When this workout was used in the 2012 Open I scored 58 reps.
CrossFit Games Open Workout 18.4
Didn’t even set the 315# bar. Not worth the risk.
CrossFit Games Open Workout 18.3
CrossFit Games Open Workout 18.2
Disappointed with the time, but if I’ve learned anything during the Opens it’s that I’m terrible when there are box or barbell facing burpees in the workout.
I’m Not in the CrossFit Open
The first workout of the 2018 CrossFit Games Open will be announced tonight. I’ve competed in every open since 2012, until this year. After the gym changed ownership last year, the CrossFit affiliation wasn’t renewed (which I have no issue with), so it’s a bit of a hurdle to compete in the open. I’d either have to record a video of every workout (following specifications that are a pain in the ass) or travel to a CrossFit affiliate in the area. I don’t care to do either.
Last year was the first year I allowed myself to redo the workouts and try to improve my scores. The fatigue built up and I paid for it with that bad back tweak a few reps into my 2nd attempt of the 4th workout. Over the last year I’ve had to do a lot of scaling in the gym and haven’t lifted very heavy. For the last few months I’ve been focusing on rehabbing my back, which seems to be helping, but I don’t want a setback at this point.
I’ve realized there is no reason to take it all so seriously. I’m not going on to Regionals or even the Masters online qualifiers. How well I perform in a workout isn’t going to change anything about my life. I do CrossFit for my health, for the challenge, and to feel good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m working to get back to the big lifts, but if I don’t get there it’s ok.
I’ll still do the Open workouts this year and if I have to scale something, so be it. Without getting so serious and putting any extra pressure on myself I’ll probably enjoy it a lot more too.
2017 CrossFit Games Open Results
As previously mentioned, due to tweaking my back, I wasn’t able to do the 5th and final workout of the Open this year. I’m feeling good to go now and didn’t want to delay my attempt on 17.5 any longer, so I did it in my garage yesterday.
When the workout was announced I knew everyone would be tricked into thinking they had to do the thrusters unbroken. It’s the beauty of the workout design. Change it from 9 to 10 reps and people would have thought different about it. I tried to convince people breaking up the thrusters would be beneficial, but nobody believed me. I certainly didn’t plan to do 10 sets of 9 unbroken thrusters.
I split up the first 9 sets into 5 reps, a strict 3 count to rest, and a set of 4 reps. I did the 10th round unbroken. It worked out great and allowed me keep a steady pace through the entire workout. I geek out a bit on split times over on my workout blog if you’re interested in that kind of thing. Finished the workout in 13:28.
While not official results, I calculated where I would have ranked this year if I had been able to submit this score. Overall through the 5 weeks I would have had 139,975 points in the Open division, ranking me 20,616 / 201,951 (10.2%) and 18,825 points in the new Masters 35-39 division for 2,455 / 38,106 (6.4%). My best year yet!
CrossFit Games Open Ranking History
- 2012: 16,395 / 20,857 (78.6%)
- 2013: 9,251 / 43,479 (21.3%)
- 2014: 13,721 / 66,904 (20.5%)
- 2015: 13187 / 118,237 (11.2%)
- 2016: 19,060 / 139,037 (13.7%)
- 2017: 20,616 / 201,951 (10.2%)
I don’t know why, but a bunch of these previous year numbers are substantially different in terms of participation (lower) that I’ve written about before. According to the current CrossFit Games Leaderboards it’s the data I come up with though. I always base it off the number of men who completed at least one of the workouts.
Zero Reps On 17.5… For Now
My 17.5 will have to wait. I tweaked my back 6 reps into a 17.4 redo on Sunday and it has turned out to be the worst one I’ve experienced. Walking and basic human function has been challenging most of the week. Thankfully I finally started to see some improvements this afternoon. I made it to the gym tonight to watch some of the crew crush the workout and then got to enjoy beer and pizza with everyone.
I’ll battle with 17.5 in a few weeks when I’m healed up. I’m going to finally find a PT and hopefully correct whatever keeps causing these back problems.
17.4
This is the repeat workout for the year, which was 16.4 last year. Compared to last year my tiebreak off the rower was 13 seconds slower, but I was able to do an extra 5 handstand push-ups for a PR.
17.3 Redo
Faster through the first two bars and made my first 185 today, so was way ahead of pace. Was too gassed, missed the next two, and stopped because I wasn’t going to beat 92. Bring on 17.4!
17.3
Flight landed at 7:15 and I was at CrossFit Intuition by 8:30. Was not prepared for how heavy that first 185# snatch felt! “Clarked” it and nearly blacked out.
