beyond the whiteboard

Overview

12.5 is a repeat from last year’s open workout 11.6, so we have a lot of data to look at it. The median last year was 75 reps, which is getting past the Thrusters in the 15s(round 4). The majority of the results are between 60 to 90 reps. The open workouts are ranked using the Standard Competition Ranking.

In competition ranking, items that compare equal receive the same ranking number, and then a gap is left in the ranking numbers. The number of ranking numbers that are left out in this gap is one less than the number of items that compared equal.

For example, if four people tie for second place the third best score will get six points(1,2,2,2,2,6). It stands to reason that getting above 90 reps could dramatically effect your score. For instance, lets say 1000 people get 70 reps and you could 69 reps. Although they did one more rep than you did, you will have 1000 points added to your score(lower score is better). So if you are shooting for 80…get 91. Also, we are confident everyone will do better this year than last year, because CrossFit is amazing like that.

CrossFit Journal

Pull-up

• Teaching the Pull-up to a Large Group: Part 1
• Teaching the Pull-up to a Large Group: Part 2
• Crash Course: The Butterfly Kip
• The Quest for 100 Pull-ups
• Better Movements: The Jerk and the Kipping Pull-up
• Pullup Challenge
• Assistance for Bodyweight Exercises
• Two Training Aids
• Midline Stabilization Part 3: The Pull-up
• Kipping Pull-up Progression
• Swingers and Kippers
• The Pullup
• Kipping Pullups
• Kipping Pull-Ups with Jeff Tucker
• Kipping Pull-ups for New Clients

Thruster

• The Thruster: Instruction in India
• The Moves

Mobility WOD

Gymnastics WOD

Check out a list of videos from Carl Paoli for last year’s prep.

Butterfly

2008, 2009 and 2011 Games Competitor Jeremy Kinnick has a great video on learning the butter fly kip.

Spread the butter..fly

Efficiency Tips: Pull-ups” with Chris Spealler: wmv, mov, HDmov

Thruster

Via Again Faster

2011′s Amazing Programming Went Unnoticed

In my opinion The CrossFit Open is the most difficult CrossFit Competition to program for. Unlike the Regionals and Games, there isn’t an understood expectation of talent. For example, athletes at the Regional level can handle a high load/reps of olympic and gymnastics movements. Games athletes are expected to handle, well, everything and anything. I was really impressed by the 2011 CrossFit Open. In fact, I think many people overlooked how well the workouts were designed.

Scaling

In 2011 all the workouts had time limits that ranged from 5 to 20 minutes. Also, all of the workouts were easy enough for most people to get some type of score, but hard enough for stronger athletes to separate themselves. Thus, I doubt the workouts will be super heavy. However, they will be heavy enough where scoring high will require a solid amount of strength and endurance. This is one of those it sounds easy but is actually really hard to do workouts. Below is a graph of the results from CrossFit Open 11.1. The distribution of results show how most people were able to do a few rounds, but only a few people were able to really well.

Regional Worthy Threshold

This was the most impressive part of the 2011 Open programming. Although making workouts that everyone can attempt is a big priority, the main priority is setting a threshold for Regional worthy athletes. It turns out, HQ thought of a genius solution. The most technical movements over the 6 weeks were Muscle Ups and Overhead Squats. They were put towards the end of a workout, where the people who were fit enough to get to them were probably able to perform them. For example, The Week 4 workout was a 10 minute AMRAP of 60 Bar-facing burpees, 120 pound Overhead squat, 30 reps and 10 Muscle-ups. The burpees took a good chunk of time for most people, however the more fit athletes were able to move through them quick and attempt the overhead squats and muscle-ups. The Regional worthy athletes put up anywhere between a 1 to 1.5 rounds. However, as long as you could do one bar facing burpee you had a valid score for the workout. In short, genius.

Equipment, Video and Judging

Around 50,000 people will be participating in the open which means we aren’t seeing any high-end(comparatively) equipment during the open. Also, all of the workouts have to be easily recorded and can’t be too difficult to judge.

What I Doubt We Will See

• Row
• GHD-Sit Ups
• Back Extension
• Rope Climb
• Swimming
• Run(unless it’s a shuttle run which I’d like to see)
• Basically anything you can’t do out of your garage.
• Push-Ups(mainly because I think everyone can’t help but cheat when they get tired and it’s really hard to judge)
• Air Squat(hard to judge)
• Ring Dips

Good Probability

• Pull-ups
• Ground To Overhead
• Dead-lifts
• Double Unders
• Bar Facing Burpees(not normal ones and I pray not burpee box-jumps)
• Wall Balls
• Toes To Bar
• Power Cleans
• Box Jumps
• Thrusters
• Squat Clean

Regional Threshold Movements

• Muscle Ups
• Overhead Squat
• Handstand Push-ups

My Random, Gut Is Saying, List

I have no real reason other than thinking it would be cool to see these

• Shuttle Runs
• Lunges(Alternating Lunges)
• KettleBell
• Fight to The Death With Random Stranger

While researching CrossFit workouts Corey ran across an interesting turn of events. Jon and I, being the CrossFit junkies we are, went way too far into the matrix.

May 12th, 2004

Posted on/for Lynne Pitts’ (old school CrossFitter) birthday.

August 5th, 2004

This workout was very similar to a previous workout. Lynne killed it, even claiming, “At last, the WOD-God has smiled on me…”

The New Girls(November 2004)

Linda is listed as the “L” Girl workout in the “New Girls” journal article. Note, at this point, Lynne (the workout not the person), doesn’t officially exist.

Lynne (April 8th, 2005)

A hybrid of the previous workouts is now called “Lynne”. Long time CrossFitter and affiliate owner, Ahmik Jones, refers a previous WOD (most likely 08/04) as “Lynne”, although this is the first mention of it on Main Site.

Helen, with 16,486 posts, has recently passed Cindy, 15,707 posts, to become the second most performed CrossFit workout. Let’s figure out why.

If you’ve been with us for a while now, you might’ve browsed our workout collection a few times and noticed a strict hierarchy of workouts based on popularity. Fran has led the way from the very beginning, and rightfully so. It’s certainly the most iconic CrossFit workout and, often times, is used as an introduction to the ever-growing strength and conditioning program. The rest of the top ten consists of the usual suspects: Filthy Fifty, Fight Gone Bad, The CrossFit Total, Angie. Since BTW’s inception, Cindy has held the distinction of the second most popular workout (which is pretty huge considering it is unlikely Fran will ever be dethroned), that is, until Helen recently surpassed it.

What Makes Them Different

Helen, for most people, is a full on sprint(or attempt at one), while cindy is a hard grind for 20 minutes. In fact, Cindy is deceivingly tough, because most people can’t go hard for 20 minutes with proper form.

Personal Standpoint

I find it a tad shocking.  If I had the choice between doing Cindy or Helen, I’d choose Cindy at least 7 times out of 10.  My reasoning?  It’s simple, period. It can be completed within a 5 ft radius, you can do all of it indoors, and, perhaps most important of all, it doesn’t have an ounce of running.  I’m not the biggest fan of running, and I know for a fact that is a sentiment I share with many people.  So what does it all mean?

CrossFIt HQ (Main Site)

Is it possible CrossFit HQ feels the same way?  When looking at the frequency in which the two WODS have been assigned over the past couple of years, it wouldn’t appear so.  Since January 2008, Helen has showed up on the main site 9 times, while Cindy has made a whopping 14 appearances.  Therefore we can’t attribute the higher number of Helen posts to HQ.  This is 100% a result of the community.

CrossFit Attitude?

Perhaps it’s an indicator of CrossFitters’ willingness to work on their weaknesses (ie. running). Makes sense.  It aligns perfectly with the CrossFit mentality.  As people become more and more aware of the CrossFit way, Helen has been thrown into the mix more and more.  Maybe it’s a result of popular coverage.  We’ve all seen the famed OPT Sub 7 Min Helen video.  That’s not to say Cindy doesn’t have a lot of videos out there.  Quite the contrary actually.  But how many 30 round Cindy’s have you seen?  Probably a lot.  Sub 7 Helens are few and far between, which gives it that little something special.  Also, so many Cindy videos seem filled with shoddy push-up and air squat standards that the workout seems to have lost its luster over the years.

Bottom line, it’s great to see the community evolving along with the site.  We realize the existence of popular CrossFit workouts, but lets not forget one of the most important CrossFit elements…constant variation!

Feel free to hit me up on twitter @jake_mannion. Ask us questions about anything via twitter(@btwb) and our Facebook Fan Page.

We just passed the 100 results mark for the first CrossFit Open workout, and thought we would share some quick analysis. The bulk of results, around 26%, are between 4-4.9 rounds. Bobby Noyce, a solid beyond the whiteboard user and athlete at CrossFit 515, has the the top result with 8.5333 rounds (all the double unders and one power snatch in the last round). Bobby averaged a little over a minute for each round. I anticipate the top scores being very close, where a few reps will separate many ranks. In short, it’s going to be a fun week!

Remember to register and post your results on the CrossFit Games site. You can also register as a fan to view, judge and comment on results.