It’s that time of year again, the CrossFit Open is just around the corner, 3 weeks to be exact until the first workout will be released. Champlain Valley CrossFit has been fortunate enough to take part in this event every year since it has started in 2011, and even more fortunate to have some amazing athletes that we’ve been able to cheer on every year that have made it all the way to the CrossFit Games. We truly do have one of the best gyms and communities in the world, and we also have some of the best athletes, literally, and that’s pretty damn cool!

Each year I write a post about why you should sign-up for the Open, but not this year. Why, because frankly plenty of you shouldn’t. These are just some of my observations as and affiliate owner, the manager of the Open for our gym, and an active participant.

The CrossFit Open is a pretty damn amazing thing. We’ve seen countless people get first movements, push themselves to a  level they didn’t know was possible, and possibly most cool, participate in what I believe is the largest single sporting event in the world with some 300,000+ people participating. You can see how you match up within your gym, state, region, country, and world, against your friend in Europe, or against the best CrossFit Games athletes out there. I can’t think of anything else you can do that in. I will once again participate in what will likely be my poorest performing CrossFit Open yet. I’ve been sick now a couple of times that last 6 weeks, we’ve been renovating the gym which requires massive amounts of time, labor, and stress on my end, all of this leads to very little training on my part, I’ve got two 10 day periods in the last 6 weeks where I haven’t exercised at all. However that’s not going to stop me from participating, I’ll do the best with my physical abilities at the time and take it for what it is. You will never be “prepared” for any kind of CrossFit competition, there is always something you can be better at, something you could have spent more time working on, etc. etc. That’s what makes CrossFit so hard, addicting, and exciting. So don’t let your current state of fitness, your time CrossFitting, your lack of certain movements, or any of those other garbage excuses keep you from signing up. For 95% of people at CVCF if they signed up, there is going to be something they can’t do. Who cares, you scale and move on, just like you do in likely every single workout in the gym every day. If you want to see how you stack-up, give yourself something to compare to next year, participate among your friends, peers, and some of the best athletes in the world, and have a fun Friday night likely screaming, crying, and maybe $hitting your pants all in the same hour then sign-up. Experiences like that are what makes live worth living, getting outside of your comfort zone, experiencing something others simply cannot.

Now if you’ve done the Open before and hated it then don’t sign-up. It’s not for everyone. For the past 4 years, while our actual gym community has grown, our participation in the Open has continued to dwindle from a peak of 130 participants or so in 2013. Why, for a countless number of reasons. Some of you may do CrossFit everyday, but there are plenty that work very much in there comfort zones, and that’s fine. However know that if you participate in the Open, I’m 99.99% sure you’l get pushed outside of your comfort zone…in my eyes in a completely good and healthy way, but you just may not want that. You have to show-up at a specific time, on a specific day, and likely wait around at least a little bit. It causes stress, there is no way around it, you’re sign-up for a competition, all competitions are stressful in there own way. The Open is not convenient for you, and if your live revolves around what’s most convenient than this likely won’t work for you and that’s fine.

So sign-up for the Open. Whether you’ve done it before and love the extra thrill you get watching Thursday night waiting to see what the workout is, and then waiting all day with jitters and nerves pumping to do the workout, judged, under a microscope to see if you really are hitting depth on your squats, are you really counting your reps right in daily workouts, how hard can you really push. But if you don’t want to participate in the Open don’t, if you can’t make the dates work, don’t turn your life upside down, stress yourself out, and put yourself in a panic all to find out your 137,589th place in the world.

With all that being said, if you’re planning to participate in the Open a handful of guidelines below for you all. Myself and the other coaches have been completely taken advantage of many times over the years by those participating in the Open, we’d love to see you participate, however it is not our job for 5 weeks to drop what we’re doing at anytime during the day to come judge you. So bare in mind the following below.

– As we’ve done for years our CrossFit Open session will be Friday night from 4-7/8 PM (if we are done by 7 PM we won’t be waiting around to see if someone shows up at 8 PM. Depending on the workouts we’ve finished before 7 PM and run all the way until 8 PM). This is your main opportunity to come in, do the workout with your peers and get judged. If this doesn’t work for you, your other opportunity will be on Sunday during Open gym. The coach on hand at Open Gym can judge you, or someone from the approved judging list can help you.

– If you can’t make either of the above times work you are out of luck at least in terms of the CVCF staff helping you out. If you can’t make those times work you have two other options. You can video yourself doing the workout in the backroom or get someone from the approved judges list to judge you in the backroom. If you are doing this, please be respectful of the other classes going on and the 60-70% of the gym that likely won’t be participating in the CrossFit Open. The CVCF staff will be on hand to judge you Friday Night, and Sunday Morning, aside from that, there job is to run classes and coach, not cater to a specific schedule you have to do your workout. It’s 2017 people, we all have smart phones you can video your workout very easily.

– There is an approved judging list HERE. If you’d like to be added to this list please reach out to Jade. Being added to this list will hinge on whether you’ve taken the CF Judges course, as well as your history as a CrossFitter and judging. We pride ourselves on good movement standards and want that upheld. If you submit a score that is not judged by someone on the list it WILL NOT be validated. If you want your score validated it must be judged by someone we know and trust to uphold the movement standards.

– Re-do’s will not be allowed for anyone unless they are in a position to help boost the Champlain Valley CrossFit Team score, or are in a position that you may make Regionals (top 20), or Masters/Teen (top 200) qualifier. If you want to play around with movements, and practice things, then please do so ahead of time, you don’t get a practice run and then an additional go at it the next day. Please be respectful not only of everyones time at the gym, but also that there will likely be around 100 athletes that need to perform the workout and be judged, there is not time for everyone to do it twice.

– If and when you register make sure you select Champlain Valley CrossFit as both your Affiliate and Team.

– Feel free to bring, friends, beer, food, whatever you want on Friday nights and hang out, whether you’re participating or not. Details aren’t put together but we will do some sort of party the final Friday night of the Open.

If anyone has any questions or concerns please reach out to Jade. We all look forward to another painful, exciting, and successful CrossFit season.