5 Reasons to Join the CrossFit Open: Parts 1 and 2 – Focus and Challenge

The CrossFit Open starts in less than 3 weeks, so we are writing a series this week of reasons that we think you (yes, all of you) should be participating in the Open.  With the snow day yesterday we weren’t able to get the first part out, so here are parts 1 and 2 for you, in which we talk about Focus and Challenge.

Focus: In our recent programming cycle, we’ve spent the last 5 weeks putting additional focus on each movement and workout that we do.  Some days we’ve been talking about what we should be doing with our feet, midline or shoulders in relation to a specific lift, and we’ve brought you workouts with intention on breathing, sprinting, pacing, and cycling movements with and without the barbell.  Hopefully many of you have found that bringing a focus to our daily training sessions allows us to gain even more from the hour spent in the gym.

Participating in the CrossFit Open can have a similar effect of focusing our training.  There are many movements and skills within the domain of CrossFit, which can be overwhelming, so an outside force like the Open can help us to focus our training on a specific set of tasks.

Challenge: The Open workouts will also challenge us in many ways.  There may be movements that you are unable to do unassisted, or weights that you haven’t yet been able to move.  As long as we approach the Open workouts safely and mindfully, the added challenge of the Open competition can help us to break through a plateau and do things that we might not have thought were possible.