2022 Strongtown open

The 2022 CrossFit Open kicks off at 3:00pm EST on Thursday February 24th! 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 social event.

The workouts themselves are no different than anything else we do during a normal week…you scale the workout to a level that’s appropriate for yourself and you do what you can. The biggest difference is the workouts are run in heats so everyone gets a Judge which is basically just a counting buddy who does the counting for you.

You do not need to have years of experience to participate and if you’ve never done it before that’s all the more reason to give it a go.

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

we are bringing back friday night lights

We are bringing back the Friday Night Lights events for this year’s Open.

• Friday - 2/25 beginning at 5:00pm - Open Workout 22.1

• Friday - 3/4 beginning at 5:00pm - Open Workout 22.2

• Friday - 3/11 beginning at 5:00pm - Open Workout 22.3

Between 2/25 and 3/11 the 5:30pm Class will be replaced with whatever the week’s Open Workout is. Starting at 5:00pm we’ll be running heats of the workout to get everyone through the workout. After the workout we’ll be hanging around the gym for a brief social hour aka beer wod.

If you can’t make the Friday Night time then you can always make up the workout during one Open gym sometime before the Monday deadline.

there are two ways to register

1. Sign-up through games.crossfit.com and join CrossFit Strongtown...this is $20 and you’ll have access to the worldwide games leader board and will need to submit your score through the games site so it can be validated each week.

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.

What to Expect:

• Schedule – throughout the 3 weeks of the Open our Friday evening classes will be reserved for people participating in the Open. Come show your support, help Judge a heat, hang out, or even better - sign-up and join the workouts.

• 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 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 three 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.