2024 CrossFit Games Open Recap

The 2024 CrossFit Open has come & gone again for another year. I’d like to start off by thanking Kaylan, Ashley, Gardner, and Dave for organizing this 3-week event for everyone at the gym. They poured a ton of time and energy into this event, and I think it was one of the best Opens I have ever been a part of–and I’ve been apart of every single Open since 2013!

I’d also like to thank our other coaches at Revival who made themselves available to judge athletes throughout each week/weekend. It was a collective effort from everyone involved that made these last 3 weeks enjoyable!

Finally, I’d like to thank each and every one of you who signed up and competed in the Open! Challenging yourself for these 3 workouts can be very scary (and humbling) for most.

As we leave the Open Season behind and turn our training back to a more “normal” cadence, I would like to present 3 points to consider for the next year of training.

APPRECIATE YOURSELF

Somewhere along the way, as we grow up, we resist challenges or situations that present us with opportunities to fail. As kids, we are told to challenge ourselves, be OK with making mistakes, and to treat new challenges as opportunities; however, as we get older, we stop looking for new challenges. We want to focus on what we are good at or we like to stay in our comfortable circle as to not discover that we may be bad at something…

This is the main reason that I truly appreciate everyone who signs up for the Open. Voluntarily stepping out of your comfort zone to test yourself shows true mental strength and a willingness to learn and improve. This is the ideal mindset to help make your fitness journey into a lifelong pursuit.

Now, I need each person that signed up for the Open to show themselves some appreciation as well. Just by signing up, you are in the top percentile of the top 1% of the fittest people in the world. To compete in a worldwide fitness competition, as the obesity rates in the country you live in have tripled in the past decade, is nothing to scoff at.

I think too often we compare our progress with others, and we rob ourselves of the appreciation for what we do at Revival on a daily basis. Nothing about the workouts done at Revival is easy. Everyday you show up takes mental strength and fortitude because everything in life around you is designed to make you fail. Instead, you fight against the norm, against the “easy”, and instead you sacrifice hours and insane soreness each week just to challenge yourself to be a little bit better than when you started.

Never get tired of trying to be better.

You only fail in fitness when you quit.

USE YOUR SCORES AS DATA

Hopefully, after reading the above paragraphs, you have stopped for a second and given yourself a little appreciation for what you have accomplished as a result of competing in the Open.

Now, how do we use the results of the Open workouts to guide our training this upcoming year…

First and foremost, your workouts scores are simply data points. They have no bearing on who you are as a person, the value you bring to others, and they literally mean nothing outside of the confines of our gym.

Treat them as such.

What do the 3 data points you accumulated from the Open tell you about where your current fitness level is?

Which workout did you do the WORST on?

Which workout did you do the BEST on?

Was there a workout where you did much better than anticipated?

Was there a workout where you did much worse than anticipated?

Did your cardio hold you back?

Did your strength hold you back?

Did your gymnastic skills hold you back?

When answering these questions, avoid using phrases like “I think” or “I felt like” or “I should have.” Do not contemplate or gameplan future training with subjective answers. In the world of fitness, especially competitive fitness, you’ll drive yourself crazy with “if’s,” “should’s,” and “possibilities.”

You either got that bar muscle or you didn’t

You either did some double unders or you didn’t

You either moved well on the burpees or you didn’t

Take emotion out of the equation, write down what happened during these 3 workouts and how can you improve moving forward…

TRAINING TIPS FOR 2024 → 2025

I have 3 Rules that I know will help improve your Open scores & placements heading into 2025…

Rule #1: Learn to Move Better

This rule covers both the sport and longevity aspects of CrossFit. CrossFit, when approached competitively, is the sport of fitness. This sport rewards those who move the most efficiently for the longest amount of time. As soon as your form deteriorates or your form becomes less efficient, your workout pacing will begin to take a serious nosedive.

When you watch these high level athletes complete Open workouts, you should take a note of how fluid and pristine their movements are. This is not an accident. The athlete who moves the best has the highest fitness potential compared to someone who has movement deficiencies.

When approaching the topic of fitness from the longevity perspective, this rule becomes even more paramount. The number 1 thing, far & away, that has the most influence on your fitness is your ability to stay injury free.

If you have to sit out to rehab an injury, it will take twice that long to get back to the same performance level as before. For example, if you tweak your back on a deadlift because you went too heavy on a workout, it may take you 4-5 weeks to get back to deadlift comfortably again. Once you start to deadlift again, it will likely take another 8-10 weeks to get back to your previous level of strength for that lift. So that one workout that you wanted to push yourself hard on could cost you 15 weeks of rehab just to get back to square one…

It’s important to view injury potential this way. It is NEVER worth pushing it, especially if you aren’t “feeling it” that day.

If there are any movements that come up in class that you typically avoid because they hurt or you simply cannot perform (due to mobility reasons), then you need to work on these weaknesses ASAP. You will be shocked at how much better all your workouts will feel once you start prioritizing moving BETTER vs moving MORE.

Remember, More is NOT Better. Better is Better.

Rule #2: Learn to Move Faster

For far too long during my training “career,” I thought that if I did the same workouts as CrossFit Games athletes, I would eventually get good enough to become a Games athlete. I thought that if I followed some competitor programming and suffered for hours in the gym that I would eventually elevate myself to an elite level. It wasn’t until 2017, when I was coming back from a back injury, that I learned the true power of scaling. When returning from injury, I started following Ben Smith’s daily programming (he won the CrossFit games in 2015). Not only could I barely do half of his programmed workouts, any workout of his that I could do would take me 3X longer than indicated in his notes.

This was when I discovered that I needed to scale to move like a Games athlete rather than do what a Games athlete does, and hope I miraculously “get faster” one day.

So from then on, I scaled HEAVILY and OFTEN. My mantra during that time was: “scale until you feel like doing the workout.”

And wouldn’t you know it, in about 8 months, I was fitter, healthier, and stronger than I had ever been–which was SHOCKING because the 5 years prior I had tried every competitor programming out there: Outlaw, CompTrain, Invictus, MisFit, you name it, I had tried it!

I was stuck in this cycle of progress then injury, over & over again.

Since 2017, my only training goals have been to (1) Not Get Hurt and (2) Never Get Time Capped–Always Scale to Hit the Provided Time Domain

When you make this your priority, you’ll be amazed at how much more enjoyable training is on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Rule #3: Focus on Your Weaknesses But Don’t Neglect Anything

Speaking of making training more enjoyable…

I have a long standing belief that improving your pull-ups, push-ups, and double under ability makes CrossFit approximately 100X more fun.

Unfortunately, strength, cardio, and skill development take a long time to realize significant gains, so unless you are ELITE at a given discipline (IE: your cardio is great & you can run a sub 5:30 mile or you can deadlift 600lbs), then you should not take time away from general training practices.

This is the main reason you should not neglect other aspects of your training when working on your weaknesses.

Improving your back squat by 20% over a 6-month period is great, but if you can barely run a mile after that training period, then you will lose most of those realized gains when you switch back to focusing on cardio.

This all-or-nothing “yo-yo” training program will leave you feeling extremely frustrated.

Instead, in order to improve on an exercise or discipline, you should commit to two 10-minute skill sessions per week. Anything more than that will likely detract from your other workouts.

These “skill sessions” will help you push your weaknesses forward while still focusing on being a well-rounded athlete with our class workouts and programming.

So there you have it! If you…

• SCALE to Stay Healthy
• SCALE To Move Better/Faster
• ADD in two 10-minute Skill Sessions Each Week

I can guarantee a significant percentile jump over your current standings from this year Open, and a more enjoyable training experience at the gym on a daily basis.

If you have any questions or would like to book a personal training session with me. Please email me at kyle@revivalfitnessmd.com