CrossFit Open Workout 20.5 And Its Over

Well I can be the first one to say that I was very surprised that CrossFit Open Workout 20.5 didn't have thrusters and chest-to-bar pull-ups. And now the Open is over!

Overall I was very happy with my Open performance this year, however I was slightly disappointed in my 20.5 workout.

This one is one of the hardest workouts to provide tips on, but I am going to to try. But lets discuss the workout first.

CrossFit Open Workout 20.5

For Time done in any order:

• 40 Muscles Ups
• 80 Cal Row
• 120 Wall Ball 14/20

Basically you could do any combination of this workout in whatever order you wanted to. Which made it easy for me to do RX but gets tricky when you bring in the muscle ups.

Scaling options were to reduce the weight of the Wall balls to 14 lbs for men and 10 lbs for women and the muscles ups were scaled to chin-over-bar pull-ups.

How I tackled Open Workout 20.5

My initial thought was that I was going to have to scale because of the Muscle ups. Then I saw that we could do it in any order. Done. This was going to be a repeat of 19.1 for me.

And that is pretty much how I approached this workout. I went with 10 cals 15 Wallballs for 8 rounds. At first I started off strong and I knew right away that I was rowing too hard but I couldn't seem to slow myself down.

The wall balls I broke up from the beginning mainly because they have a tendency to make me dizzy and lightheaded. By the time I was reaching the 20 minute mark, I was on the second to last set of wall balls and I was struggling. Then I saw the time and just jumped on the rower and finished my row with enough time to get two more wall balls in before the time cap.

I will say that I smashed that last bit on the rower, was probably faster even than my first round. But the wall balls and just the conditioning in general killed me.

It was something I was already aware of for me though. I was disappointed I didn't at least finish the wall balls for the full 200 points. In 19.1 in 15 minutes I got 209 reps, with an additional 5 minutes I got 182 reps. This was all engine for me.

Tips And Tricks For Open Workout 20.5

In my opinion this one is a hard one to exactly tell you what is a good plan. Obviously if you have never gotten a muscle up and aren't exactly close but can do a wall ball and row. Then do this RX and if you have enough time either attempt a muscle up or relax.

If you are close to getting one or can do one or two, then I would try this first for the first few minutes but wouldn't spend more than 5 minutes on it. Here is where every extra point will count. Then go straight to row and wall balls. These you can break up however it suits you.

Now for those of you who can do muscle ups, I would advise you to really think about your skill level. Then I would also suggest you watch other athletes do this workout. I have seen several different videos of various skill sets do this workout and every single one had a different game plan.

Break up the muscle ups so that you aren't going to failure each time, but make sure that you are getting back to it before you completely fatigue. Always suggest finishing with your strongest movement, especially those who plan on finishing this workout in the time cap.

So What's Next

The Open is over!! In 2018, my first Open, I finished 127,323 out of 171,976 which put me in the 25th percentile. Then in 2019 (or February) I finished 57,932 out of 146,363 and in the 60th percentile. This was amazing for me I was so excited.

Now this time I did expect me to fall off, but I still did better than my first year. I can say this as well the number of people who signed up for the Open dropped again. So that obviously affects things as well.

For this Open I finished 61,600 out of 94,161 and in the 34th percentile. Again not horrible but not the greatest either. Now I have goals for the next Open.

I have already been into the gym this week to focus on my new plan. I will continue to do Crossfit but I am going back to the basics to work on my movements and mobility. As well as working on increasing my metabolic capacity.

On that note, if you are new to the whole working out thing, or trying to get back into after some time off, I have the thing for you. I recently re-launched the 28 Day Kick-Start program.

It is an amazing program designed to get you back in shape and ready to face on new adventures. I designed it to be done at home or at the gym with minimal equipment.

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