If you look past the barbells and the movements, a CrossFit Open workout is just like any other project, or like navigating your day:
- You have an objective or a desired outcome.
- There’s a deadline: a time frame in which you must achieve the objective.
- There will be obstacles: some tasks involved might require skills you don’t yet have; for others, you might have the skill but perhaps not the strength.
Success in a CrossFit Open workout, like success in a project or your day, comes down to some key factors:
- skills, strength, and stamina
- strategy for managing time and energy
- your ability to focus on the task
- navigating the mind traps
- a solid support team
This year, a knee injury kept me from doing the CrossFit Open workouts, but I still gained valuable insights from the sidelines.
Here are 5 winning strategies from the CrossFit Open that you can apply to any project or to your day.
(1) Define Success For a Win
Strategy 1:
Define success in a way that allows you to claim a win.
How you define success matters. If you define success by whether you complete the workout, you’ve failed before you’ve started. CrossFit Open workouts are hard, and many athletes outside of the elite athletes don’t complete them, just like you might not accomplish everything you set out to do in a given day.
Success isn’t necessarily about completion; it’s about walking away feeling like you did the absolute best you could do on that day, with the skills and strength you have and the energy available to you.
Key Takeaway: Define success in a way that allows you to claim a win.
(2) Slow is Fast
Strategy 2:
Slow is fast.
Don’t sprint a marathon.
When you’re looking at accomplishing a lot in a limited time frame, the impulse is to go out fast and hard — to sprint out of the gate. But the majority of athletes who do this inevitably burn out and blow up.
These workouts — even if allotted only a “short” amount of time — are marathons.
And when it comes to a marathon, slow is fast.
What is “slow” depends on your personal rhythm. One person’s slow is another person’s sprint. It’s important to know your typical pace.
It may seem counter-intuitive, especially when you’re racing against the clock. But fatigue accumulates, and impacts your skills and strength, making the later part of the workout much harder.
You might gain some time at the start from going out fast, but you’ll likely lose those gains in the back half.
Key Takeaway: Start out slower than you think you need to — or than may be comfortable. You can always pick up the pace as you go, but it’s harder to recover if you blow up mid-way.
(3) Small Sets Are Faster Than Big Sets
Strategy 3:
Keep work chunks manageable.
On any task, avoid pushing to failure.
There’s usually at least one Open workout that has a high volume of reps in a movement, whether it’s a gymnastics move like pull-ups or muscle-ups, or a strength move like deadlifts.
For example, Open 25.3 included sets of 25 deadlifts, 25 cleans, and 25 snatches.
The “get it done” mindset tells us to tackle as much as we can in one bite. In this case it would mean splitting the 25 reps into as few sets as possible.
But this often backfires.
First, bigger sets typically jack up your heart rate, which means you’ll gas out faster. Second, if you push every set to failure, you’ll need longer to recover between sets.
It might seem counter-intuitive, but in most cases the better strategy here is to do smaller sets — even quick singles (where you put the bar down after each rep).
Even the elites followed this strategy.
Think of it this way: it’s faster to chew and digest small bites of food than bigger bites, and bigger bites of food are more likely to cause you to choke.
Key Takeaway: Be strategic in your approach to individual tasks so that you avoid pushing yourself to failure on any one piece. This will help you maintain energy and finish faster.
(4) Minimize Your Transition Time
Strategy 4:
Minimize your transition times with effective set-up and strategic rest.
In both a CrossFit Open workout and in going through a daily routine, a big place people lose time and energy is in the transitions.
Read Further: Where to Find Time When You Have “No Time”
It’s one thing if you cap out if you were going at your fastest pace; it’s another thing to cap out because you wasted time between movements.
Know where the obvious and hidden transitions are and go in with a strategy to minimize them.
- Obvious transitions are the transitions between movements, such as deadlifts to wall walks.
- Hidden transitions are transitions within a movement block, such as every time you put the barbell down.
You can minimize transition time through an effective set-up, and strategic rest, which includes not pushing any set to failure (see Strategy 3, above).
Key Takeaway: While strength, skill, and stamina are important factors, the game is often won or lost in the transitions. Don’t eat up your time and energy with extra transition time.
Read Further: 3 Lessons I Learned From the CrossFit Open About How to Set Yourself Up For Success
(5) Enlist Support
Strategy 5:
Enlist support. You don’t have to do it alone.
In 2024, I did every CrossFit Open workout twice. I wouldn’t have been able to get through those without my friends on the sidelines.
CrossFit Open workouts are challenging even for the most motivated and disciplined athletes. There are inevitably moments when you will doubt your abilities, your strength, and your stamina. You will feel like you cannot continue.
When those moments come, it helps to have some people on the sidelines cheering you on and reminding you of your capacity.
Nobody can lift the weight for you or physically help you get your chin over the pull-up bar, but having a support team on the sidelines can give you an energetic boost that seems to magically infuse you with strength or gives you a second wind when you most need it.
Whether it’s reinforcement that you’re doing well, a reminder to rest, or a count-down to get you back on the bar, community gives us a lift.
Key Takeaway: Whether it’s a workout, caring for your kids, running a business, or tackling any other project, you don’t have to do it alone. Enlist support to get you through.
Beyond the Gym
These lessons don’t apply only to CrossFit Open workouts. You can apply these lessons to your day, or to any project.
You don’t have to implement them all at once.
Consider your coming week or a project you’re working on, and pick one lesson to test out.
Feeling Stuck?
Start with Strategy 5: enlist support. You don’t have to do it alone.
I help high-achieving women use their time and energy more effectively so they can make more time for what matters most to them, through a mix of practical strategy and emotional support. Connect to learn more about how I can support you.
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