Are you drinking the Kool-Aid yet?
This week’s CrossFit Open Testimonials are focused on the competitive minds and even those who may not be….yet.
Have you been curious to jump in on a CrossFit competition but the whole concept is intimidating? Or maybe you never thought about a CrossFit competition but there is something in you that is craving a way to test your skills? The CrossFit Open is a perfect way to get a taste for what a competition would feel like. You will have a judge counting your reps, the energy is INSANELY higher, the race against the clock is more intense, pushing yourself beyond your daily WODs goes farther.
And the feeling of leaving it all the floor, hitting a new PR, going past the point when your mind says, “let’s just quit”, just maaaaaay ignite a fire in you that you have been looking for or didn’t realize was already there ready to burn.
As humans it’s easy to become complacent and go through the motion’s day to day, but we weren’t designed that way. We were made to do more, be better, grow, learn, chase something all the time.
But sometimes that “thing” that is going to challenge you, the “thing” to chase that will give you something to work for, it’s hard to find.
Guess what though???? Showing up every day at Iron legion is that side of you that is striving to be better in one way or another, whether physical, mental, or emotional and the CrossFit Open is that one time a year you can test and push yourself and everything you have been putting into the gym for 365 days.
Here are two Iron legion members, both who love to compete and push themselves every day inside and outside the gym. Take a peek at what they have to say about the Open being a place to dive into setting new goals and fulfilling that competitive voice you may be hearing.
Meet Sammy Toby
“Hi! My name is Samuel (Sammy) Toby and I am 23 years old. I have been doing CrossFit for 1 year and 5 months. I’ve actually never done the Open until last year when I did it through the gym. I participated in the CrossFit Open teams done at Iron Legion. But this year will be the first time participating through Crossfit.com. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing me to participate last year, there’s not a lot of pressure since you are competing mainly against people that you don’t know and can’t see. And at the gym it was fun for everyone to get involved. Mainly, I got excited to be involved but as a realist and someone relatively new to the sport, I knew what I could and couldn’t do and that tapered my “excitement” for some of the workouts last year. But overall, it was a fun experience the way the gym made it and this year I believe I will officially do it!!
I would say the open pushed me to set some goals after the embarrassment of not being able to do some movements. For example, I had spent plenty of time working on bar muscle ups and I was all excited to get to perform well during that workout. However, double unders, a relatively easy skill and not time-consuming movement ruined the workout for me and made me want to make sure I was never that far away from average on any movements. I still am, and I know what movements they are, and I work on them frequently to not run into that scenario again. But eventually one will haunt me again, I’m sure.
There’s not a whole lot to worry about! You can’t really “lose” as long as you give it your best for the duration of the workout. And then you get to see how you do against yourself every year. And feelings on not doing it long enough… if you plan on sticking around, doing it now would be great. That way you can see how far you’ve come in a relatively short period of time, as soon as just one year.”
-Samuel Toby
Meet Renee Boyer
“Hi! my name is Renee Boyer and I am 36 years old. I have been doing CrossFit for about 8 years and the first time I did the open was my first year of doing CrossFit. I decided to do the Open because everyone in the gym was doing it and I’m pretty competitive. It wasn’t something I ever really was nervous about doing because I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Afterwards though, it definitely made me want to work on my skills so the next open I could complete everything RX.
The Friday night lights at the gym were packed with members cheering you on! It motivated me to push myself and again work on my skills for the next year!
If I knew someone was unsure about doing the open because they “weren’t competitive” or felt that they had to wait to be doing CrossFit longer to participate I would just tell them that at the end of the day – it’s just a good workout!”
-Renee Boyer