Crossfit Open 24.2 Tips

Alright ladies and gentlemen! 24.2 of the CrossFit Games open has been announced!

Unfortunately for some of you, the movement patterns that will be asked of you are very similar to last week. We are rowing, we are hinging, and in the form of a deadlift, and we are spinning that rope for double unders this week. The overall approach here needs to be similar to putting your hand in warm water. When you pace this workout appropriately, the water will steadily heat and steadily build in intensity and finally, within that last 5 minute window, you will be completely uncomfortable but able to hold on and withstand the heat that has been created from your pace and your execution thus far. The biggest mistake in this workout that we can expect will be that people step into water too hot! That means that they'll grow too fast, transition too quickly, their pace will falter and their double unders will fall to pieces in the middle of the workout–causing them more time and more energy and an overall poor output. Don't be that person! Be the person who paces just right and then, in the latter five minutes, looks back saying I hit a home run! 

Pacing the row is going to take a lot of self-awareness. Elite level athletes will pace between a 1 minute and 40 second per 500 split to a 1 minute and 50 second per 500 split with the female window being 5 to 10 seconds slower than that. The key thing to understand in pacing the row is that although it takes a tremendous amount of energy to speed up the ropes by 10 seconds, the reward is not as big in regards to overall time saved in transitions in the workout. So you really must make some hard choices on the pace you will start with and navigate how to dictate that pace in the later rounds–of course, coupling and considering the deadlifts and the double-unders.

For elite level athletes, the deadlifts don't just need to be done unbroken, but they need to be done at an extremely fast pace with well executed techniques so that they get no reps taken away by standing all the way up every repetition. The everyday athlete may be in a crux and be forced to choose whether they want to break them up into sets of 5-6-4 or 4-3-3. The key on cycling the barbell needs to be on what is tolerable for you for the long run. Again, just because you can does not mean that you should when it comes to making choices, especially in a workout that goes beyond 15 minutes. It is important to think far out in the time domain so that you can be prepared for the fatigue that will build through the intensity that you put forth. When it comes to double unders, if it is something that you struggle with or are still learning to master, it is strongly encouraged to plan when and how to break up the reps of 50. This means that some people will opt to take a break halfway intentionally and then finish the reps. This could also mean that some people intentionally choose to break their sets into 5 sets of 10 reps.

The elites will choose to go unbroken, but what we didn't see from Colten Mertens and Justin Medeiros was grip fatigue that will hit the vast majority of us–and that will affect how we spin the rope. We often take for granted watching elite athletes execute any workout, especially as smoothly as these two men did, and forget that there is hidden fatigue that exists and lies on the other side of the fence for us mere mortals. Plan for your grip to be fatigued and plan for this to force you to jump slightly higher and spin the ropes slightly slower than you do early in the workout. When you plan for this and understand what is happening, it will help you adapt on the fly and continue to hold your pace.

24.2 is a workout that can be repeated, but I'm not sure that it is necessary to complete it all the way for 20 minutes and then repeat again. I think a smart choice if you want to demo part of this workout, is to experience 8 to 12 minutes, understand how your pacing slows and what changes or even how the rope responds to the sets that you choose and the pace that you choose on the rower and then take a full run at it after having that practice under your belt (if you are someone who prefers to run through the workouts more than once). The greatest overlooked aspect of this 20-minute test is the focus that it will take to have a high score. There will be several transitions and those are simply opportunities to either gain time or lose time. If you move without intention from the rower to the barbell, or from the barbell to the rope, and most importantly from the rope to the rower, you will lose precious time that accumulates and your score will not match the fitness capacity that you just made the effort to show. Be sure to get the body prepped and warm–especially the posterior chain, glutes, hamstrings and lower back prior to taking a shot at this long open test.

Tissue prep/ static stretching: 

1:00 foam roll low + mid back

1:00 quad smash each leg

1:00 hamstring smash each leg

1:00 glute smash each leg

1:00 forearm smash (foam roller against wall, arm behind back against foam roller) each

+

1:00 Couch stretch each leg

1:00 Pigeon stretch each leg

1:00 forearm stretch

(Dynamic) Warm Up: 

20 Jumping jack

10 Toe touch + reach overhead

3 rounds

__________

3 Inch worm

6 Scorpion

8 Spiderman

20-30 Double Unders

3 rounds

__________

100m Row

5 Light to moderate deads (build each round to load for 24.2)

10-30 Double Unders

3 rounds not for time but quality and practice

Primer: 

This is where you want to attack just like you will in the test! Focus on fast transitions and pacing on each movement as you must maximize downtime. It will allow you to select a more casual / sustainable pace on the rower. 

__________

150m row at intended WOD pace

6 Deadlifts

25 Double Under (or scale)

2 rounds for time.

Rest 3:00-5:00

Go time!

RX:

As many rounds and reps as possible in 20 minutes of:

300-meter row
10 deadlifts 
50 double-unders

♀ 125 lb (56 kg)
♂ 185 lb (83 kg)

Intermediate: 

As many rounds and reps as possible in 20 minutes of:

300-meter row
10 deadlifts 
50 double-unders/single-unders

♀ 95 lb (56 kg)
♂ 135 lb (83 kg)

Baseline:

As many rounds and reps as possible in 20 minutes of:

150-meter row
10 deadlifts 
30 single-unders

♀ 55 lb (56 kg)
♂ 75 lb (83 kg)

Cool Down: 

10:00 easy bike or Walk

Foam roll: 

• Low back

• Glutes

• Quads

• Hamstrings

• Forearms