REDOING OPEN WORKOUTS

It’s no secret that, given the trending nature of CrossFit®, online qualifiers, such as the CrossFit Open, are here to stay. 

With the community at large subjected to so many different competition opportunities and the CrossFit Games season format changing multiple times over the last decade, participating in some level of online competition has remained a constant. 

At their best, online competitions and qualifiers allow mass participation to find the most worthy athletes to compete in person, and with this often comes the pressure of submitting your best possible scores to maximize your chances of moving on to the next stage. 

The CrossFit Open is particularly unique in that it has come to serve as a benchmark fitness test for so many people, allowing them to get an annual assessment of how their current fitness ranks on a global scale, even if they have no actual expectations of moving on in the CrossFit Games season. 

Should you redo your workout?

Regardless of your “why” for participating in an online qualifier or the CrossFit Open, the allure of redoing workouts to maximize your results can be very real. Whether a redo should or should not happen can be very situational, and some considerations must be made to make the best decision.

If you have already performed a workout you intend to submit onto an online leaderboard, it is essential that you reflect on your “why” for doing this workout in the first place before deciding on whether or not you should redo it. Whether you are an athlete who knows that you intend to move on to the next stage after a qualifier or if you are purely participating for the love of the game with no expectation of competing further should factor into your decision on whether or not redoing a workout is “worth it.” If you are a top-level athlete in the sport whose ultimate goals are well past the online competition you are doing, then sometimes there can be a reason not to redo a workout to practice the skill of maximizing your first attempt at a workout, as you would have to within an in-person competition.

Assess your performance objectively

If you are contemplating a redo, and redoing makes sense with your “why,” then the next logical question you should ask yourself is whether you realistically think you can improve your score. Put simply, if you can’t improve your score, then a redo is not worth it. 

This can be a tough question to answer on thought alone, so it is helpful to review the video evidence. 

Because of this, regardless of whether or not you are trying to move on to the next stage of the competition after an online qualifier, I highly recommend that anyone doing an online competition video ALL of their attempts. Usually, if you watch this video back, you can very objectively see how the workout went for you: where you rested, how your transitions between movements went, the pace you moved at, and how you chose to break movements up if you did.

Using video and data to make an informed decision

In my own experience, I have made simple spreadsheet tables based on these videos, where I take the workout I completed and break my performance down by the time I took, in seconds, for each movement and transition. After this, I will review the times in the spreadsheet against my recollection of how I felt through the workout. Doing this gives me a much more objective view of how “realistic” improvement might be instead of just trying to estimate how realistic improvement would be based on my recollection alone. 

For example, on a ten-round workout of burpees and thrusters, I saw that my first two sets of burpees took thirty seconds, and every round afterwards took fifty seconds. I could reasonably say I could improve if I simply slowed down my initial burpee pace. In the same example, if my movement times and transitions were generally consistent, I felt my effort was not a problem the entire time. I could reasonably say that improvement likely won’t happen soon, and I should not redo the workout, even if I am displeased with my results. 

The main idea here is that I took a data-driven approach to see if improvement was realistic and, therefore, better informed my decision on whether redoing the workout was worth it.

I have done these same reviews with athletes I have worked with when they have contemplated redos. For them and myself, there have been plenty of times when the initial reaction was to redo a workout. Still, the data and effort recollection suggested that improvement was not likely, and the subsequent decision not to redo a workout was made confidently. Bringing objective data to what can feel like a weighty decision when contemplating a redo can be beneficial. 

The role of recovery between attempts

If you decide to redo a workout, consider that the next attempt will expose you to how the workout felt; therefore, you can take a more informed approach the second time. Still, you will likely be fatigued on some level from the first attempt. For this reason, try to space out any redos over as much time as possible with respect to the allotted submission window for an event. If you have time from Thursday to Monday to submit a score, try a workout Friday morning and then again for a redo on Monday afternoon, which could be an example of how this looks. In my experience as an athlete and coach, trying a workout with full effort more than twice is rarely worth it when it comes to improvement, which should be avoided when possible. 

When redoing a workout, take measures to recover from your first attempt by taking it easier in the gym between attempts, if training, and prioritizing sleep, nutrition, and bodywork. This can be vital to setting yourself up for success on your next attempt.

Making the most of your redo

If you decide to redo, try not to second-guess your decision once you start the attempt. Give it your full intensity and do your best to MAKE YOURSELF PROUD of your efforts. After all, second chances can be hard to come by in sports and life, so if you take a second chance at an online qualifier or Open workout, try to do so confidently.