Thank you all who came to workout, support, and cheer. It was a great time and the next 4 weeks should only get better.

Scaling vs RX’d: This is something as coaches we talked with several athletes about. It can be a hard choice when looking at the workouts to decide if you want to go scaled or Rx’d. The most common things we hear are some form of “I can’t do X” or “I don’t think I’ll get as good a workout if I scale.” Here are some thoughts for you to consider that can help what is the best option for you. Firstly, as part of the open formate right now, if you do 1 rep Rx’d then your score is above everyone who completed the workout as prescribed.

To offer an example, Wes can completed toes to bar. He does struggle (though it’s not true, for this example lets assume he can’t do the full dumbbell weight) with the weight on the hang clean and jerk however. Because of this we can approach 18.1 a two different ways for him. Firstly, we can have Wes do the full workout scaled, he gets a good workout and we submit the full score.

Another option would be to have Wes start on the toes to bar, then proceed with the workout scaled. In this case we submit his score as 8. As I’m sure most people then have the same thought of that’s not a very good workout. So, his score of 8 is simply for strategy to get the best possible result for the open in anticipation of the coming weeks. But we still want to get a good workout.

Because we want to still get a good workout in, after the 8 toes to bar he moved to the scaled weight on the hang clean and jerk. Because he can do the toes to bar, we kept him doing those and 20 minutes later he’s tired like the rest of us.

Now, there is one more way we can think about approaching the workout. We can push through movements that are hard for us. The open is a unique time for us to focus on challenging tasks. To change examples, we can go to a few but I’ll chose full depth squats in a wall ball. This can typically can be a mobility or strength issue, but in the last 3 years in the gym during the CrossFit open, we’ve seen athletes put in the extra effort and attention needed to get pas these barriers. Judging this can be hard as you no rep an athlete giving their all, rep after rep. But the accomplishment of a good rep means the world, and we’ve seen it a lot during the open.

There’s more fun to come and again great job athletes!