The CrossFit Open: View from a trainer, an Affiliate Owner, and an everyday athlete.

Are you “In the Open”?

19.2

Open season is upon us. This will be my 14th year of CrossFit (April 11, 2011) and my 12th Open (14.1 was my season). No longer an affiliate owner for the masses, Max Oxygen CrossFit is alive in my garage, I don’t need to plan for The Open. Think up themes (and food pairings to go along with it because it’s a 3 week-long party!), decide between FNL or Saturday morning, figure out if we’re doing intramural teams or not, and if so, how will that be scored. Will there be an Open announcement watch party, take my Judges course, and track down my coaches to make sure they complete their Judge’s course before the first workout and rally my athletes to take it to be on Team No Judgment.

But I fucking loved all of it and it was exhausting, stressful, and best 3-6 weeks of the year….more on all that later. Thank you Dave for making it 3 weeks. Perfect length it keep energy up and still tons of fun.

View from an everyday athlete

17.5

In 2012, I knew enough about CrossFit and that this Open was coming up but I was still having the wall ball hit my face more reps than the wall in Wall Ball Shots, could not do a pull up without a green and blue band, and most likely still didn’t know the difference between a clean and a thruster. Also, there was only an Rx division in The Open and the affiliate I was at, they were elite athletes (to me anyway) and they eventually made it as a team to the Games. So I clearly didn’t belong signing up, in my perspective. I watched the announcement live on CrossFit.Games.com that Thursday night at 7pm and this was what was revealed by Dave.

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of:

Burpees

This workout begins from a standing position. The Athlete will move from flat on the ground to touching an object with both hands that is 6 inches above their max reach. Score is total reps completed.

I COULD DO THIS! I loved burpees. I could Rx that and any run in 2012. I almost considered signing up. Then I remembered I didn’t know who to ask to judge me and what those Saturday morning workouts looked like. It wasn’t talked about at the 5:15am class time, other than “are you doing the Open?”

Well, more affiliates popped up over the next year and I found a new affiliate, one that wasn’t open gym style, one that wasn’t elite athletes as coaches and one that did a coach-led warm-up and coached. I also found my people! The 5 AM rise and grind (and sometimes a dude, Zach), these women got me out of bed to do movements I avoided for 2 years. One of those be any type of snatch, because that other affiliate tried to teach me it by mirroring and saying “like this” 20x and me saying “I see what you're doing and I don’t know how to figure out how to do that”. Well, after that day in Summer of 2011, I just didn’t go when any snatching was programmed because no one could help me.

23.2 The Shuttle Runs

A new gym, new energy, and nearly everyone there was “new” to CrossFit. I had about 2 years of experience, so while I didn’t know a thing, I felt a bit more confident in that this time I was going to sign up for The Open, and I knew the difference between a clean and a snatch :)

In 2014, I was incredibly nervous to be judged by coaches who were not coaching the class times I went to. And these coaches were so much more fit than me. But I did it anyway. The coaches were encouraging, supporting me with tips, pushing me to do 1 more rep than I wanted to. Truly amazing. In my 2014 Open, I did my first set of longest unbroken double unders, I did a workout with snatches, I got my first chest to bar pull ups (switch grip and 1 at a time with a LOT of staring at the bar and many, many no reps. The 1 workout that sticks out the most, 14.5. If you don’t know, what a beast of a workout. 14.5 is….

MEN - 
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps for time of:
95-lb. thrusters
Burpees

WOMEN -
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps for time of:
65-lb. thrusters
Burpees

OMG, I could do both of these movements and I like thrusters. This weight wasn’t light for me but it wasn’t heavy either. I was excited, I was proud of myself for showing up each Saturday morning, so nervous I couldn’t eat, hanging around for hours with many people I didn’t know well and for being so close to saying “I just did my first Open season”. I met a guy, Seth, who often went to PM classes, he was smaller and new to CrossFit, we became Open buddies. We’d kinda compete with each other as we had similar skill levels. 95# thruster was heavy for Seth. We supported each other, cheered for each other, and we finished it, there was no time cap for this workout(which made it more daunting). I almost puked and had never felt so sore in the days to follow but didn’t matter. Seth’s work requires for him to move, he has since moved to several states and at each one, he finds his people at a local CrossFit affiliate. He still does CrossFit, and is way stronger than me at this point, a 95# thruster would be a piece of cake for Seth now and we still keep in touch, especially during Open season.

From 14.1 on, I committed, “I’m in The Open” each year. To see where I am in my fitness, and to track my progress over time. To work on my weaknesses during the year so that when they come up in those Open workouts, I’ve given my best attempt in preparing. It’s never been about how I do against others, it’s always been about me vs. me. How do I “prepare” and work my weaknesses, show up to workouts that I look at, and say “ewww” if it’s an Open WOD or a CrossFit Benchmark, I’ll be there. And it’s cool to see how, over the years from age 32, my 2014 Open season age, when we do repeat Open workouts, my weight on the bar is heavier, my times are faster and my scores are higher. I am increasing my work capacity across broad time and modal domains (CrossFit’s definition of Fitness) throughout my life (CrossFit’s definition of Health). It’s measurable, repeatable, and observable. Show me your data on your fitness over the last decade +.

18.2

View from a trainer + Affiliate owner

I began coaching in July 2015, just 7 days after my Level 1 (enough time to get that “You passed” email). I was a part-time coach while working full-time and also part-time managing the affiliate. I ran social media and organized the events (inside and outside the gym). I gathered the people and led Foundations, which meant every member started with me so I knew everyone, OGs to newbies. I am a natural “enroller” and community builder probably is helpful that my full-time job was a mental health therapist. People came to me to talk about hard shit, difficult and heavy things, and many experienced trauma. It was my profession to build rapport and trust so that my clients could open up to work through this.

Open 2016

I was assigned affiliate manager for the 2016 Open, my first big multi-weekend event. I was eager to be challenged with this,(probably helped that I desired to be an event planner in High School, however, I was realistic in that in small-town Iowa, this was not a feasible career, so a Masters in Counseling Psychology it was) I rallied the coaches, led meetings, ensured they held the standard by getting their Judges Certificate (counting those darn double unders on a computer screen is so hard!). We talked about this in each class in the brief. We did past open workouts 1x a week for the 8 weeks leading up to the 16.1. I kept logging in and checking the leaderboard. I made a posterboard Affiliate Leaderboard and added names each time I saw a member sign up. We made a prediction whiteboard for what 16.1, even my newbie Foundations crew, who graduated that morning guessed. We held an Open announcement watch party that Thursday night, I encouraged BYOB or come sweating and smiling out of the 5:15 pm class, and we gathered around a small TV to hear what Dave had in store. Friday morning I woke up, checked the affiliate leaderboard, and remembered how excited I was and also “how am I going to pull this off with 7 coaches and me”. 52 people. I had nearly the entire gym membership sign-up.

I got the enrollment. Now I needed to execute. Make it fun. Make it organized. Bring them together.

17.1

We did Saturday morning Open workouts in 2016. It was all I knew in my 2 years prior experience as an athlete. My coaches were great, heat after heat of judging. The understanding was “it’s for them, not us. Yes, you can and should work but we are here to support our members. I got a photographer there for 2 of the 5 weeks (people love to have great action shots of themselves and I knew how valuable that would be as they started to post and share those photos to get our new affiliate out there). Our affiliate was in the heart of downtown so it was easy to head across the street and down a block to enjoy brunch after the last heat ran. This became our tradition. This was critical in building the community. I didn’t know it at the time, though. Do hard shit together, cheer and support each other and celebrate together. As an adult, finding friends is hard. Finding a human you’d want to be in a relationship with is hard. CrossFit brings people together who have a commonality in work ethic and for the most part, CrossFit weeds out the assholes. I saw people move from “gym friends” to “friends”. It was pretty magical.

17.4

It got bigger and grander each year. To help ease people’s fear of being judged, we’d run Open WOD Wednesday starting the first week in January until the Open week. We’d run 2 heats (sometimes 3) where everyone got a person as their judge with a whiteboard, it allowed athletes to count while the coach corrected movements. Then they’d switch roles. In 2018 we moved to Friday Night Lights and it was the best idea yet. It gave us all somewhere to be in the dead of winter on a Friday Night. 5 weeks of plans, booked.

18.3

So again, I had to execute. Make it fun. Make it organized. Bring them together.

I created themes for how to dress, and what music we’d play, paired with foods to bring. We had teams and I had a weekly photographer, my husband. He picked up a hobby and he’s great at it. If we’re doing this, we’re going big, each week teams were tasked with decorating the walls, the lobby, or bringing food. This got team points. It was incredible. I walked in one Friday to help judge at 5 am class as there were a few who counted attend FNL and was brought to tears by how festive it looked, Mardi Gras showed up in the gym

We showed up big for each other too. Awesome amounts of PRs, new skills achieved, and cheering and support from each other. Every single person, no matter the ability, had a judge. Which meant there were always a group of people, watching, cheering, and encouraging. Family members stopped in, kids came to watch parents, and dogs hung out and dressed up. After the final heat, the party started. Food was brought out, and drinks were mixed together. Some late nights were had inside that gym. So much fun. So many memories.

Affiliate Owners, Go All In

18.3 Margaritaville

This didn’t magically happen. It took a lot of work, it took a lot of heart and hustle. So much back-end stuff, no one knew about except my husband. And I’d do it all again. I went all in. I participated by dressing up, bringing extra accessories so everyone had some piece of flare to wear, working out, being on an intramural team, bringing snacks, bringing drinks, coming in early for set up, and staying late for clean up. I offered to come in for a workout makeup or a redo on the weekend and throughout the day on Monday. I sent messages and emails reminding people to submit their scores. It was exhausting and it was amazing. It is the best 5 (now 3) weeks of the year inside the affiliate. You may end up drinking a lot of coffee Friday-Sunday and setting up Thursday night and validating scores with a glass of wine. And that’s ok, it’s only 5 weeks.

Affiliate owners, get out the coolers, load them up with ice, get the beverages chilled, score sheets printed and clipboard sets and have your members come to be your guests at The Open Party each week.

Totally Rad Coaches

Start early. Talk about this on January 2. Every single day, in each class. Bring it. Build the buy-in for your coaches, pay for their Judge’s Course, get them treats, and provide small gifts of thanks for their efforts. You can’t run it without them. Find a photographer. Get those photos published by Wednesday of the next week, at the latest. Take lots of videos. Be the biggest cheerleader when you’re not a judge. Offer coaching when you're not the judge.

photo organization is key

Elevate your community by bringing your passion for service and love for CrossFit to your affiliate during Open Season.

The party doesn’t start till the last person finishes. High 5s + fist bumps

“The magic is in the movement, the art is in the programming, the science is in the explanation, and the fun is in the community.”⁠ Greg Glassman