We've been here before: It's coming to the end of the calendar year, and athletes and coaches are looking into 2025 to outline their competitive season.

In the last couple of years, there has been a relatively straightforward path which has been simple for athletes and brands to follow and get on board with. Previous to that, however, there had been multiple years of change, and with change comes uncertainty. Between 2019 and 2022, we had multiple iterations of a season. The removal of Regionals and a season structure that revolved around The Open and Sanctioned events, then the COVID era where not a lot of people had any idea of what competing would look like. 

Then, we finally came around to some clarity on how to move forward. If we were able to go back in time with the experience we have now and our understanding of how things would unfold, our advice to give to ourselves and our peers would be simple.

Competition will always return

Competition will return and always exist in some shape or form. There will always be an opportunity to compete across National, Continental and World stages. Although putting a time and date on it will be hard, it will exist and become clear again in the near future. 

Having the mindset of knowing that the time will come around again to compete at a level you aspire to be at brings the next thought process. 

Focus on improving your foundation

What are your current capacities in strength, fitness, and skills? Further on, are there any finer details you could focus on correcting? Muscular imbalances, persisting injuries, psychological processes, nutrition and fuelling strategies? All these areas are typical factors that gradually get increasingly neglected when training and existence take more direction towards being ready to compete in the middle of the season.

If you have no clear path for when you plan to compete, switch the focus away from being competition-ready and lay out some goals within your current capacities that will set you up to compete at a better capacity once you get more clarity. Dial into setting some goals for your back squat improvement, your 5km Row benchmark and progressions, improving your technique and capacity in Ring Muscle-ups, etc. 

Double down on your intrinsic motivation around performance goals. Task-related things can give you clear indicators of improvement over time. 

Again, if we go back to the year of COVID-19 — the athletes that came out of the back of that successfully got their heads down and focused on improving themselves, knowing that one day it'll be time to prepare for competition readiness again.

Ultimately, this is no different from what we (HWPO Training) typically suggest within your approach to off-season training. So simply, elongate this off-season mentality further into the year. Focus on improving your weaker areas, and don't feel the need to start getting competition-ready when there is currently so much up in the air. The time will come; when it does, you will be more prepared to be at your highest level if you hone in on this approach.

Use competitions to stay motivated

On the other hand, although the main CrossFit Games season might be unclear outside of The Open, there are still opportunities all around the world to compete in high-level competitions that will give you the experience, drive, feedback and even prize money if that's what you're in it for! Competitions on a national and continental stage are happening everywhere. Some people NEED that competition in the near future to keep them on track. They may not feel like they can stay patient for so long in the off-season, and if that's how you tick, then it's absolutely fine. 

For this reason, we are seeing high-level athletes worldwide start to appear more so in national-level competitions. Use the opportunity to go to new places, styles and formats of competitions, whether that be your typical CrossFit-type events or looking into your national Functional Fitness Federation equivalent and seeing what they offer. We're even seeing Games athletes throw themselves into a Hyrox just to keep that 'event' on the horizon to keep them training with purpose and direction.

There is no right or wrong approach, but ultimately, if you want to continue competing at the highest level, you can then find the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation that hits home for you is the thing that is going to get you excited to get in the gym and out a barbell in your hands or suffer in that nasty workout.

Set goals and stay proactive

Being sat there, gradually losing motivation, without highlighting what your path going forward will slowly but surely allow you to drift away from hitting those meaningful training sessions, where you enter the gym with purpose and leave with purpose and have something to be continuously working on.

To summarise, don't sit there and wallow in the uncertainty. Be proactive and identify what you want to do now, in 6 months and by next year. Align some targets — whether focussing on personal improvements or broadening your focus to upcoming events in similar fields. It's the continued consistency of showing up each day that you will look back on and be proud that you stuck with — and to do that, you will need to put some work in to outline your own next 12 months rather than wait for it to come together for you.