The Open is the largest community event of the year for CrossFitters where hundreds of thousands compete against one another in an online competition. It’s stage one in qualifying for the CrossFit Games.

What even is The Open?

Five workouts are released on Thursdays at 5 p.m. PT over the course of five weeks, and anyone who’s signed up at Games.CrossFit.com has four days to complete the workout and log their scores each week. The workouts are completed at a CrossFit affiliate with a judge, or are submitted via a recorded video.

There are two versions of every workout: scaled and Rx’d, and this is why it’s a community event – it’s for everyone. AFter the workout is announced, participants pick either the scaled or the RX’d workout and compare their results to others in their category all over the world, inside their region, in their age group, and inside their own gyms.

After five weeks is up, the fittest move into the next stages. Masters and Teens are invited to complete online, and the RX athletes go on to complete regionally before the top dogs move on to The Games.

So, what was the first workout?

18.1 is a 20 Min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:

• 8 toes to bar
• 10 dumbbell hang clean to overhead (5 on each arm, 22.5 kg for men, 15 kg for women)
• 14/12 calories on the rower (14kcal for men,12kcal for women)

Toes To Bar

Hanging from a rig or pull-up bar, with arms fully extended and feet off the ground, athletes must bring both of their feet to make contact with the bar at the same time, inside the hands. The feet must come back down and behind the bar and the rest of the body for the the next rep.

Those performing the scaled option substitute for hanging knee raises.

Dumbbell Hang Clean to Overhead

This was a new movement introduced for 2018, so few CrossFitters would have attempted these before the announcement of 18.1. The dumbbell is lifted from the floor to the hang position, before a clean lift is performed (muscle, power, squat, and split all permitted) to make contact with the shoulder. From the shoulder the dumbbell if lifted overhead through a shoulder press, push press, push jerk, or split jerk, To complete a rep, the arm, hips and knees must be fully locked out with the dumbbell clearly over the middle of the body while the dumbbell is locked out overhead.

Rowing

The rower’s monitor must be set to zero at the beginning of each row. The row is complete when either 14 or 12 calories is registered.

Well?! How did 18.1 go down at CrossFit Colchester?

Pretty awesome, actually!

Many of the coaches had their first attempt at the workout during the day on Friday. Members all gathered on Friday evening to be prepped by the coaches, and to get geared up to workout and judge one another.

We’ve got a few atheletes who have retired over the weekend, and we’ve got a few more having another go on Monday.

We absolutely can’t wait to find out what 18.2 will be!