The CrossFit Open and Tips from a PT

It's an exciting time of year for the CrossFit community as the Open will be kicking shortly!

For those unfamiliar with the Open, it is a worldwide CrossFit event across 3 weeks where athletes can submit scores for a prescribed workout to see where they rank amongst their peers, against their former self, or in a limited number of cases, begin their journey towards competing at the CrossFit games. 

In reality, the only difference between the Open and your regular work out of the day is the fact that people from all around the world will be completing the same workout and entering scores rather than just your particular gym and its leaderboard.

Despite this, it's easy to get caught up in the hype and competitive nature of the Open, it certainly is for me at least. 

To help with maximizing your performance in the Open and minimizing your risk of injury, I wanted to give a few recommendations from the perspective of a physical therapist to keep in mind for the 3 weeks of workouts.

Warm-Up

I may sound like a broken record here, but warming up is an absolute must before physical activity, especially one where you may be pushing yourself to your limits.

A lot of gyms will hold events like Friday Night Lights to have members complete their workouts in scheduled heats with their fellow gym members cheering them on. This typically leaves the athletes to warm up on their own, which can be a challenge for those who usually rely on programmed workouts during their daily gym work outs. 

We'll be posting warm-ups specific to each Open workout on our Instagram and Facebook pages, so be sure to keep an eye out for those whenever the workouts drop!

A general rule of thumb is to raise your heart rate, break a light sweat, and mimic movements that will be a part of your workout. If the workout involves pull ups, do some pull ups. If it involves box jumps, do some box jumps...you get the idea. 

Recovery

Recovery is essential to maximizing performance in athletic events. Although there are only 3 Open workouts over the span of 3 weeks, most of us will continue to attend daily workouts at our local gym. The Open work outs are released towards the end of the week, so it's important to adequately recover from each daily workout earlier in the week to ensure you're as prepared as possible for the Open workouts. Some of the most effective recovery tools are easily accessible to us all:

1.     Sleeping 7-9 hours a night

2.     Drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated

3.     Proper nutrient consumption

4.     Managing stress levels

Active recovery can also be a great tool. If you're body feels like it needs a rest day, consider going for a walk rather than sitting on the couch most of the day. 

Understanding Pain

Not every pain is created equally. I like to separate "pain" from "discomfort" in the sense that pain is something that will stop you from doing whatever you're doing while discomfort is something you can deal with until the activity is over. 

If you're someone who is dealing with some type of musculoskeletal injury and are unsure if participating in the Open is a good idea or not, keep this rule of thumb in mind: Any activity that causes less than 5/10 pain does not need to be modified but any pain causing 5/10 pain or greater should be scaled back. 

Let's face it, most of us are not trying to make it to the CrossFit Games. This is quite literally the 1% of the 1% that make it this far. Some people may be trying to just see how far they can make it, and that's all well and good as long as it doesn't involve putting your body through unwarranted stress. We enjoy working out to be the healthiest and fittest versions of ourselves. With this in mind, it's unnecessary to push yourself through pain to the point where you take yourself out of commission for a few weeks. 

If one of the Open workouts involves a movement that typically causes 5/10 pain or above, consider choosing the scaled version and save yourself for the next workout!

Know Your Limitations

The excitement of the Open may make you want to try a lift or movement you've never done before, but approach this with reason.

Attempting a muscle up when you haven't done one before but are able to do chest to bar pull ups is one thing, but trying a muscle up when you just added kipping pull ups to your bag of tricks is not the best idea.

Attempting to rep out deadlifts at a prescribed weight that is near your 1 rep max is also not recommended. 

Whether you're tired of dealing with that nagging injury and no longer want it to limit your performance in the gym, or an unforeseen circumstance leads to sustaining an injury during the open, Top Tier Physical therapy is here to help! You can get your journey to pain relief started by scheduling a totally free phone consultation with our Doctor of Physical Therapy to discuss your issue here.