Out with the Open, In with the Benchmarks!
It’s finally over! We have made it through the five weeks that comprise the CrossFit Games Open! Now, although only a handful of you “officially” participated in those WODs, we all saw them, many of us did them, and a most of you who did them managed to surprise and impress yourselves while doing them!
I’m bringing this up because we can take what we’ve learned in the Open, and apply it to our daily “normal” CrossFit workouts. And what have we learned? Well, I’ll tell you what I saw as big take-aways from these 5 weeks:
- The better your form and movement mechanics, the more efficient you are. The more efficient you are, the faster you can go/more work you can do. The faster/harder you can go, the more likely you are to impress yourselves and others. So, I’d go so far as to say that good form = winning the CrossFit Games. Maybe a little oversimplified, but you get the picture.
- A game-plan is key. Knowing what you’re going to do before you get into your WOD is SUPER important when attacking a WOD that scares you. When you were little, you’d have to shoo the monster from under the bed before you could sleep well, just think of your game plan as your way of shooing away your WOD monster. But don’t be tied to a plan, especially if it doesn’t work for you! Keep your mind open and your strategy flexible. Don’t just give up ’cause what you thought would work isn’t working. If needed, change what you’re doing to accommodate the unexpected.
- Challenge yourself, because you really CAN do what you think you can’t, especially if you trick yourself into thinking that you CAN! I saw a ton of people blowing their own minds during these five weeks. Why? Because they tried something new and scary, and realized that it wasn’t as novel or scary as they thought!
Anyway, that’s what I’ve seen demonstrated over these last weeks. And I think that every single one of those points can be DIRECTLY applied to every single one of your WODs, especially with ones that we do regularly (our benchmarks), since you’ll see yourself progress and improve every time if you apply what you’ve learned.
So, let’s see how the 2014 CrossFit Games Open can help you to SHRED “Cindy” today. I’ve got high expectations!
-Emilie
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Monday’s Workout
“Cindy”
AMRAP 20 mins:
5 pull Ups
10 Push Ups
15 Air squats
Compare to:
10/28/13
7/22/13
2/25/13
10/22/12
6/18/12
1/9/12
8/29/11
4/25/11
Cash Out:
2 minute shoulder stretch. each side
2 minutes hamstring stretch, each side
2 minutes hip flexor extraction, each side
2014 03 30
Thanks for posting these key takeaways. I think going in with a game plan will help with the WODs. When I do the Karen, I always plan how many wall ball shots I’ll do consecutively, and how long I’ll rest before doing the next set. Doing 10 wall balls at a time is more manageable than thinking about doing 150.