WOD WISDOM: The Open is over, what’s next?

12034405_10153478480868596_5020738693788746903_oWhat if I came up to you and I said I need you to give a speech. It needs to be 30 minutes long and the topic is the political climate in China. All of the major television networks are going to be there, so wear something nice as well. By the way the speech is tomorrow.

Your initial reaction might be ‘I know nothing about politics in China. What am I going to say?’ But what would you do? You would probably go home and research everything you could about China and its politics to prepare yourself for the speech. Maybe call some friends and family that might be familiar with the topic. You would do everything you could to cram as much knowledge about China’s politics in your head as you could in 24 hours.

But what if I came up to you and said ‘I got the date wrong. The speech is one year from tomorrow.’ What would you do?

Well, like most people you probably do nothing for the next few months. China or its politics wouldn’t be on your mind at all. Well, that’s until it got within a few weeks or days of your speech. Then you would go back to trying to cram as much info about the topic in your mind.

Finding out you have to give a speech this time next year is where we are right now with the CrossFit Open. It’s over and we found out we struggle with gymnastics movements (toes to bar, pull ups, bar muscle ups) or weightlifting (snatches, cleans) or our conditioning is not very good. We can do nothing about it right now and when the Open comes up next year, we can try to cram a year’s worth of training into a few weeks.

Or we can start preparing for next year’s Open right now. We can start working on those gymnastics movements we struggle with or fine tuning our technique with the barbell. How do we do that? There’s a few options.

Consistency in the gym. If you struggle to get in the gym four or five days a week, what can you do to change that and make it more of a priority?

Skillz & Drillz – This five-week course meets once a week on Friday at 6:30 p.m. and will focus on improving gymnastics movements for all skill levels.

ADAPT program – We began this program last year after the Open and several people have had tremendous results. Five have gotten bar muscle ups, two have gotten ring muscle ups, one has done kipping pull ups. These are some of the gymnastics highlights. One person has added 25 pounds on their snatch and 20 pounds on their deadlift. This program is designed to help you reach your specific goal, whether it’s gymnastics, weightlifting, conditioning, weight loss, etc.

Contribute to the Vision Board – Setting a short-time or long-term goal can help keep you motivated and accountable.

Let’s make this week our first step toward preparing for the 2017 CrossFit Open and not waiting until February to cram a year’s worth of programming. If you are interested in joining the Skillz and Drillz class or being part of the ADAPT program, please contact Coach Brandon.