15.1 and 15.2 – Yes, I really am that bad
The CrossFit Games Open season started almost two weeks ago with the presentation of 15.1 – the first of five workouts to be done during the season. I planned on doing the workouts, but held off on registering until about a week before it started. I finally decided to register just to get a bit more of a mental push to complete each movement to the full standard.
When I woke up on Friday and saw the workout for 15.1 and the surprise 15.1a I grimaced. I really can’t remember when I’ve snatched anything over 40kg last and my PR in snatch at is a measly 55kg which I’ve gotten during a weightlifting class when the focus was on technique and not weight. So the 52.5kg was going to be a challenge. T2B I’m ok with, but have trouble stringing them together especially at our gym where all of the pull-up bars are a bit too low for me.
I knew going in that if I can manage the snatches at all, I should be able to complete two rounds. In the end I surprised myself by finishing three rounds and doing 7 T2B on top of that. Now I’m annoyed that I didn’t manage to squeeze in another three reps to break 100 :)
15.1a was another beast entirely. Shoulder to overhead strength is something that I was dismal at when I started CrossFit so I knew I wouldn’t be getting any earth shattering results. My PR from January was 75kg in C&J so I had some kind of baseline. My first attempt at 70kg failed since I couldn’t quite get lockout. The second attempt succeeded. Then I decided to gamble and threw on 80kg of weight, which I attempted twice and failed both times. But at least I PR’d my clean while doing the attempts :)
So after 15.1 and 15.1a I was at 97642 worldwide.
When 15.2 was announced, I again faced a relative unknown. I’d just started working on chest to bars myself and had so far done them a few times before the WOD. However, I’d done them so that my collar bone had to go above the bar and not touch the bar. So during the warm-up for 15.2 I tested to see that yes, I can do C2B in singles, but I won’t be doing many of them. I did flirt with the idea of going scaled to get more of a metabolic workout, but decided to challenge myself more and stay RX’d.
The first set of OHS went unbroken and then I spent a long time working on getting the 10 C2B. When I went to continue my OHS I decided to squat with a slightly narrower grip to save my shoulders a bit, which worked but caused me to lose my balance after the sixth OHS. Then I had a hard time of getting the bar back up and simply failed to get any more reps in.
So with a score of 26 I managed to PR my C2B and even go up in the worldwide standing placing 88031 at the moment.
I’m not sure what I think of my performance in the Open so far. I’m satisfied with the effort I have put in, but the workouts have really highlighted how far the sport has come in a short time. The results that the top athletes have posted are simply amazing.
I’m also uncertain on how this will affect my future training. I’ve already noticed that our normal scheduling doesn’t challenge me to the level I wish it would but have struggled to find something that I could stick with instead. A few friends are following Ben Bergeron’s Competitors Training which I could possibly start following myself. So far even most of the open workouts there have seemed like insanity in most cases, but now I see why. Being able to do the programming RX’d would give a better chance of getting at least semi-decent Open scores while at the same time increasing my own strength and conditioning.
What I feel that competitors training lacks though is focus on additional skill-work. So that is something that I’d have to add on and find suitable programs for from somewhere else. Any ideas dear occasional readers?