What Now?

The CrossFit Games season has come to an end for those of us at Arena Ready - another competitive year in the books, and another opportunity to review what went well, what could have gone better, and potentially to start thinking about goals for next year.

The first thing to keep in mind, as always, but as very easy to forget, is that this is a sport we are fortunate to have the opportunity to play. Getting to go to a gym on a daily or near-daily basis to pursue competitive exercise alongside friends, being cheered for by these peers during competition, and having the opportunity to watch and learn from each other during a world-wide competition, is a really cool opportunity that really is quite a luxury. I'm thankful to have been a part of the 2018 Open at Arena Ready, and I'm thankful so many of you chose to come along for the ride.

Thinking about what went well - we saw lots of really cool performances. We saw first HSPU, first MU, first C2B, first pull-ups, weightlifting PRs, and a whole lot of sweat and high fives. We saw people push themselves harder than they'd previously realized they were capable of. We saw people make the difficult but very wise choice to step back from top intensity in order to avoid injury, We saw a lot of self-awareness build, and we saw some competitive fires get lit. Looking back through the performances, it's clear that a lot of work went into the training our crew did in the past year! I hope that everyone has an opportunity to look back and find at least one moment of which they can be totally proud! I have at least one of those moments for each of you.

Thinking about what could have gone better - sometimes competition has a way of highlighting weaknesses. Not surprisingly, everyone has them, no matter how hard they train, no matter how competitive they want to be, and no matter how much they wish they didn't. It's actually one of the beauties of being a human, and certainly a CrossFitter - if you look at it the right way it really keeps things interesting. Can you imagine how boring life (and CrossFit) would be if you were already perfect at all the movements, and also the strategy? Ugh. I'd choose the opportunity to find weaknesses to improve on any day. Sure, weakness (or even perceived failure) can be an opportunity to beat ourselves up, wish things had gone differently, second guess our choices throughout the year, and generally feel bad about everything, but it doesn't have to be that. It can simply be a source of an objective data point, and one which can help to enlighten the fun part: goals for next year, but first, recovery.

After each track season, every coach I ever had made me take two weeks off. In those two weeks I was supposed to sit on the couch, or do something fun, or whatever I needed to do to not train for hammer (or jumping, or heptathlon) for two straight weeks. It was SO hard not to go from completely fired up about nationals or the Trials to the most intense training sessions I'd ever had with the intention of getting a head start on next year, but in actuality that time let my brain and body get back to normal, and gave me time to subconsciously process in order to come back settled and ready to thoughtfully approach the next season.

How does this apply to us? It's probably not necessary for most of us to take two weeks totally off - our entire lives haven't been revolving around training for the Open for the past year, and we're probably not going to spend the coming year focusing our entire beings on success in next year's Open. That said, for those who have been really really focused on the Open even just for the last five weeks, a few days away to rest, recover, think about things other than CrossFit and the leaderboard may do you some good. No matter what, now is not the time to be fired up and start training for next year (that's likely to be a pretty fast track to injury and/or burnout).

Once your body and mind have recovered is the time to start thinking about goals for next year. This phase is awesome. In my opinion, this is a two step review of how the Open (and prior year's training) went. The first phase is to think about how you feel about each of the workouts - how the tests went, what you wish had gone differently, what you wish had been different about your fitness, and potentially which workouts were your worst (and best) finishes, and why. If you identify things you don't feel great about - lack of a particular skill, overall metabolic capacity, overhead mobility, etc. those are great things to focus on for next year. The second phase is to think about where you'd like to be competitively next year - within the gym, the state, your age group, etc. and within that group identify weaknesses based on which workouts were your worst finishes. To clarify this point, in my case, I'd be stoked each year with my year over year improvement in burpees and hspu, yet despite my pride in my progress it seemed everyone else was still improving faster than me, so those remained weaknesses even though my performances kept improving a lot. Once you have a clear view of your weaknesses (much more powerful than "I just am not fit... wah...") you can go to the goals phase.

CrossFit as a general physical preparedness (GPP) program will help you get better at everything through working out 3-5 times per week, scaling appropriately, and pushing yourself a little harder than you'd like, all while paying close attention to recovery. We watched this be true for most of you at the gym this year. If you're good with that, keep doing what you're doing! If you're disappointed with where that puts you relatively speaking, or you feel like your capacity isn't what you'd like it to be in particular skills or movements, pick the three that you feel make you weakest, and add a little bit of thoughtful extra volume (and appropriate corresponding increased recovery) each week - this could be three sets of strict (or banded) pull-ups. It could be muscle up drills. It could be strict overhead pressing, or a Recon Ron strict hspu program (that one's hard!) It could be going to barbell once that gets started back up, it could be 50 burpees for time on a regular basis. It could be overhead or farmer carry, it could be good mornings or upright rows, a minute for max cals on the bike, or a 1k for time on the rower, a post-workout stretching/cooldown routine, or any number of other things, depending on what you'd like to improve. It needs to be effective, thoughtful, and likely minimal, in order to be something you will actually do once the emotion of the Open wears off, and once the reality of your busy life sets back in. Even 10 extra minutes a week focused on your weakest weakness will have a surprising impact on your proficiency in that movement, and even your competitive fitness overall. If your three weakest workouts had been materially stronger as a result of being stronger in the weakest component of that workout, how much closer would you have been to where you wanted to be? No time like the present to start patiently chipping away to make next year is a little closer to what you want it to be (and feel free to talk about these plans with a coach, especially if you'd like guidance).

Finally, again, congratulations on finishing the Open. Congratulations for the firsts. And for the self-awareness you gained. Congrats on caring enough about your performance to be a little disappointed when you failed to live up to your expectations. Congrats for cheering wholeheartedly for your friends (even when they were beating you). Thank you for judging, for facilitating, for cheering, and for making it another really fun year.

The 2018 Open is in the books!

WOD For 03-27-18:

Back Squat:

6-6-6-6 Climbing to a Heavy Top* Set, then...

Two Drop Sets:

1x6 @ 85% of your top set

1x6 @ 80% of your top set

*Add to your top set of EIGHT from the last five weeks

-then-

FOUR 2-Minute Cycles For MAX REPS:

15/11 Calorie Row

20 Wall Balls @ 20/14 lbs to 10/9 ft

MAX REPS Burpee Box Jumps @ 24/20 in

(Rest 2 Minutes Between Cycles)