{"id":2726,"date":"2012-02-13T18:03:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/?p=2726"},"modified":"2012-02-13T12:31:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T12:31:16","slug":"should-you-participate-in-the-crossfit-open-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/13\/should-you-participate-in-the-crossfit-open-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Participate in the CrossFit Open Games?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/games.crossfit.com\/\">CrossFit Games<\/a> season is upon us again, but should you participate?<\/p>\n<p>First off if you don&#8217;t know, CrossFit (is one of the fastest growing sports in America according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/sportsmoney\/2011\/07\/22\/crossfits-relationship-with-reebok-enhances-its-financial-and-commercial-credibility\/\">Forbes magazine<\/a>) and the CrossFit Games are a <strong>worldwide open competition that anyone can enter<\/strong>, aimed at finding the Fittest on Earth. Here&#8217;s a quick history:<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zMcEKnFL63g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The latest figures show that CrossFit has 3,400 affiliated <a title=\"CrossFit Boxes in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales\" href=\"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/13\/list-and-map-of-crossfit-affiliates-in-the-uk\/\">CrossFit Gyms<\/a> worldwide now, a massive 60% jump from 2,100 last year, and yet entry for the open is just $20 in the US &amp; Canada, or $10 everywhere else. What&#8217;s on offer, apart from the kudos, is <strong>$1M in prize money!<\/strong> The men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s individual winners each get $250,000 and the rest is spread out amongst 2nd and 3rd, the team events, masters divisions and regional heat winners.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-libby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-libby-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"crossfit-games-libby\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2730\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-libby-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-libby.jpg 395w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>Sign up for the Open and you&#8217;ll get <strong>5 workouts over 5 weeks to do<\/strong>. They are issued on a Wednesday and have to be completed by the Sunday each week. Ideally they should be validated by a registered CrossFit Affiliated gym, or if you can&#8217;t make it to one, by video submission (but you run the risk of disqualification after the fact e.g if your form is bad or you miscounted etc).<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s all well and good if you&#8217;re some major athlete, but <strong>the likes of little old me aren&#8217;t going to stand a chance of winning anything, so what&#8217;s the point?<\/strong> Well let me tell you that I&#8217;ve never entered the CrossFit games, but this year I&#8217;m seriously considering changing that stance, and here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">1) <strong>Community Spirit<\/strong> &#8211; There&#8217;s nothing quite like working towards a common goal to bring people together. One of the major reasons CrossFit is such a success is because people love the community it engenders. If you&#8217;re wanting to make better friends with the people in your gym, entering a competition together will help do that.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-camille-leblanc-bazinet.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-camille-leblanc-bazinet-184x300.jpg\" alt=\"crossfit games camille leblanc bazinet\" title=\"crossfit-games-camille-leblanc-bazinet\" width=\"184\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2731\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-camille-leblanc-bazinet-184x300.jpg 184w, https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/crossfit-games-camille-leblanc-bazinet.jpg 544w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 184px) 100vw, 184px\" \/><\/a>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">2) <strong>Personal Gain<\/strong> &#8211; It&#8217;s useful to have a reason to train in terms of some personal goal, whether that be a sense of pride in performing to your ability, or not wanting a sense of guilt \/ embarrassment at not, it doesn&#8217;t matter. It&#8217;s long been known that publicly saying you&#8217;re going to do something, galvanises the mind and provides extra motivation to do it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">3) <strong>Benchmark Yourself<\/strong> &#8211; Last year some 25,000 people from every possible demographic competed in the games, this year there&#8217;ll be more. You&#8217;ll be able to see exactly how your fitness compares to that of your peers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">4) <strong>Mental Growth<\/strong> &#8211; The Games are designed to test the fitness of the fittest people on earth, and choosing to compete in that environment will put you outside your comfort zone. This is a good thing! Ambulating through life, always feeling cosy and snug and comfortable, is a slow way to dull life. Push yourself occasionally and marvel at your own ability to overcome. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>So even if, like me, you don&#8217;t have any illusions of grandeur, there are still some very good personal and social reasons to participate. I&#8217;m off to sign up, how about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CrossFit Games season is upon us again, but should you participate? First off if you don&#8217;t know, CrossFit (is one of the fastest growing sports in America according to Forbes magazine) and the CrossFit Games are a worldwide open competition that anyone can enter, aimed at finding the Fittest on Earth. Here&#8217;s a quick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1],"tags":[297,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colinmcnulty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}