Seasoned CrossFitters love referring to “the Open” but many newcomers may still not know what they’re talking about…
If you’re new to this then let us explain what is going on…
The CrossFit Open is a worldwide online competition. It’s held each year by CrossFit HQ through their online platform and is the first stage for anyone wanting to compete in the CrossFit Games. Each week one workout is released and athletes have 4 to 5 days to complete it.
Athletes who wanted to make it to Sanctionals or Regionals or the Games needed to qualify through the Open. This requirement was what made the Open so special: regardless of their fitness level people from all over the globe could compete against each other and compare their score to those of the elitès of the sport.
We don’t know of another sport that let’s everyone everywhere see how they stack up against, not only each other, but the world’s best.
Almost no other sport has an event that allows for a competition that is open to everyone, hence the name.
When is the Crossfit Open 2021?
The Open starts March 11th.
The Open has historically been held during or around the months of February and March.
After the drastic changes made to CFHQ in March of 2020 the new CEO of Crossfit, Eric Roza, announced his plan to bring back the Open dates to February from October.
Historically the Open has lasted 5 weeks with a lot of CrossFit gyms using a Friday Night Lights format to create mini events at their gyms. 2020 and 2021 have been crazy years and with that there have been some changes…
This year, the Open is only 3 weeks long before there will be cuts. So everyone regardless of fitness level can do the first three weeks and then the top 10% in each division moves on to their next stage (which all fall on different weekends).
In previous years we’ve seen massive energy for three weeks and a bit of a lull in week four before people pick themselves up for week five – this year that’s been taken out of the equation and those who enter for fun have just three weeks to focus on.
This year there is also a division that has been designed to cater to those people who are living in a country where gyms aren’t open or who are isolating – the no equipment division. This way everyone can participate regardless of how much equipment they do or don’t have available to them.
How can you participate in the CrossFit Open?
The sign up process is on www.games.crossfit.com and it’ll cost you just $20 to get your name on the leaderboard along with hundreds of thousands of other people just like you from all over the world.
The Open is meant to be an event focused on bringing people together as a community as well as providing a snapshot of your current fitness level. We know that this year for us it will be less about bringing people together than letting people get a metric of where they currently are and find out what needs work if they want to move up the leaderboard next year.
Regardless of who you are, or how fit you are right now, we’d encourage all of the SCFIT members to sign up and see where they’re at right now and bring some sense of normalcy to 2021!