My First CrossFit Open

On our Honeymoon, I attended my first CrossFit class with a friend and instantly loved it. So, when coming back home, I found a gym that I thought was the closest to me and started to go. While I really enjoyed the workouts, the best way to commute was via renting a citybike… which wasn’t ideal when the weather was bad or once it got colder. Unsurprisingly, once the weather got colder, I stopped going in favor of at home workouts. But I still missed CrossFit.

Earlier this year, I decided to search again, and it turns out there was a CrossFit gym much closer to our apartment! I immediately gave them a try, and I love my new JCFit fam. The workouts are challenging, diverse, make me feel strong - and the coaches and people there are all absolutely wonderful.

A couple weeks into my new membership - it became time for the annual CrossFit Open, and at the urging of coaches and members, I decided to sign up (despite my newbie status) and I’m so glad I did!

What is the CrossFit Open?

Long Story short: it’s a three-week international competition where anyone — regardless of fitness level or ability — can compete in the biggest fitness competition in history. These workouots have to be competed at CrossFit Gyms, and they’re so fun and challenging! My gym did the workouts on Saturday, and the energy on those mornings were electric! While I’m not the fittest person in the world, it was ridicilously fun to participate, and really great to become more a part of my gym’s community. I can’t wait until next year, when I’ve got more time and strength under my belt, to see how I improve!

The Workouts

I definitely don’t recommend doing these by yourself if you’re not an expert; but if you have a home gym and want to scale down or give these a try, here’s what the workouts were this year!

22.1
Complete As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) for 15 minutes:
3 wall walks
12 dumbbell snatches
15 box jump-overs
How I did: Not bad! I scaled the workout, so the wall walks were not full put-your-belly-to-the-wall, but I felt so strong during this workout. Who knew I could do that many box jump overs!

22.2
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps for time (with a timecap of 10 minutes) of:
Deadlifts
Bar-facing burpees
How I did: I did not finish going up and down the ladder. I thought ‘hey, this looks easy’, but doing all of this in 10 minutes? Nope. I only got to the second ‘9’; and was surprised that it was the deadlifts that tuckered me out instead of the burpees!

22.3
For time (with a time cap of 12 minutes)
21 pull-ups
42 double-unders
21 thrusters (weight 1)
18 chest-to-bar pull-ups
36 double-unders
18 thrusters (weight 2)
15 bar muscle-ups
30 double-unders
15 thrusters (weight 3)
How I did: My pride took a hit for this one. I had to do the foundations (super duper scaled down) workout, because not only do I not have double unders with a jumprope (I can do maybe two consecutively), but I absolutely do not have a pull up yet. My workout consisted of jumping pull ups (with a box under me), jumping jacks, and thrusters with the barbell. My goal for next year is to have a pull up!

I had such a great time in my first open; and this is my little shout out to you:
No matter what fitness level you’re at, what exercises you’re used to, or your comfort level; I absolutely encourage you to give CrossFit a try! You never know, you might end up loving it like I do!

If you want to see more of my gym journey, join along in the day-to-day fun by following me on instagram @sarah.kowalchuk.

xx,
Sarah