Over the past 3 years I have been participating in the CrossFit Games Open. As we opened up CrossFit Prototype in September 2012, my first Open that I participated in was the 2013 Open. Not coming from another affiliate, I never participated in The Open so not only was it a first for me as an athlete/coach/Gym owner but it was the 1st open for all of our members and former personal training clients as well. We shared the experience together and had over 30 of our members participate. In 2014, not only did we have more experience with The Open previous to the last year but we also almost doubled our participation with over 50 of our members participating. This year was different however. We ran our first “CFP Team Open” where we created teams of our members to make The Open a little more fun and to give it more meaning to those who weren’t going to regionals or the next level of The CrossFit Games. Knowing what was to come and how to run The Open even more efficiently, we kept the CFP Team Open aspect like the previous year and for this year, The 2015 CrossFit Open has seen close to 80 CFP members sign up and actively participate! Just like all years, there are up’s and down’s for people. The upside to The Open is that it is you against the world to see how you stack up to the fittest but more importantly it puts nearly achievable goals in the face of people (1st muscle up, 1st handstand push up, 1st pull up, 1st toe to bar, PR on cleans etc). But the downside of The Open is that the idea of it and the competitive aspect can be draining on the minds of those who feel they are “better” than they are performing. This leads to negative self talk, depression and anger. These are feelings represented by the downside of competition.

With that said, I wanted to give my perspective on The CrossFit Games Open in the eyes of the athlete, business owner and the coach.

I will start with my perspective as an athlete. Now, I wasn’t the best athlete in the sports I chose to participate in in High School and college but I would  say that I have an all around athletic ability to excel in many sports. With my competitive drive and determination to be better, CrossFit was a perfect fit for me. There are many things to get better at and the positive emotions around setting new records and achieving what was thought to be impossible is a phenomenal feeling. Not to mention, it was easier for me to pick up on a lot of the higher skilled movements (Muscle ups, double unders, cleans, snatches etc) so it made me feel pretty good about myself from the start! In 2013 I finished in the top 400 in the Northeast, in 2014 I finished 232 in the Northeast and this year I am hanging in the 300-400 range. Now I know that I won’t be a regional level athlete nor do I want to be. My focus is on CFP and the bettering of the individuals who work their tails off in the gym. I said this when CFP opened and someone asked me the question if I want to make it to regionals and my exact words were “No. I would rather a member make it than me. I would be happier if that was the case.” So for me as and athlete, its not about getting to the next level. What it is about is having fun and doing well. Being able to meet the standards and perform them proficiently. Saying that I participated in the CrossFit Games Open means enough to me while constantly working hard to make improvement from the year prior. Do I set goals for my performance? Of course I do. Do I always reach them? Of course I don’t. Do I let it ruin my day? No I don’t. This is something with time and maturity that happens. In 2013 was that different? Yes it was. I was always stressing out and in a piss poor mood following a sub par performance. But what i have realized and learned that being able to participate in The CrossFit Open is an achievement in itself!

As a gym owner/business man I am torn between the positive and negative sides of what The Open brings. As a gym we have a 36% member participation in The Open (I think that is awesome by the way). Being that it is the minority of the people that come to our gym, in reality it wouldn’t hurt us if we didn’t encourage people to participate in it since most people aren’t anyway. But does that mean that those who are not participating aren’t encouraging and pumped for those who are? Of course not. But what that means by not signing up is that people either don’t care about The Open (which is totally fine) or who don’t think they will do well in it and a lot of that comes from the intimidation of The Open regardless if all the workouts are done in house. Does The Open hurt business? This question has rattled around in my head a few times because what we are finding is that people are taking 2-3 days off during the week in anticipation of The Open WOD (maybe they don’t want to be “too sore” for it or they are nervous about it) and in addition, many of those people who aren’t participating in The Open aren’t coming in on Friday (the day we hold The Open workout as our WOD) for whatever reason they have for probably not signing up in the first place. Does this mean we have failed to encourage participation and to rectify a community where The Open is inclusive? In my opinion, it doesn’t. The strength and attitude of our community rivals that of the best CrossFit facilities out there but at the end of the day, The CrossFit Open isn’t felt to be inclusive even with the addition of the scaled division. So as an Owner, I see and value the opinion of the consumers and the non-participants of The Open. The numbers don’t lie and some of the feedback I have received is indicative of that.

Now, as a coach and someone who is looking out for the benefit of our clients/athletes/members I feel that The Open is a great thing despite how I feel as a businessman. Here is why. Recently I watched a video that my business mentor, Chris Cooper of the 3,2,1 Go Project  put out there about “The Joy of Coaching”. In this short video he talks briefly about the “Pursuit of excellence” and how people can get caught up in this. That everyone is always trying to be better and to me as a coach and trainer it is putting the process of achieving goals and the reality that focusing on “what” you want vs “how you got there” needs to be identified. If you are someone who is participating in The Open and get upset about not getting to those 70 reps on 15.4 or not making it through the 2nd round on 15.2 or whatever the case is, it is our job as coaches to educate and teach people that, “Hey, you did great. You couldn’t do a handstand push up 3 weeks ago and you did 12 today!”. So as a coach, I like The Open because it put peoples hard work into perspective. It allows us as coaches to be better at focusing on the “bright spots” of a persons performance and encouraging them that you have done something you have never done before. You cannot have excellence without joy. This is a time for people to feel good about themselves and appreciate the journey they are on. That is the real reason why The Open is great. Thank you Chris for reminding me about this, I really appreciate it!

As I digress, you can see I have several feelings about The Open. At the end of the day, it is hard to please everyone. Better yet, it is impossible to please everyone! But my hope is is that those reading this who have a certain opinion on The Open can see the many different perspectives one might have in the particular position that they are in. Whether you are a Gym owner, a Coach, an Athlete, a Consumer or a spectator, keep an open mind. Encourage Joy and celebrate success and if you can, make The Open more than a competition for people!