"The Open Is For Everyone"
If you are an involved individual in the "CrossFit World", you have probably heard about The Open. In fact, even if you are not involved, you may have heard about it. Whether it be through social media, through talk due to the growing popularity of the sport, or maybe from your friend's that won't stop talking about it every year around this time. For those of you that have never heard of it, let me explain, the CrossFit Open is essentially a 5 week long competition where the workouts are released online and individuals may sign up to enter their scores each week to compete against their former selves for better scores from the previous year, as well as compete against others world wide. This competition is also used as one of many platforms for the elite athletes in our sport to advance to The CrossFit Games. If you've never heard of The CrossFit Games, just imagine watching the super bowl, but packed with workouts and super humans and you'll have an idea of what The CrossFit Games means to those involved in this world.
Competitive: "Having a strong desire to win or be the best at something". Being competitive is a characteristic that everyone has, you just have to find their category or situation where they show it. In the workplace, on a competition floor or field, between you and your siblings, inside your own head, there is always competition. Not all competition leads to a trophy or recognition, but inside all of us, lies a level of competitiveness.
So each year, The CrossFit Open begins around this time (just under 2 weeks), for the elite, this is a chance for them to earn a spot to The CrossFit Games. So you say "what about the athletes below the elite?" These athletes could also be very competitive in the sport, but may not earn the spot due to how competitive this sport really is once you reach the top percentage of athletes. These athletes do The Open for that chance, but then to also see their growth and progress from year to year. The same thing applies to anyone in a CrossFit gym, whether they are the best athlete in the gym that everyone talks about, to 65 year old ladies, and anyone in between, everyone can do this competition and see how much improvement they gained from the previous year.
Well here's my problem with that being all that those people in my gym or surrounding area get to do. For example, we may enjoy football or baseball, but that does not mean in anyway that because I am "competitive", that I can just go to the Super Bowl or the World Series, right? So no, I am not saying that because we all want to get to be competitive in the sport of CrossFit that we should just get to go to The CrossFit Games. What I am trying to say is that, we could all go out and create a competitive flag football game/tournament, or a slow pitch game, or backyard baseball. Something where you have fun playing or doing something you enjoy, you are involved in a community of friends and people you love, and there is a level of competitiveness to win at stake.
Here, at The General Performance Training, we want to give you the chance to play flag football or backyard baseball, CrossFit style. Yes, maybe you sign up for The Open every year and you see progress every year, going up a few spots or maybe even hundreds of spots on the leaderboard and maybe that's what drives you each year, your inner competitiveness. If you are able to be competitive with yourself and against people across the entire world that you do not know, how competitive do you think you'd be if you went head to head with people you do know, or surrounding athlete's that test your skills, in person? Or maybe you are someone who is able to come to CrossFit classes and you enjoy the push of other people and the community involved with the workout setting, but you would never want to compete against millions of people. Whoever you are, this backyard baseball game is for you.
So let me break it down for you, this year, during the worldwide CrossFit Open, we plan to give you your own platform to take whatever kind of competitiveness that you want to bring to the floor. It will be the workouts released by Dave Castro each week, allowing those that still want to participate in the online competition to do so. We want you to compete in the CrossFit Open worldwide, but we also want to reward you and give back something to you for your hard work. Competition against friends, fellow athletes in our gym, or surrounding gyms will give you such a cool experience that you will enjoy and have fun in these workouts! Every week on Thursday, Dave Castro releases the workouts for 5 weeks, on that Saturday after the release of the workout, we will hold our Open event.
Here's the coolest part. Each week we will draw two people to go head to head to kick off that day's workout. There will be a crowd full of support cheering each of you on. Once the head to head finishes, we will run heats for the workout. Each athlete that signs up will have a judge. At the end of the 5 weeks, winners will be announced and will earn prizes. There will be a winner for both male and female, RX and scaled divisions. Anyone is welcome to spectate, cheer, support, or compete in this event. In fact, if you are someone who wants to come work out, but does not want to be super competitive with it, you can absolutely do so. We are going to have a different food truck for you to enjoy each week, as well as a different "costume" theme for each week, and a drawing for a weekly prize. Best costume could win prizes, along with any time that you are in attendance on the Saturday, competing or not, you will be entered in that week's drawing for a prize.
Winners will receive prizes and be recognized on social media. Here, at The General, we want to continue to build the community we have inside our gym, but also reach out to other surrounding athletes that may want an opportunity to show off their hard work. The workouts behind CrossFit are hard, but the community aspect behind it, is easy. Show up. support each other, work hard, and have fun. That's it.
Why you should do this? A chance to compete against your friends, or other gyms, a chance to win prizes, a chance to indulge in amazing food trucks of all variety, a chance to dress up, support others, and have fun, and a chance to grow YOURSELF this year. We know you work hard, come show yourself that you can do something like this.
The first workout will be released the 21st of this month, the first event at The General, will be that following Saturday. Each week the event at The General, will begin at 1pm to allow stretching, warming up, communicating, and briefing of the workout. The head to head will begin at 2pm. The cost of this 5 week long competition is just $10 total! If you would like to come do the workouts in this setting, but do not care to be in the running for prizes or to be scored by a judge, there is no cost for you!
We are excited to see you get after it. Who will take on The First Annual General Performance Training "CrossFit Open"?
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