With less than two months until Dave Castro announces 17.1 are you ready for the 2017 CrossFit Open?
You finished the CrossFit Open in 2016 full of energy, enthusiasm and were driven to succeed in 2017. Mostly likely you didn’t have enough rest after those torturous five weeks of physical and mental stress, immediately made a list of weaknesses and started training like a maniac. Well a year is a long time and although many of you made a long term goal of improving your performance in 2017, I could safely assume that the majority did not make short term performance based goals and in failing to do so their direction and dedication to training may have waned. Now we’ve had Christmas and New Years and suddenly BAM we are less than two months away from 17.1 and the kick off of the 2017 CrossFit Open.
Since the new year we’ve had numerous enquires from individuals wanting to do better in the Open, make Regionals or step up their training for the 2017 CrossFit Games season. Unfortunately these people are at a disadvantage with others having followed a solid, consistent program for the last twelve months. However not all hope is lost…
Realistically you can build enough capacity to do well in the Open in an eight to ten week build up. Any generic running program can take your average Joe and guide them to complete a marathon in twelve weeks, the same can be said for the Open season. I can take an athlete and turn them in to a WOD crusher fitness wise in this eight week period. However in the next eight weeks I will not be able to help you put 15kg on your snatch, add 30kg to your deadlift or get you from 1 muscle up to 20 unbroken. Things such as skill and strength require a longer period of time to develop but fitness on the other hand can be attained much faster.
Despite me saying I can get you fit, you have to want to do it, be able to push and be accountable. A program is not a magic pill, it does not guarantee results. The results need to be earned through blood, sweat and possibly tears.
Raising your work capacity in terms of aerobic and anaerobic fitness, acclimatising your body to be able to suffer will get you better results however you will still be limited by your weakest link. That could be your skills or it could be your strength. There is no point having the lung capacity of an Ironman if you can’t string together 3 toes to bar. Of course you may do well in sections of a workout but Dave Castro and the programmers at CrossFit HQ have been around a long time and are great at there job. There will always be an element involved in every workout that will bring out someones limiting factor. Last year we had heavy cleans under fatigue, grip strength testing with power snatches and bar muscle ups, as well as technical skills such as HSPU and chest to bar pull ups. You cannot be a one trick pony.
So coming back to the topic of the article….. are you open ready?? Well are you? If not you should get cracking. You can make enormous changes to your fitness and work capacity over the next 8 weeks. This can be improved at a much faster rate than absolute strength and skill BUT you can still continue to improve on them too. If you want to climb the leaderboard, get the ball rolling.
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