That’s a wrap!! The OPEN has come and gone again. Whoooosh!
As expected, we witnessed an amazing community of members coming together for 5
weeks to take on the unknown world of the OPEN –new movements, challenges, feats,
all while discovering our power and ultimately, reaching our potential.
The OPEN is more than just workouts; it is a time to reflect, reset and look forward to
new goals and set intentions for our fitness. This year we had a lot of first time AIO
athletes come out to showcase a year’s worth of hard work and put their gains to the
test week by week.
There were so many victories during the 5 weeks from people achieving their first bar
muscle-ups, chest-to-bars, lifting heavier weights than before and just as impressive,
discovering a new mindset of what they are capable of doing.
What made this OPEN so special was those victories, whether you felt them personally,
physically, mentally or even emotionally. It was that experience of sharing these kinetic
victories together. None of those PRs would matter as much if we didn’t have each
other, our truly caring and inspiring community, to share them with.
So thank you for that. You made the loving energy within these walls palpable and infectious.
This year we introduced the inaugural AIO OPEN INTRAMURALS, where 4 teams
(Team Xochil, Team Carlo, Team Tom and Team Doug) came together every week to
face the Open challenge together and to share strategies, social media posts and most
importantly, to encourage one another.
Yes, it was competitive but more notably, it was so much fun!! We moved our ego aside
to cheer on our fellow teammate/member because we all know what a final round of
burpees feels like or mustering up energy to lift that weight off the floor. That’s what
CrossFit is, community. Take from these 5 weeks what you learned about yourself and
put your goals into practice to improve your movement and prepare for life’s next challenges.
The transformation that happens during the 5 weeks is where we step inside ourselves and
flip a switch to actually find our courage and come alive. We are so proud of each of you
for being vulnerable and for pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Let’s keep this
wheel turning and focus our training for October 2019 when the season begins all over again!!!
Now for some particular highlights from this Open. 19.1 saw a devastating couplet of
wall balls and rowing. We saw a lot of our athletes put their lungs and legs to the test
during this grueling workout. Coach Carlo led his team to victory with an amazing score
of 7 rounds and 10 Wall balls.
Week 2 saw us redo an infamous wod with a time cap of 8 minutes to complete a triplet
of toes-to-bar, double-unders and squat cleans. We had some seriously heavy weight
thrown around and witnessed several PR cleans from Adam, Tiffany and Shirley.
19.3 was the introduction of 2 new movements to the CrossFit OPEN: the DB box step-
up and the Strict HSPU. We saw our athletes push to the limit and be rewarded with
their first HSPU. A warm shout out to our PR athletes for Wod 3: Carlo, Xochil, AIOtis,
Cathy and Vanessa.
Wod 4 was another nasty workout, with snatches, bar-facing burpees and bar muscle-
ups. This unique workout introduced a rest period of 3 minutes which challenged many
athletes game plan strategies. So many muscle-up and pull-up PRs happened for AIO
athletes in 19.4. We witnessed Amelia, Sammy, Rachel, Cathy, Lynn all achieve new
heights.
Week 5 will go down (in my opinion) as the toughest mental wod from the 5 weeks. A
long couplet of thrusters and C2B pull-ups that tore out a piece of everyone’s soul.
Few finished the workout and many tried to take down this 210 rep monster in under 20
minutes.
Some personal memories for me was overseeing the 1st ever AIO Open Intramurals
which was a great enjoyment as I tallied scores and watched teams rally for each other.
I was also fortunate to observe first hand PRs, emotional triumphs and for many, watch
self-doubt melt away. The fact that so many of you attempted your first RX workouts
during the Open was incredible. Kudos for the effort. Those were undoubtedly tough
weight/rep schemes.
Keeping track of all the Instagram posts with our hashtag of #CFAIOOpen2019 was also
amazing because so many of you got involved. Clearly, Otis, Sammy and Amelia are
social media giants, posting multiple times throughout the 5 weeks! We want to thank
everyone who took the time to share these memories on their social media. You help
spread that incredible energy outside our walls.
Another highlight for me was watching Susan Bandler rank 1st overall in her age group
through 3 weeks. Susan’s get-after-it attitude, and endless persistence is inspiring.
Susan reminds us that age is only a number and keeping fit is vital to keeping young,
strong and beautiful.
Lastly, we would like to celebrate our very own Sarah Proll for qualifying to the next
stage of the CrossFit Games season and moving on to the online qualifier for Masters
Women (40-44) with an overall finish of 79th in the WORLD!!!
We are very lucky to have such an amazing community of supportive, like-minded
individuals who came together this year to celebrate achievements in the sport of
fitness. Take all your achievements, PRs, accomplishment and apply them to your
training. We will see you in October for 19.6!!!!!!
Coach Joe
