If you don't know what the CrossFit Open is, it's a yearly test for athletes, competitors, and regular CrossFit members to compete in 3 workouts over 3 weeks. This “test” is the first of 3 tests to qualify for the CrossFit games. Think of the Games as the super bowl for CrossFit. The open is over. Yes, the best, or worst, time of the year for CrossFit members and affiliates.

I personally love the idea of the open but I know it can be a stressful time or a time of self-doubt. Trust me, I have been there, especially when I didn't do well on a workout. But it's great to see so many members of each gym get together and cheer each other on. No other sport or group really has anything similar, that I've seen. The open allows people of every skill level to join in and see how they can do. For most members, this is the time of year to see if you improved compared to last year.

If you are someone looking to improve your fitness over the course of the next year, there are various routes you can go down. Regardless of which way you choose to go, build up some easy wins and fix the easy things. The easiest thing to fix is your sleep. I’m not saying you need to get 10 hours of sleep and do all this random shit that you see online to improve it. Im saying to try and get better quality sleep. If you improve your quality of sleep you can notice that as early as the next morning!

To improve your fitness I always suggest people get their nutrition in check next. You cannot outwork a bad diet. I don't care who you are or what you do, if you fill yourself with junk you will not be getting the best workouts and recovery. The easiest way to improve your nutrition is to hire a nutrition coach( no this isn't a sales pitch). Nutrition coaches have years of experience and have worked with hundreds of people. They know what works, what doesn't work and know how to get the best long-term results for you. A quality nutrition plan will help you: perform better in and out of the gym, recover better, have more energy for the gym and your life, sleep better and have an overall better mood. Once you get your nutrition in check you'll notice all of the aforementioned benefits and after a couple of months, you'll start to see the physiological changes! Life tip for you: Focus on feeling better and moving better vs looking better 

Once your nutrition is in check you'll want to make sure you are consistently going to the gym. You don't need to go 6 days a week and kill yourself in every wod. But 3-4 consistent days a week can have massive benefits for you. Proper nutrition + a consistent training plan = consistent & long-term progress. At this point in the process, it should be April/May and you should be stacking a lot of wins over the past 1-2 months. You should now be seeing the fruits of your labor. This should be making you want to do more to continue this. I promise you, don’t change anything until you need to. If it aint broke don’t fix it. Continue stacking these wins till you plateau for too long. Between your nutrition coach and the coaches at your box, you should have plenty of support to keep going.

If you've read this far and don't think any of the above applies to you, first off thank you for reading this, please read this paragraph. Be consistent with your training. Try to train at the same time of day and on the same days of the week. This lets your body know when to recover and when to work. Nutrition can be a scary topic to broach, there's so much info out there and you don't know where to start. Just start by adding extra protein to your day. This does not need to be anything drastic, it can be as simple as a protein shake post-workout or a greek yogurt for a snack. This little change done consistently for 2-3 weeks will be huge for you. Remember to change nothing else in your day but add some extra protein to your daily meals/snacks.

We all participate in CrossFit because we find it fun, we love the community and we love trying new things. You don’t need to aim to be a games athlete but you should aim to get a little fitter than last year. None of the above suggestions for you are extreme or drastic. Try them out for 2-3 months and if they didn’t work you can come to yell at me.

Struggling on where to go next?

If you don’t know where to go or want to level up your fitness and nutrition, schedule a free call with me below! I’d love to chat!