For the next 5 weeks I will be competing in the Crossfit open. Its the largest fitness competition in the world with last year over 209,000 athletes competing. The aim of the open is to find the fittest “man and women on earthâ
There are hundreds of thousands of competitors from all over the world competing and you get to submit your scores and see how you compete.
Can they truly be called the fittest man or women on earth?
Well as with any sport that gets this large and popular it does favour professionals at this sport who become specialised at this sport rather than just pure randomised fitness, it still is by far the best overall judge of fitness across a vast array of challenges in the world. As it takes into account, endurance, speed, strength & power.
So how does the crossfit open work?
There are 5 workouts in total, each workout will be released individually in 1 week intervals. The competitors then have from thursday until monday to complete the workout (in front of a qualified judge at a crossfit box), and submit their scores.
The top 50 athletes in Europe then go on to compete at the european regionals, with the top 3 from this event going on to compete in the crossfit games with the other athletes from around the world to decide who is the fittest man and women on earth with a prize of $275,000 for the male and female winner.
What makes the open good fun:
Its a tough challenge and each time you submit a score you can then see where your score ranks you on the leaderboard and compare yourself to friends, across europe and the world.
You need no weaknesses, so if your training for the open you must work on becoming a well rounded athlete. This forces people to strengthen areas they would usually ignore and ultimately fixes chronic faults a lot of people would other wise just carry on ignoring and suffering from.
This is my third year competing and I am the most capable I have have been at all the movements. I am feeling fit but not crossfit specific fit at the moment as I have been focusing on loads of different fitness challenges like rugby and running. So it will be great to see how I will score.
Ultimately its so much fun competing in this event with the massive crossfit community worldwide, locally and at our box.
By Duncan Boltt
