The 2022 CrossFit Open is over. Three hard weeks. Three hard workouts. Every year after the Open, I always take some time to reflect on how the wods went, did I redo any, did I improve, and what could I have done differently for a better outcome. I then take some time to plan out the next few months to start working on any deficiencies that I noticed during the three Open wods.
Everyone is going to have different answers to the above questions. But I think it's important to go over this with yourself or a coach so that we can input some short term goals to improve on some of our opportunities that we noticed during the Open.
I will share what I noticed about my Open so that this makes sense.
Going into this Open I really wanted to qualify for the Masters Quarterfinals. That means having an ending score of the top 10% in the world in my age group. If I made the top 10%, I get to go onto 5 more workouts in the coming weeks. Last year I missed it by 2%. I had no intention of getting that close last year so I had high hopes this year. I trained heavier than normal on a lot of wods, but left a crucial part out of most of the workouts. Heavy DB snatches from the ground and heavy deadlifts. This is mostly due to a lower back injury I sustained years ago and my fear of hurting it again.
You're probably laughing. Because look what happened. Both of those movements came up. I did ok on the snatches, but absolutely bombed the deadlift wod. I even had Dr Jaime Gold judging me so that she could watch my form. The weight really didn't feel heavy, but I had done ZERO wods with that kind of deadlift weight in over 5 years. I was praying that a deadlift wod wouldn't come up. But of course it did. This was me being completely unprepared for such a thing, and then trying to do it anyway to try and squeak out an ok score in hopes to qualify. Instead I had to stop the wod because of back pain and finish the Open in the 70% range. Not at all what I thought was going to happen this year. I'm ok with it, I did what I could, but I have thought a lot about it and know what I can do to avoid this in the future.
I know I need A LOT more leg strength and posterior chain strength. I've always known this but avoid doing extra work on it because I hate it and it's hard. However I know I need to be more proactive here and get after it, but safely. So the first thing I did was consult with Jaime about some posterior chain exercises I can do that strengthens my lower back but won't compromise my injury.
The other area is gymnastics. I have always gotten away with being decent here. But why not practice more so that I can get even better for these chest to bar and muscle up wods. Makes sense, so why didn't I do it? Probably because for my age group, my level of gymnastics is usually better than most my age. However, this is an area I should have taken advantage of and made even better. Lesson learned.
The last area is nutrition. Most of you know I follow the ZONE diet plan. And I am very disciplined. However I should have done the FUEL plan about 6 weeks before the start of the Open. I recommended that to Coach Randall, he did it, got jacked and shredded, and he absolutely smashed the Open. Lesson learned again.
As you can see, three areas that I can focus on for the next year, and maybe even squeeze in some local competitions to test it all out.
Take some time to review your Open performance. Did pullups hold you back? Did double unders mess up your score. Was the deadlift too heavy? Think of ways to focus on your opportunities and make some short term goals to work on them. Ask me or ANY coach for help for opinions on this. Having some short term goals will always help with motivation and at the same time make you stronger, faster, and leaner without even trying.
Till next time, get ready for The Conquer Games!!!
