Here We Go! It's the 10th and final CrossFit Open workout of 2019 and Dave really did save the best for last! In the first ever "Choose Your Own Adventure" style Open workout, athletes have the option to partition the work any way, any how. Naturally, there are more possibilities for strategery available for 20.5 than any other Open workout we've ever seen. It's Thursday night and I can't wait to see 200 of my favorite people come in tomorrow and give it your all! Since there is so much potential for various approaches based on the individual abilities of every athlete, lots of things will work, but choosing one can be tricky. To help simplify things and in the spirit of everyone having the best 20.5 Open experience possible, I decided to share some quick strategies for 4 various groups of athletes. Most of us will be able to identify with one of these groups and I hope some big picture thoughts on how to approach this workout are helpful for you. As always, come early for some extra warm-up and stay late to cheer on your friends! See you in the gym!
-Adam
Group 1
Decent at Muscle-ups (can do 5+ consecutive)
This workout is FOR TIME.
Always be doing SOMETHING. When you can do muscle-ups, do muscle-ups. When you can do wall balls, do wall balls. When you need some active recovery, row. Ideally, front load the muscle-ups and backload the row. That means get a proportionally high number of the muscle-ups done early and save a large chunk of calories for a strong sprint to the finish. Mix the wall balls in as needed.
Group 2
Can do Muscle-ups but one at a time, 2 at the most.
This workout is 80 Cals + 120 Wall Balls + AMRAP Muscle-ups
Same strategy as group 1: minimize down time and always be doing SOMETHING! Get some muscle-ups early but then attack rounds of wall balls and rowing that is appropriate to ability level (REMEMBER! If you're resting, make a better decision! Do SOMETHING!). Mix in a muscle-up or two when you can but don't stand around thinking about them too much. You HAVE TO finish the wall balls and calories, then get as many MU as you can with the time you have remaining. Side note: Forget about your tiebreak time. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you finish the wall balls and calories, and get as many muscle-ups as you can!
Group 3
First Muscle-uppers!
Give it your best shot!
Do an EMOM of Muscle-up attempts. When you get one, that's the official start of your workout! Get some more if you can, but don't hang around and hack away for too long. You need to get busy to finish your wall balls and calories! After that, you can use whatever time is left for some solid attempts and hopefully a few more muscle-ups!
Group 4
Your chances of getting a muscle-up today are lower than landing on the Moon
Option A: If you care about the leaderboard, do the "RX" version of 80 Cals + 120 Wall Balls for time. You'll be tied in reps with thousands of other athletes, so you'll be ranked on the leaderboard by your tiebreak time.
Option B: For a much better workout, opt for the scaled version. Use a similar strategy as Group 1 above, but obviously with pull-ups instead of muscle-ups. If you're pretty good at all three movements, consider even rounds in multiples of 1 Pull-up, 2 Calories, 3 Wall balls (Ex: 4 rounds of 10-20-30).
Most importantly, do your best and have a blast! When you give it your all--regardless of your placing--be proud of your effort! Celebrate your fitness, enjoy the Open finale, and celebrate your friends! No need for explanations or excuses afterward, nobody cares about those things anyway! This 2020 CrossFit Open has been AWESOME! We have 240 reps or 20 minutes left to give it all we've got! Let's finish STRONG and fill the gym with good vibes, high 5s, hoots, hollers, smiles, and plenty of positive energy!