2018 Strongtown open - battle of the sexes

The 2018 CrossFit Open is starting on February 22 (yes that's coming up quick)! For those who have been with us for a year or more you are probably very aware of what the Open is - it's the most wonderful time of the year. In a nut shell the Open is an online competition that CrossFit community, worldwide, participates in once a year. Overall the competition is 5 weeks with 1 workout being announced each week (Thursday nights at 8:00pm). For the big dogs the Open is the first step towards qualifying for the CrossFit Games...for the rest of us mortals that actually feel lactic acid and pain it's a chance to see where we stack up.

The workouts themselves are no different then anything else we do during a normal week...the only difference is a little bit more accountability, and whatever curve ball Dave Castro comes up with. The primary difference is that during the Open everyone gets a Judge to count their reps and make sure the movement standards are being met. 

This year we're going to be treating the Open somewhat similar to how we did last year...with our Strongtown Open. The big difference is that instead of dividing the gym into 4 teams we will be having 2 teams and it will be a Battle of the Sexes event!

How it works - everyone who signs up through the games.crossfit.com will be entered into an overall pool of people. During the announcement of 18.1 teams will be divided up. 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 does not matter)

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

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

• 5 Points if 90% of the Team completes the workout

• 8 Points if 100% of the Team completes the workout

In addition to the points above teams will also be able to earn extra points with:

• Guess the Open Pool: this is both a game of chance and skill...see below for more details

• Weekly Challenges: Each week there will be a weekly challenge for all the Teams to complete, if your team completes the challenge they will be awarded the points and the points will vary based on the challenge.

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 CrossFitter or just starting to learn the ropes that you can do the Open. 

In addition to the points above teams will also be able to earn extra points with:

• Guess the Open Pool: this is both a game of chance and skill...see below for more details

• Weekly Challenges: Each week there will be a weekly challenge for all the Teams to complete, if your team completes the challenge they will be awarded the points and the points will vary based on the challenge.

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 CrossFitter or just starting to learn the ropes that you can do the Open. 

TEAM SCORES: http://link.strong.town/open2018

DATES:

• 18.1: 2/22 - 2/26

• 18.2: 3/1 - 3/5

• 18.3: 3/8 - 3/13

• 18.4: 3/15 - 3/19

• 18.5: 3/22 - 3/26

Each week there will be an opportunity for teams to earn extra points based on the weekly challenge. Challenges will vary each week and bonus points will be awarded based on the difficult of the challenge.

Guess the OPen Pool:

Every year of the Open (except for the 1st) CrossFit has repeated one workout from a previous year. In 2012 they repeated the final workout of 2011. In 2013 they repeated the 4th workout from 2012. In 2014 they went all the way back to the 1st workout of 2011. Moving onto 2015 they revisited the 2nd workout of 2014, and finally in 2016 they repeated the final workout of 2014. These  highlighted on our cheat sheet / table to make things easier to follow.

Now this is CrossFit and there is no guarantee that just because they have done something in the past that they will be doing it again…but if the past years are any indication of what we’ll see then it’s a pretty safe bet.

The way the pool works is fairly simple…we’ll setup a chart on the main whiteboard with 2 grids. One for the week, the other for the workout…it will look very similar to the downloadable version, but without as many words. Anyone who wants to vote gets to write their initials twice…once in the week grid, and once in the workout grid. All votes must be entered by the start of the Open in order to count.

This year we are going to be opening up the pool to the entire gym, whether you’re participating in our Open or not you still get to vote. However, anyone who is signed up for the Open is basically playing at the VIP / High Roller table for more lucrative prizes…anyone not signed up can still win but they’re playing for different prizes.

Prizes (participating in Strongtown Open)

• Correct Week = 3 Bonus Points for Team + $5 Account Credit 

• Correct Repeat Year= 6 Bonus Points for Team + $10 Account Credit

• Correct Repeat Workout (must also have guessed correct Repeat Year) = 12 Bonus Points for Team + $50 Account Credit

Prizes (not participating in Strongtown Open)

• Correct Week = Free Rx Bar or MuscleUp Bar or Single Serving Protein

• Correct Repeat Year = Free CrossFit Strongtown T-Shirt

• Correct Repeat Workout (must also have guessed correct Repeat Year) = $18 Account Credit

What to Expect:

• Schedule – throughout the 5 weeks of the Open our Friday evening (5:30pm) and Saturday (10:00am) 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 particpate.

• 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 five 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 limited by the number of Judges. If we have a 20 person class we can run 2 heats of 10, or 3 heats at 7/7/6 ..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 – 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 login 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’s helps give us that extra push we can all use.