The top 200 teenagers and masters from each division in the Open are eligible to take part and from that 20 teens and masters from each division will take part in the actual Games.

The qualifiers went up last night, and you can find the details here on CrossFit’s own pages, and below on my whiteboard.

Click to enlarge

In the video below, I am going to go through a complete review of the workouts and make suggestions on how you should approach them to gain the most advantage and increase your chances of success.

Good luck, and even if you are not participating to compete in the Games, you should try my strategies for these workouts and see how you do. It’s a good way to build an understanding of how you react to my strategies and, hopefully, it will help you in your training whatever you decided to do.

The post CrossFit Masters and Teen Qualifiers 2017: Beating the Odds appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

As with the other videos, we shot this at my gym, Precision CrossFit, right after the WOD was announced. So you are getting the exact same advice and insight I give my gym’s athletes. I hope that following my advice will help you achieve the same high-caliber performance Team Precision is known for.

Open WOD 17.5

The post Tips for Crushing CrossFit Open WOD 17.5 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Each Thursday during the Open, we are shooting these videos at my gym, Precision CrossFit, right after the WOD is announced. So you are getting the exact same advice and insight I give my gym’s athletes. I hope that following my advice will help you achieve the same high-caliber performance Team Precision is known for.

Open WOD 17.4

The post CrossFit Open 2017: Beating the Odds on WOD 17.4 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Each Thursday during the Open, we are shooting these videos at my gym, Precision CrossFit, right after the WOD is announced. So you are getting the exact same advice and insight I give my gym’s athletes. I hope that following my advice will help you achieve the same high-caliber performance Team Precision is known for.

Open WOD 17.3

The post Quick Tips for Optimal CrossFit Open WOD 17.3 Performance appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Even though these are all simple adjustments you can make to how your execute these movements, the overall impact on your performance can be significant.

For pullups and toes-to-bar, the key thing when doing singles is to eliminate the negative (or, eccentric) portion of the movement. Once you get your chest to the bar or your toes to the bar, just drop.

This simple strategy conserves energy, reduces grip fatigue, and helps avoid hand tears. We also employ a three-part cue for our athletes to ensure that they follow this strategy and meet standards on each rep: Jump, head through the window, and touch. Like some of our other cues, it seems simple; but having this drilled into your head can help keep you on track and moving forward no matter how addled and exhausted you get.

For bar-facing burpees, the trick is to eliminate steps. With our technique, you basically take a big step forward as you rise from the floor. As you’ll see in the video, this makes the movement much simpler and faster.

The only caveat is that you must have adequate hip mobility to pull this off effectively. If you do not, you’ll have to modify the technique in some way. As with the other techniques we’ve shown in these videos, you’ll want to have this engrained in your brain so that you execute consistently under the pressure of competition.

Last, there are some fine points to executing handstand pushups efficiently. First, the mechanics for kipping this movement should already be practiced and mastered. To that proficiency you want to add the tips shown in the video: kick straight up and reach with your heels.

First, kicking straight up means you avoid dragging your heels along the wall. This is obviously far more efficient. Then, you’ve got to lead with the heels as you hit the wall. If you point your toes, your heels will be lowered and you’ll likely have to push up along the wall to achieve a legitimate rep. Watch the technique in the video, and this will be become very clear.

And that’s it—the Open is here! I hope these videos will help you, and I wish you all good luck!

Don’t forget nutrition! Learn to fuel for competition:

Fueling For Success In The CrossFit Open

The post The Final Four: Bodyweight Movements for the CrossFit Open appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

We’ve already established that barbell cycling is one of the most fundamental skill needed to compete effectively in CrossFit competitions. In a previous video, I went over the importance of building not only the horsepower for high-rep barbell movements, but also the technique.

In this video, I’m going to give away one of the key takeaways from my recent experience at Wodapalooza in Miami.

We’ve already established that barbell cycling is one of the most fundamental skill needed to compete effectively in CrossFit competitions. In a previous video, I went over the importance of building not only the horsepower for high-rep barbell movements, but also the technique.

A Proven Technique

Wodapalooza is indisputably a Games-level competition, and it’s become both a proving ground for my programming and a good predictor of how my athletes will do with the Open and Regionals.

This year, I found that not only was it key that my athletes be able to string together continuous, high-rep sets of barbell movements, but it turned out that it was critical that they also cycle single lifts quickly.

So, in this video, I’ll show you what I learned about cycling single lifts efficiently. And, I can tell you from recent experience, this is the kind of thing that makes the difference between watching the awards from the stands or from the podium.

With continuous cycling, the secret is to do two lifts for each rep. But with singles, you drop the bar and have the opportunity to properly reposition yourself for each rep, so this two-lift technique does not apply. So the only thing that can make the difference with singles is shortening the time between each lift.

Of course, the athletes own horsepower and will power matter. But, again, when competition comes down to each second making a difference, anything you can do to shave seconds matters immensely. Just as triathletes with amazing athletic capacity often spend a lot of time working on transitions, so too do high-level CrossFit athletes have to try to shave seconds off of their transitions between lifts.

Again, this sin’t about becoming an Olympic weighlifter. In these compeltitions, you won’t be judged on, and you can’t rely on, pristine weightlifting technique. You’ve got to be great at handling a variety of barbell lifts in a vareity of condidtions, and this is one tool that can be a game-changer becasue it can be applied to many different lifts.

So let’s break it down and go over the secret to success with cycling single lifts.

The Secret to Faster Singles

To cycle singles lifts efficiently, the trick is to not roll the bar around, but to go to the bar. When you are tired and need to go single lifts, there’s a tendency to roll the bar back to you, then look down, reach down, set up, and go.

But, with the technique I used so successfully with my athletes at Wodapalooza, you almost don’t even have to look down, plus you cut the cycle time dramatically. To do this, you have to move to the bar. Sounds simple, right? But, when you are tired and suffering, you’ve got to have a simple mental trick for executing this move. I tell my athletes, “Step, Step, Hands.”

As you can see in the video, stepping to the bar means you already know where the bar is. If you look down while stepping, you’ll be positioned in the middle of the bar and only need to reach down and grab the bar to go. With this technique, they dramatically reduce time between lifts and barely have to glance at the bar to be set up well.

You Need More Than Technique

Just like any skill, building up solid technique is key. But in this case, it’s extremely important that you also have a place to go, mentally, that will get you to execute this technique. Every fiber of your being will be looking for a rest, for any small increment of rest.

Without a mental game plan, you’re doomed. You’ll find yourself rolling the bar around and looking for where to place your hands. And the next athlete will be kicking your butt using this technique. In CrossFit competitions,

High-volume, high-rep barbell movements are a fact of life in CrossFit competitions. And no matter how bad-ass of an athlete you are, you’ll inevitably hit a point of extreme fatigue and start dropping the bar. When that happens, give this a try, because every second really does count.

The post The Secret to Cycling Single Lifts appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Now, before everyone cocks their weapons: this is not that article. This article is about the conversation. The conversation that some seem unwilling to have and that others feel is long overdue.

Foucher finished first at the 2014 Central East Regionals.

The Reaction

Within minutes of Julie’s injury, there were already social media posts hitting the airwaves. Most of those were thoughts and prayers, well wishes, and expressions of shock and dismay that one of the best, most gracious, and by all accounts nicest competitor in the field had suffered a catastrophic injury on the eve of qualifying for the CrossFit Games. This, her last bid for the Games as her medical career is about to get underway.

“People immediately locked arms with their red-rover teammates, either on the side of ‘box jumps must end once and for all’ or ‘injuries happen in sports, get over it.'”

There were also arguments on social media. People immediately locked arms with their red-rover teammates, either on the side of “box jumps must end once and for all” or “injuries happen in sports, get over it.” Without delving too much into the nitty-gritty of every comment, this is a sampler:

• “Injuries happen, it’s a part of all sport, even at the top. To say that you know with certainty why it happened is arrogant and overstepping.”
• “The bottom line is she got hurt doing a movement that could have easily been redefined to mandate a stop on the ground to improve athlete safety. There were enough injuries in past years to warrant such a change, and if anything it would only make the WOD harder.”
• “This is one injury to a top athlete this happens all the time in all other sports we don’t need a major change here.”
• “The BJ is equally effective if you mandate a pause on the ground to virtually eliminate risk of Achilles ruptures. I don’t care if they hop down or step down, as long as they don’t rebound off the floor.”

It goes on. And, I suspect, is continuing to go on in other corners of the web, on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. And this is where the argument usually ends up:

This argument is so intensely frustrating for CrossFitters because it’s a standard that doesn’t get applied to any other sport. When Kobe tears his ACL, it’s part of the game. When every other pitcher, including thousands of high school pitchers, are getting Tommy John it’s part of the game…When Julie Foucher tears her Achilles it’s a sport that’s inherently unsafe?

Julie Foucher finished second at the 2012 CrossFit Games and third in 2014.

Yes, Injuries Happen

Every sport carries with it the risk of injury. But this is an axiom from which we should start the conversation, not end it. To merely write off the incident, any incident, as “part of the game” and “she knew the risks” is to concede that safety, improvement, and evolution are not important concepts. It renders the athlete as subject to the whimsy of the governing body and event organizers, willing participants in their own modern-day gladiator games.

“To merely write off the incident, any incident, as “part of the game” and “she knew the risks” is to concede that safety, improvement, and evolution are not important concepts.”

Of course, injuries are a part of sports. Of course, athletes know the risks. Of course, you can just as easily snap an Achilles playing a game of pick-up basketball or hopping off the counter after grabbing a hard-to-reach piece of Tupperware. So, my question is this: “So what?”

What’s the Solution?

Does the fact that injuries happen mean the Games organizers and programmers should stop innovating when it comes to safety? No. Does it mean we shouldn’t have the conversation? God forbid, anyone actually feels that way. Does it mean box jumps should go away? Not necessarily, but I don’t know.

You would think that after a number of similar Achilles-related injuries over a period of time – starting most famously during Open 11.2, then Kate Rawlings, then Cheryl Brost at the 2013 Regionals, Kristine Andali, and now Julie Foucher – that, despite that instinctual urge for those at the top and those of us in the trenches to say, “It’s one in a million. Get over it,” that we might reach down deep and say something different. Something like, “Let’s examine this whole box-jump issue.”

“The conversation should be ongoing. And the worldwide community of CrossFitters should be participating in – not discouraged from – having that conversation.”

Perhaps the box jumps themselves are not the issue, but rather the sequence in which they arrived. Is it possible a combination of Achilles-stressing movements that began with front-foot loaded running through double unders and finally to 100 box jumps is to blame? Would a different sequence or a different rep scheme have made a difference? Maybe yes. Maybe no.

But at least, let’s ask.

Is it possible that the box jump over is to blame – the combination of torque and rebound?

Let’s ask.

Would a different box jump sequence have made a difference? Maybe yes. Maybe no. But at least, let’s ask.

We Need Conversation

The conversation should be ongoing. And the worldwide community of CrossFitters should be participating in – not discouraged from – having that conversation.

What some may dismiss as armchair quarterbacking can often serve a much more vital function as a grassroots source of chatter. Chatter, in digital parlance, is the collective voice of the masses expressed through social media, blogs, and elsewhere that makes up this Borg ship we call the CrossFit community.

“Let the discussion happen, and see which side of the discussion percolates to the top as the new paradigm. At that point, perhaps the community will demand change.”

Chatter can be a powerful force. Just ask the ALS Foundation or the Red Cross. Just look around at CrossFit in general and ask yourself why 99.9% of gyms step down from their box jumps today as opposed to rebounding in 2011. Chatter. It’s the conversation.

I am not suggesting that you demand change in the case of rebounding box jumps at the Regionals level. What I am suggesting is that you talk about it. Let the discussion happen, and see which side of the discussion percolates to the top as the new paradigm. At that point, perhaps the community will demand change. But for now, talk about it, bearing in mind that drawing a line in the sand does not constitute discussion.

“Injuries happen in sports” is not the end of the discussion. It should be the beginning. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

More Like This:

• The Risk of Injury in Competition and How You Can Protect Yourself
• Glassman vs. OCT: CrossFit HQ and the Kevin Ogar Tragedy
• Is CrossFit Dangerous? We May Never Know
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos 1 and 3 ©2012 CrossFit, Inc. Used with permission from CrossFit, Inc.

Photo 2 ©2014 CrossFit, Inc. Used with permission from CrossFit, Inc.

The post Julie Foucher’s Achilles Injury: Can Chatter Create Change? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.