Tag: CrossFit Games Open 19.5

19.5 is Dumb

Here are my results for the previous workout…

19.4

Open Men: 29,091 / 153,496 (81.0%)
Masters 35-39 Men: 4,653 / 31,148 (85.1%)

Overall

Open Men: 15,389 / 185,449 (91.7%)
Masters 35-39 Men: 2,134 / 37,500 (94.3%)

Having a high skill like bar muscle-ups helped me in that workout. After last year’s terrible 46.6 percentile in 18.2 with bar-facing burpees I worked on the movement all year. So I’m happy that this year’s workout with the burpee was the 81st percentile. Wish I wasn’t injured because I could have done even better. The lower workout ranking didn’t drop me much in either of the overall standings. One more week, so I was looking for a good performance to finish my best Open.

Warm-up

  • 5:00 Assault Bike (40 cals)
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • 10 Air Squats
  • Dead Hang
  • Shoulder Passes
  • Kip Swings
  • Thrusters
    • 5×45#
    • 5×75#
  • 5 Pull-ups

CrossFit Games Open Workout 19.5

33-27-21-15-9

  • Thrusters (95#)
  • C2B Pull-ups

This is the dumbest workout ever programmed in the Open. The majority of people are going to be working for 20 minutes on two movements, which means A LOT of resting. The huge sets to start off don’t do us any favors.

After looking at some of my previous results, it quickly became clear that my goal should be to finish under the time cap. Small sets right from the start and hopefully with short rests. If I don’t go slow at the beginning, I know my heart rate would be way too high by 5:00 and I’d be standing around way too much is the last 75% of the workout, especially if pull-ups blow up.

The plan for thrusters was 6-6-6-5-5-5, 6-6-5-5-5, 6-5-5-5, 5-5-5, 5-4. For pull-ups three at a time as long as possible.

Speaking of strategy… people give some terrible recommendations in posts and videos during the Open. One guy on reddit shares his post every week and he recommended taking your max set of C2B and doing sets of 50% (or more) of that number! For example he said if you can do less than 7 reps, aim for sets of 4 and less than 14 max should do sets of 8!! I don’t care what kind of athlete you are, that’s a one way road to Blow Up City in the round of 33. I really hope these kind of people are not coaches.

The round of 33 went as planned and took me about 5:10. I was even feeling good about my pull-ups. Then it was a shit show. I kept my thruster sets as planned but stared at the barbell too much the rest of the way. I think I did one chest-to-bar triple to start 27 and singles the rest of the way. Wish I had thought to try a regular kip, but I totally spaced on that. Only got through the round of 15s, for 192 total reps. Not a good effort and not how I wanted to end the Open. 😦

19-5

At least my back felt pretty good, but I have to remember that the only time I’ve picked up a barbell in the last 2.5 weeks was 19.4, so the squats probably took more out of me than they should have. Maybe next year I’ll make it through an Open without an injury. My quads were sore within an hour so I think my body is going to be beat for the next few days.

Engine Builder – Interval

4 Rounds

  • 1k Row
  • 1:00 Rest

Figured I might as well get on the rower while watching Duke and see if I could put in a good effort for the day. My goal was to hold a 1:50/500m pace and I pulled it off. Had to really hold on after the second interval. I got 73 calories each interval and the times were 3:39.8, 3:39.7, 3:39.6, and 3:39.7. Can’t get more consistent than that.

Maybe I should have doe