Hello Universe! J.J.’s Corner will be a new addition to the Power and Grace blog bringing you topics from the sports side of functional fitness and weightlifting. This is purely an opinion piece by me, J.J.
2017 CrossFit Games Open Review
Dumbbells. The Instagram Photo heard ’round the world.
After verification that Castro was indeed serious, the Open saw it’s biggest change since introducing scaling. It wasn’t just that dumbbells were used instead of barbells, rather it was how they were used. The first two week felt like a different test all together. Just ask the Fittest Man on Earth, who is very used to having single digits next to his finishes. Fraser took 20th and 15th in the first Open events. Each of the following Open workouts had barbells and he finished 3rd, 1st, and 1st. 19 people somewhere on this planet beat Mathew Fraser, who crushed everything from a 7k trail run to double DT at the Games, at an Open workout.
In last week’s podcast, I asked Joe how much the DB’s would effect the leaderboard. He correctly stated that the top athletes would not be effected while those on the fringe could be greatly impacted. Earlier this week I was asked by one on my athletes if any competitor who should have made regionals, didn’t. The phrasing gave me pause. The whole idea of CrossFit as a competition is to find who is the fittest under constantly varied conditions and broad modalities. Outside of cheating, everyone who made regionals should have made regionals. They performed the assigned task and posted a score that placed them in the top 20 (or 10 in some regions). To steal a line from Heath Ledger’s Joker in Dark Knight, “You know the thing about chaos? It’s fair”
With that being said, everyone, including Castro, see’s how predictable the workouts were getting in Open and how this ever so slight of a change caused a little mix up. What does that mean for the future? Yes! Pure Chaos?! Well, no. Continued broadening of movements and structure in Open workouts? You can bet on it. (Who’s ready for handstand walks? 2018 is.)
I’m looking forward to see how creative Castro will be with the regionals this year. Comment on social media what you think we’ll see this May and listen to the latest Power and Grace Radio Episode to find out what we think the new test at the Games will be.