Thoughts on CrossFit Open Workout 24.1
Background: For those who don’t know, The Crossfit Open is a three-week series of functional fitness workouts. Workouts are released weekly every Thursday, and you have until the following Monday to complete them. These workouts signify the beginning of a larger series of competitions, ultimately leading to the CrossFit Games.
Sounds easy enough, right?
It’s basically like the Christmas of the Crossfit world. The community gathers round, really excited to hear from our version of “Santa” aka Dave Castro every single week. He releases “hints” that aren’t really hints but more of distractions to entice us into possibly believing we could guess what the workouts could be.
We never can.
Anywho - unlike years past, this year the top 25% of the Open gets to move on to the next round of competition called Quarterfinals. (Typically it’s only the top 25%). Those workouts are harder, faster, heavier, and just all around more of a challenge, because the next step is Semifinals, which then leads to the Games. Top of the top level of athletes competing for an insane amount of money.
As the first workout of the Open, everyone was understandably really excited about 24.1 We were all eagerly awaiting a fun workout. Some of us were let down - but not me :). The first CrossFit Open Workout was:
21 dumbbell snatches (50# for men/35# for women) on arm 1
21 burpees over the dumbbell
21 dumbbell snatches on arm 2
21 burpees over the dumbbell
15 dumbbell snatches on arm 1
15 burpees over the dumbbell
15 dumbbell snatches on arm 2
15 burpees over the dumbbell
9 dumbbell snatches on arm 1
9 burpees over the dumbbell
9 dumbbell snatches on arm 2
9 burpees over the dumbbell
As fast as possible with a 15min time cap (meaning if you don’t complete the movements in 15 minutes, you’re done with the workout anyway).
This is one of those “sprint as fast as you can and worry about the aftermath later” type of workouts. Also the closest I’ve been to throwing up in a while.
But honestly that has more to do with my own preparation than it does the workout. I ate too close to my competition wave, I didn’t hydrate adequately throughout the day, and I had been fighting with allergies all week.
I finished in 9:20, landing me in the top 6% worldwide, top 5% in the USA, and top 5% for the Northeast Region. Not too shabby.
Overall lessons learned:
don’t death grip the dumbbell. ever, really, but especially during such a short workout with so many movements on a single arm.
don’t let form fly out the window just because you want to do it super fast (hint: your lower back will hate you)
remember to breathe, and that you don’t have to stop moving to do that.
i have a really (really) hard time remembering this. it is key.
don’t eat anything within 90-120 minutes of the workout
don’t take pre-workout - this is a short effort and the cardio is too intense to bother with, the weight shouldn’t be heavy enough for you to warrant any pre
this workout took about 1/5 of the time to complete as it did to warm-up for
have fun with it. that’s why we’re all here doing the dang thing in the first place.
ow.
Did you do the workout? What were your take-aways?