m tricking myself into doing “mini sets” of 5 wall balls, which just sounds easy.  Try this next time you have wall balls in a WOD.

In this same category is taking advantage of the Concept 2 Rower’s countdown capability for meters, when possible.  It sure is nice seeing that work melt away to zero.  Just ask one of the coaches how to set up this screen on the rower to try it for yourself.

Pace Yourself, Grasshopper

It goes without saying that you should try to avoid the typical mistake of starting a workout on fire, usually with a big first set of reps, only to inevitably crash and burn later.  This is easy to do as adrenaline is always high for an Open workout, and you probably watched a Games Athlete already crank out an amazing score on the live-cast.

So it takes some discipline and a little preplanning to get of to a smart, reasonable first few minutes of work.  I promise you will finish stronger and end up with a better score if you are careful with the start.  By the way, after countless competitive workouts, including in training, I still manage to fall victim to this “rookie” mistake!

Video training sessions and competitive WODs

Arguably the most important tip, since it applies to any training session, not just an Open WOD.  Range of motion, transition times, body language, it’s all there for you to evaluate.  All serious athletes across a wide range of sports make use of video analysis, and CrossFit is no different.

As you go and attack your next workout, keep these tips in mind and try to put some of them to use.