It’s here. The Open is finally here. Don’t panic, we have a plan.
Normally in the blog we discuss what is coming up in the program and how to best approach it. Well now we don’t know what’s coming up. We won’t find out what Friday’s workout is until, well, Friday. So I’ll just glaze over lightly what the start of the week has.
Metcons – Couple of light gassy metcons but nothing designed to mess up your hands or make you too sore. Simply something you can recover from and hit the open hard on either Friday night or Saturday morning.
Deadlift – On Tuesday we will hit a heavy but not a max effort set of three reps. Make sure you move well.
GOAT day – Thursday and Friday classes will be revolving around your GOAT. What’s a goat? It’s CrossFit slang for the movement that most needs work. Which means it’s probably the movement you least like doing. Working on these movements has a few effects.
- It makes you a more well rounded athlete
- It’s probably the biggest thing that if you improve it will make the most amount of difference to your fitness level and how that improves your quality of life.
How does a GOAT session work?
It’s simple. It’s structured as a 20min EMOM. You pick 2 movements and alternate every minute.
Eg – for someone who’s GOAT’s are double unders and snatches
Minute 1 – 30sec of double unders keeping intensity low so you can focus on your position
Minute 2 – 5-10 easy light snatches, again keeping difficulty low so you can really nail it.
Repeat for 20mins
GOAT work is best done at a practice pace not a training pace. That means we keep the intensity low to moderate not high like we would when we train. Practice is about improving skills not driving adaptation in our heart, lungs and muscle cells. You can pick any 2 movements that are specific to you. In fact I want you to pick them now or in the next few days. Come and check in with me or one of the coaches at class and get an idea before Thursday of how you are going to approach it.
Now, let’s begin to structure your week to give you success. First thing is to pick a day to do the Open. Either Friday Evening or Saturday morning.
If you are doing Friday night your week will be; Monday to Thursday attend your usual classes with Thursday being a lower intensity GOAT practice and active recovery session. Do the open Friday night. If you have the time come and do the class workout Saturday morning (6am) before the open session (7:15) starts or have a rest weekend.
If you are doing Saturday morning, your week will be; Monday to Friday Classes. Thursday and Friday will be a GOAT session but Thursday we will make it a 20min huff and puff EMOM and Friday (5:00am, 6:15am and 9:00am only) a lower intensity skills practice and active recovery session. Saturday (7:15) crush the Open workout.
So whichever day you pick we have tried to make sure you can still get in to the gym everyday with something to do. Biggest thing you need to know for the week to come is what movements you want to do come GOAT day.
