2021 Strongtown open - battle of the sexes

The 2021 CrossFit Open kicks off at 8:00pm EST on Thursday March 11th! For those who have been with us for a year or more, you are probably very aware of what the Open is. For those who are a bit newer the Open is an online competition that the global CrossFit community participates in each year.

For some people the Open is the first step in qualifying for the CrossFit Games.

We like to have fun with things so the past few years we’ve run a ‘Strongtown Intramural Open’ where we turn the Open into an in-gym event that is scored based on overall team participation in the workouts.

The workouts themselves are no different than anything else we do during a normal week...the only difference is a bit more accountability on movement standards…which is never a bad thing.

You don’t need to have years of experience to participate and it doesn’t matter if you’re not quite on your ‘A’ game.

Look at it as committing to 3 workouts over 3 weeks.

The primary difference is that during the Open everyone gets a Judge to count their reps and we also like to encourage people to reverse rolls and get a bit of experience Judging as well.

The past couple of years we ran our Intramural Open with a ‘Battle of the Sexes’ theme which was a ton of fun. I’m excited to say it will be returning…for the record our Men are the defending champions.

Since we will be running heats, judging workouts, and tracking team scores we are requiring that people sign-up to participate. As a new addition to this year we’re offering two options for registering:

new additions and changes to the open

in response to everything going on this year there are a few changes to the Open.

• The event is only 3 weeks instead of its usual 5 weeks.

• There will be an “at home” version that can be done without any equipment (it will still require a PVC pipe, broomstick, or stick of some sort).

• In addition to Rx + Scaled there is a 3rd division which is called “Foundations” - this is meant to add another level of the workouts and is designed for people who are new to CrossFit and might not have as much experience.

schedule - when the workouts will be programmed

• Workouts will be announced on Thursday evening and they will be programmed for the Friday 5:30pm class and Saturday’s workouts.

• Workouts can be completed during any open gym times - please make sure you have a Judge.

• Workouts must be completed by 8:00pm on the Monday after it is announced.

• If you are unable to make it into the gym the “At Home” version of the workout still counts towards the team totals.

How to Sign-up

1. Sign-up through games.crossfit.com and join CrossFitStrongtown...this is $20 and you’ll have access to the games site, be able to see yourself on the worldwide leader boards, and we’ll place you on one of our in-gym teams for the Battle of the Sexes.

2. Sign-up through PushPress...this is $10, you will not have access to the games site and will not be able to see your worldwide rankings, however you will still be placed on one of our in-gym teams for the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ and be able to do all the workouts and contribute towards the team scores.

How to get points

During the course of the Open each team will be scored based on the following system:

• 1 Point for every person who completes the workout (division / rx / scaled / at home does not matter)

• 1 Point for every person who logs their score through either games.crossfit.com or SugarWOD

• 1 Point for judging a workout (3 point max per week).

• 1 Point for participating in Weekly Theme challenges (see below)

The purpose of this challenge is to have fun as a gym - it's about participation and I truly believe that whether you're a Veteran Athlete or just starting to learn the ropes that you can do the Open. 

how to get even more points - recruitment

Since the Strongtown Open is about participation Teams are allowed to recruit additional members to join in on the fun and complete the workouts.

Any late additions to teams are required to pay the $10 in-house registration fee.

CHALLENGE SCOREBOARD

DATES:

• 21.1: 3/11 - 3/15

• 21.2: 3/18 - 3/22

• 21.3: 3/25 - 3/29

Week 1 Theme - Strongtown

• Wear your’re Strongtown Gear / Apparel and earn an extra point for your team.

Week 2 Theme - Go Green / St. Patrick’s Day

• Everyone is Irish this week - start St. Patrick’s Day early and wear something green for the workout to get the bonus point

Week 3 Theme - USA

• Let’s see your red, white & blue….wear something patriotic to get +1 for your team

What to Expect:

• Schedule – throughout the 3 weeks of the Open our Friday evening (5:30pm) and Saturday classes will be reserved for people participating in the Open. We’re very sorry to anyone who’s schedule this screws up…we do this to be fair to those we signed up to participate.

• Workouts – there is really no difference between the workouts we do during throughout the year and the workouts of the Open. The biggest difference is that Mikey and I program our regular workouts and Dave Castro / CrossFit HQ program the three Open workouts. At the end of the day, it’s still the same pool of movements that they’re programming from…you can expect to see burpees, box jumps, pull-ups, power cleans, snatching, wall-ball, deadlifts, push-ups, toes to bar, thrusters etc…

• Judging – this is probably the biggest differentiating factor of the Open. Since the Open is essentially an online competition, making sure movement standards are maintained and upheld is paramount to the success of the event. It’s safe to say you can expect a bit of extra instruction on specific movement and judging standards. Each person participating will also have the opportunity to get their feet wet with Judging as well as have all of their workouts Judged & Validated…so exciting.

• Workout Heats – since everyone gets to have their workout judged we will be running multiple heats for the workouts within each class. Heats will be set on a first-come, first-serve basis and will be limited by the number of Judges. If we have a 12 person class we can run 2 heats of 6, or 3 heats of 4 ..we can not do a heat of 15 or 20. As we saw last year with the overhead walking barbell lunges some of this is also limited by the workout. What this means is - please show up on time.

• Entering Scores (for those registered with the CrossFit Games) – completing the workout is doing 50% of the work, the other 50% comes down to entering your score (those percentages might be slightly off). After completing the workout both you and your Judge will sign the scoresheet acknowledging your score. The gym gets one copy and each person gets a small slip of paper with their score as a reminder. From there you will have to log in to games.crossfit.com in order to submit your score...which we will then verify and validate.

• Scaling / Modifying Workouts – just like any other workout we do, it is completely acceptable to scale and modify the workouts. At the end of the day we want people to get in a good workout and have a little fun. What we will talk about is how the score gets entered on the games site. Depending on how the workout was scaled or modified it may be entered on the games site based on how much of the standards were completed. We’ll talk about this more with each person modifying the workout throughout the five weeks. The point is that scaling and modifying workouts is an option. Now I will say that if there was ever a time to try and push to go Rx on a workout...this would be it.

• Support / Encouragement – this is by far one of the best parts of the Open. It’s an amazing environment. We’ve seen people get their first double-unders, first chest to bar pull-ups, toes to bar and muscle-ups, we’ve had people set PR’s on lifts and then continue with it for multiple reps. There is something about the Open that creates an environment that exudes positivity and encouragement. It helps give us that extra push we can all use.