“The obstacle to action drives action. What stands in the way becomes the way. “
-Marcus Aurelius
The 2021 CrossFit Open has come to an end, and now we are faced with our positioning in the leaderboard, an important piece of data that we can use – or waste – to our advantage.
My biggest annoyance as a professional athlete coach is the fixation on the leaderboard as evidence of year-on-year improvement. Athletes have learned to only look at their overall rankings to determine their progress and this has to stop.
Answering the question “Am I better, the same or worse than last year?” Is short-sighted and misguided. She’s looking for an answer to a question that the leaderboard doesn’t answer. The competitive field changes every year, and these variables are too unknown to use the information effectively.
The question that the leaderboard answers is not, “Am I better than last year?”
It’s “How can I get better next year?” or “Where are my greatest areas for improvement?”
The purpose of competition is not to prove how good we are at something; It’s about shedding light on our weaknesses. Our weaknesses keep us from higher ranking positions in the future. Elite athletes use the competition to expose them.
We have an obligation to refuse or refuse this information. We prefer that our weaknesses remain in the dark. The leaderboard is a light switch in the garage that illuminates the physical and mental skills that need our attention to improve.
It’s easy to take advantage of our strengths and find excuses for why our weaknesses exist. Ultimately, what stands in the way of a higher ranking position is what we need to work on the most.
Comparing our rankings at each event shows us the exact opportunities we have to improve the most for the next year. So look for your position in the global leaderboard and see which of the four positions was the lowest. Then take a look below to find out what areas you can improve on.
Questions to ask yourself after the CrossFit Open
Clear physical abilities and metabolic pathways are tested in every workout, but there are more variables that we need to consider for ourselves than the presented workout. When looking at your lowest ranked workout, ask yourself the following questions:
- How was my headspace during this workout and during the workout? What did I think or worry about? What distracted me?
- How was my preparation for this training? Did I feel prepared for the challenge? Was I under-prepared? Would I change anything about my sleep, my diet or my hydration?
- Are there any patterns of my lowest performance I’ve seen in previous competitions or training? Is there anything I avoided or didn’t address effectively?
What you can learn from Open Workout 21.1
This training had a few components that could reveal weaknesses:
- Skipping rope as a skill
- Jumping and shoulder endurance,
- Stability and mobility of the shoulder and core and
- The frustration factor.
Jump rope is a skill of coordination between the hands and the lower body. If you’ve stumbled on a lot, check your technique. The technique also affects the endurance of jumping. When you are inefficient, you work harder than necessary. Video is a helpful tool.
Shoulder endurance was a big part of the physical test. If your shoulders are burned out quickly, determine why. Are you gripping your skipping rope too tightly?
The wall duct may have revealed a weakness in core or shoulder stability. If you have found the range of motion challenging, mobility and stability overhead is your weakness. If you’ve felt limp by your midline (arched your back or wobbled excessively through your spine) or if you peed while rappelling, core stability work is critical to you.
The frustration factor is when we suffer a setback while exercising and the frustration gets out of hand. If stumbling on the jump rope or finding the wall running harder than expected leads to anger, self-loathing, despair, or inner screaming, developing your internal trainer will help you (self-talk that is more helpful than harmful).
What you can learn from Open Workout 21.2
This repeat couplet from the 2017 Open has shown some of us that we have improved over the past four years and some of us that we have new weaknesses to work on.
- tempo
- High rep workouts
- Dig deep
Ascending rep schemes are tricky workouts. The inexperienced will think hard about being ahead of the game and instead crash and burn. If you took extended breaks late in training because you got through your 20s and 30s, you will benefit from learning more about how to accelerate yourself.
Many athletes have a mental block of a certain number of reps, and this 30-40-50 barbell snap workout may have tested those mental blocks. You will know it is you when you watch a workout and have a moment of fear of the rep scheme. Progressive exposure therapy is your best medicine. Teach yourself to build confidence on higher reps.
Mat Frankel, former CrossFit Games athlete and CrossFit seminar attendant, said of this 2017 workout: The dumbbell withdrawals are like digging a hole with a shovel; you just keep going (at which I quipped, “by” hole “you mean” grave “, right?”). By that he meant that big snapshots are often more about willingness to feel deeply uncomfortable than about physical fitness.
There is a difference between “can’t” when the body cannot actually snap a dumbbell or a burpee box jump and “cannot” when the discomfort is so great that we surrender to it.
What you can learn from Open Workout 21.3
The eagerly awaited gymnastics on the pull-up bar and barbell work. In this case, if you got the lowest score, your most likely opportunities for improvement are:
If this was your lowest ranking event, then most likely the reason is behind the gym work. Depending on your ability, 30 repetitions can be a lot or just a few. If you’ve relegated to singles because your kipping was inefficient, or if you haven’t been repeated because fatigue involved poor technique, this is a good place to focus for the year to come.
Think about breaking up the toe sets, chest-to-bar pull-ups, and bar-to-bar muscle build-ups. Performing 30 reps as a single player may not be related to skill but also to strength or endurance. Here, too, grip strength and endurance played a major role. If you find your fingers slipping off, the grip work will take you a long way!
The barbell work was easy and not very skillful. When it came to getting the reps done, it was all about intensity tolerance: how high can we hold our heart rate and keep focusing on the work we’re doing? If gymnastics wasn’t your weak spot, then investigate your relationship with the engines. Are they efficient? Are you breathing while you do this?
What you can learn from Open Workout 21.4
A weightlifting complex may seem like a simple strength game, but it’s sneaky when you’ve just finished a burner.
- Heavy lifting while tired
- technology
- Mental blocks around maximum lifts
There is a difference between simply lifting heavy weights, like a 5 × 5 squat, and lifting heavy weights immediately after our heart rate increases. Physically, we’ve just used up a lot of our energy stores, so we have less available to attack a heavy barbell. Fatigue also increases the perceived exertion, making the weight feel more mentally challenging.
Olympic lifting is all about technology, technology, technology. A technically sound lifter can resort to skills with less available conscious focus (e.g. if you’re really tired after 45 engines) than a less technical lifter. The shoulder and head technique in particular was key.
Mental blocks around maximum lifts take many forms. Some athletes will feel the pressure to get a large score and become too difficult to open up. Some athletes will underestimate their abilities (Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr claims this was the case on their 4/21) and will be too conservative. Some athletes freeze when faced with maximum training and lose focus on what they are doing. If this describes you, learning self-coaching will get you a long way.
Make a plan
You’ve figured out what your weakest workout was, and you’re starting to understand why. The next step is creating a progressive plan to fix the weakness.
Most athletes finish the Open with an urge to improve and that is fantastic. Improvement takes repetition. Remember to create a plan that is sustainable and progressive instead of going all in for 4-6 weeks and getting burned or bored with work. We don’t have to do all the repetitions in 6 weeks. We have to spread them over months.
As you create your plan, ask yourself, “How can I improve my weaknesses by 1% every day?” Small positive steps taken over a long period of time are more effective than large changes or improvements occasionally. Make it a daily habit to deal with your weaknesses.
While we all prefer to do the things we are already good at, there is little growth when we play to our strengths. Using the Open Leaderboards to determine where we are missing compared to the global CrossFit community is a much better use of our time, both mentally and physically. Use whatever stands in your way as the path to better fitness in the future.
Featured image: @crossfitgames on Instagram
