Registration for The 2017 Open goes live tonight so the 2017 season feels real now. It’s like only yesterday we did that last burpee over the bar and eventually felt that rare mix of emotions. Elated that we’d finished that gargantuan task. Pride in our accomplishments and those of our teammates. And a little bit of wistfulness that it was all over. But now it’s here it’s time to start speculating on what the 2017 season will bring!
New Movements
2014 introduced the Concept 2 Rower.. 2015 gave us a standard for handstand push ups. 2016 we had Overhead Lunges AND Bar Muscle Ups!
2017 should see something new. Our top three predictions are:
- Handstand Walking: The overhead lunges were a test of movement and overhead stability. Handstand walking, possibly the most bitched about element of the sport, has been around since 2011 so at some point it needs to enter The Open, right? Use the same 25′ distance as 2016’s Lunges with 5′ increments. The scale can be wall walks. (Standard: Bottom of the push up to hands 3′ from the wall and back out again.)
- Pistols: Is depth harder to measure on this movement than any other squat? For video qualification standards they could require 10 on one side then 10 on the other side, with the squatting leg closest to the camera.
- Assault Bike: If not this year then 2018. These are becoming increasingly popular in competitive exercise and like the rower 3 years ago, it’s become an imperative piece of kit for a gym. To make it easier on affiliate owners, the workout could be short (6 minutes) or the Assault Bike could be the start of the workout, like the rowing erg was used in 14.4
Repeat Workouts
2016’s Open workouts were balanced tests. You didn’t leave one thinking it was just for the gymnast or the strongman or the cardio monkey. With only 5 tests to get athletes to Regionals, we suspect this will continue. So really any of 2016 Open workouts could be the repeat, along with either of these two bad boys.
15.5
27-21-15-9 reps for time of:
Row (calories)
Thrusters
14.4
MEN – includes Masters Men up to 54 years old
Complete as many rounds and repetitions as possible in 14 minutes of:
60-calorie row
50 toes-to-bars
40 wall-ball shots, 20 lb. to 10-foot target
30 cleans, 135 lb.
20 muscle-ups
What Else?
Castro & Glassman understand this sport at a deep level. We don’t think we’ll see any one test like 15.1a again as it biases towards one component, instead of integrated fitness. We will probably see a new format or rep scheme that we haven’t predicted, and afterwards it will be obvious to use it as a test.
At Least 60% of These Predictions Will Be Wrong
As fun as it is to predict the trends in this sport, what makes it so exciting is not knowing what we’ll see every Thursday night during March. We’ll pray for our favourite only for them to come after our worst movement. We’ll curse Castro out of it only to afterwards thank him for the test and the opportunity to grow. We’ll think about quitting a million times only to be pulled through by our team mates. We’ll get our ass handed to us in the workout that the Games athletes made look so effortless the night before.
But we’ll surprise ourselves too. We’ll finally get that first chest to bar or handstand push ups or PR our clean and jerk after a million burpees. And then we’ll kick back, delighted with ourselves, await Regionals and start planning how we’re going to get better for 2018.
Go to games.crossfit.com to register!