The Open is Over, Now What?: By Head Coach Paul Roller

You Made It

You survived the 2018 Cross Training Open! Congratulations 🙂

As we are beginning the first step of preparing for 2019, it should be a time of reflection for you. What did you learn? Did you enjoy the process of the Open? Or did it drag along for you? Are you motivated to work on your weaknesses for next year? Or do you just want to have fun in the Open and not care so much about your performance?

Now that I have you thinking, I want to discuss how you should reflect on your experience and how you can use your BK Fit membership to improve your ranking for next year.

How To Effectively Reflect 

The first thing you should do to create an accurate picture of your performance from this year is to assess both your effort AND your execution of each workout. This is completely separate from the score you achieved and only has to do with YOU. Did you give your 100% full effort on 18.1 or could you have picked up the DB a few seconds sooner? How about squeaking out one more pullup on 18.5? Run through every aspect of every workout in your head and ask yourself that question.

Execution refers to your plan, pacing and any mistakes you made along the way. Did you break too soon? Maybe you came out of the gate way too hot and burned yourself out. All of these things play a HUGE role in the outcome of your season. Sometimes you have to slow down to get a better score, sometimes you just have to try harder. Reflecting in this way will allow you to determine what kind of effort and focus you need to have moving into the upcoming training year. A well thought out plan won’t get you anywhere if you give sub-par effort. And vice versa; giving your best effort to a bad plan will only run you into a roadblock.

Once you figure out your effort and execution levels, then you can determine what your limiters were on each workout. Did your heart rate blow up first on 18.2 or was it your legs burning from the DB squats? Did the HSPU standard stop you in your tracks or was the deadlift too heavy? Write these things down as they will be your priorities this year – being bad at them doesn’t have to last forever! If you dedicate more time and effort into improving them, they will get better!

Lastly, you can check the leaderboard to determine whether where you ended up is where you wanted to be. This is the aspect you have the least amount of control over due to things like other athletes being fitter than you, workouts that suited different types of individuals, playing the leaderboard game, etc. Because of this, you shouldn’t put a whole lot of stock into that single number that you receive when the Open is over. That number does not define you. You are a product of your effort and execution, not because Mat Fraser is freakishly good at everything. However, you can use that number for motivation for next year!

I Know Where I Stand, Now What? 

Now is the perfect time to make a plan for next year and to start the work! The things that you determined are your weaknesses from your reflection should become your priorities moving forward. I would guess you don’t like working on them (who likes doing things they’re bad at?), but guess what? There’s only one way to improve them! Make it a point to be in class anytime one of those weaknesses pop up and in no time they’ll become a strength for you.

Besides addressing these things in class, the coaches at BK Fit can help you separately as well! We have private training, private programming, and private nutrition coaching available to you, not to mention our vast array of different classes that focus on certain aspects of training. Cardio your limiter? Take Interval or Rowing class 2x per week. Olympic lifting your weak point? Make sure you’re here on Tuesdays. You get the point.

Whatever you need to work on, we have an avenue you can go down to improve it, just ask! Now is the time to eliminate weaknesses because as the Open rolls around again, it’s then time to fine tune everything. Don’t get left in everyone else’s dust next Open, put in the work now and during the summer!

The Open is a fun time of year when we celebrate community, fitness and see what our bodies are capable of. It’s also a very eye-opening time that may surprise you about where you stand versus your peers. Now that you know how to assess your performance, take the time to do so and chart a course for next year and crush it!