The first week of the Open is over! And everyone at Market Town CrossFit absolutely smashed it.
Plenty of people surprised themselves with their scores, and we’re so proud of the effort put forward by everyone involved.
But what next? How do you improve your score on a workout like that?
First things first, it’s time to look at your burpees.
Trust us when we say that you can’t get quicker on a workout like this without changing the way you see burpees.
Burpees are only as bad as you make them. Of course, there’s a caveat to that.
Yes, technically speaking, you are diving to the floor and standing up again. Moving your body weight around that quickly over and over again will take its toll.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t reframe how you view them.
You’d be surprised by the power of one’s mind. Thinking that you hate burpees or that you can’t go fast with them is the biggest part of your problem.
We know it’s easy to say “just start liking them.” Most people will scoff and scorn at that, and we totally get it!
But you’ll start to notice almost an immediate difference if you just tell yourself:
And very quickly, you’ll see just how impactful a slight shift in your mindset can be.
Of course, the weight was a big limiter for a lot of us. And that was almost certainly by design on CrossFit’s part.
If you were one of those people who rarely gets their hands on the 22.5/15kg dumbbells and found yourself slowing down in this workout because of it, don’t worry! You’re not alone.
The easiest way to improve something like this is to keep showing up and putting the work in.
It will take time, but your strength will improve by default. As long as you keep putting the hours into your training, showing up to class, and listening to cues and feedback, you’re on the right track.
Just because you might have had to scale this year doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to do the same next year or the year after.
And for those of you who can lift the weight but might not feel too quick or comfortable doing so, we recommend you keep pushing yourself to use the heavier dumbbells when it makes sense for the workout.
Talk to your coach if you need advice as to when you should push to those heavier weights. The more touches you get on the dumbbell, the easier it’ll become to move around!
There’s not much that needs to be said here! After all, most people can already do some form of a bodyweight lunge!
But if you want advice to improve, we recommend counting your steps next time.
The 15-foot distance was completable by most people (tall or short) in 5 steps. So, it would’ve been beneficial for you to count out those 5 steps to ensure your lunges are as repeatable as possible.
Any deviation from the 5 steps could cause problems for the rest of your workout. Doing 6 or 7 might only seem like a few extra steps, but you could very easily put yourself into a big deficit later down the line by not paying attention to it.
Hands up for those who have been told off by their coach for going out too hot in a workout!
Okay, you can put your hand down now (we know you all raised them).
Learn your paces to get better at workouts like this.
The sooner you know how long burpees take you, how long the dumbbell movement takes, and how long you can spend on lunges, the sooner you can start improving your scores.
Different people will be able to hold different paces.
One athlete’s easy might be another athlete’s hard! It’s all about figuring out how to move according to your own body’s ability.
But specifically for this workout, we recommend a slow and steady pace.
When you go slow and steady in a 15-minute AMRAP like this, you can always build your pace later if you’d like to.
However, if you go out too hard early on, it’s nearly impossible to choose to slow yourself down without the workout deciding that it’s going to do it for you.
It’s always better for you to remain in control of the flow of a workout rather than letting the workout be in control of you.
As with any improvement in sports and fitness, the best way to get a better score is to practice.
Were the burpees too slow for you? Did you find the dumbbell too heavy or clunky? Did you speed through your lunges and miss out on the recovery aspect?
Whatever the case might be, it’s worth practicing the things you think you need to work on.
The more you practice your weaknesses, the easier it’s going to be for you to smash workouts like these.
And that's about all you need to know before you tackle a workout like 25.1 again!
Just take it one day at a time and keep showing up. Try to change the way you view the "nasty" things like burpees! And you'll be surprised by how quickly you'll improve.
