Recapping the 2021 Bullet Point Open and Anticipating the CrossFit Open
Allison performing a weighted squat jump.
Strong Showing for Sanctify at the 2021 Bullet Point Open Competition
Over 30 Sanctify members participated in the 2021 The Bullet Point Open. This is an annual online competition lasting between 3 to 4 weeks wherein participants complete 4 workouts. Each week of the competition most of the Sanctify athletes completed the workouts together during Saturday afternoon classes. *If you closed your eyes and allowed your mind to travel back to a time before the pandemic, it almost felt like doing a CrossFit Open workout prior to Covid.* Because Sanctify had so many participants in this year’s competition, the gym won some new equipment, in the form of many 10 pound bumper plates (coming soon).
Many Sanctify athletes placed within the top 15 of their division--they and are as follows, listed in alphabetical order: Alicia Barnes, Rx Women (13th); Abrahm Fosdick, Mens Teen (15th); Teresa Fosdick, Intermediate Women (12th); Christy Frank, Masters Scaled Women (15th); Kora Glynn, Womens Teen (11th); Chad Goolbis, Masters Men (5th); Braiden Hale, Mens Kid (2nd); Darla Hale, Masters Women (10th); Jodie Marino, Adaptive Women (1st); and Brandi Rogers, Masters Women (5th).
Congratulations to everyone who participated! Keep up the good work. Stay consistent in your training, and next year, marvel at how much you’ve improved when you compete again in the BPO.
The Competition Mindset: Discovering the Outer Limits of Your Capacity
The Bullet Point Open is a great event for folks who’ve never competed in a functional fitness competition because there are multiple divisions designed to accommodate all skill/fitness levels, and athletes compete within the comfort of their local gym. Plus, it’s a fun opportunity to support others within our gym community and to socialize within the context of fitness.
All this is well and good, but you may still be left wondering, “Why should I compete if I know I’m not going to place in the top 3--or even the top 10--of my division? Why spend the $25 and go to the trouble of doing an extra workout each week?”
The short answer is that competition provides a learning opportunity. During competition, we learn more about our capacity; competition gives us the chance to work at the edges of exertion and discover the outer limits of our ability. Though we measure our effort in most daily conditioning workouts by recording a time or the number of rounds and repetitions completed, it’s imprudent to have a competition mindset--an intention to work at peak effort--everyday. If we worked at nearly 95% or 100% of our capacity everyday, training would become miserable, our bodies would suffer, and we would eventually burn through any enthusiasm to continue training.
Rather, on the daily, we work with an eye toward gradual improvement and at a moderated effort level. We measure our daily efforts, not to compete with others, but instead to identify areas where we can improve, and we record our performance so we can identify changes over time.
Within the context of a typical training week, having a (daily) competition mindset eventually yields diminishing returns, but within the context of a competition, this mindset--paired with a max effort performance--can reveal the expansiveness of our physical capabilities. This is why it’s so common for participants to PR during competition workouts. Folks often surprise themselves and exceed their personal expectations in competition. So, there is a time and place for competition and the associated mindset, if one so chooses.
The 2021 CrossFit Open
If you missed the Bullet Point Open and my above riff on competition intrigues you, the good news is the CrossFit Open is just around the corner. Like the Bullet Point Open, the CrossFit Open is an online competition, lasting 3 weeks (this year), and there are many different divisions for competitors. CrossFit gyms throughout the world participate, so in addition to being a test of fitness, it’s also a great way to support the global CrossFit community.
In past years, the CF Open has been a big event at Sanctify. We would do the workouts together each weekend or Friday night as a large group. Costumes, in-house competitions, fundraisers, and food and drinks were customary. However, as with all things affected by the Covid pandemic, this year’s festivities will look different. Obviously, having big weekly parties and huge classes is unwise.
Fortunately, the Bullet Point Open provided a blueprint for running the CF Open this year. Throughout the 2021 CF Open, our Friday WOD will be the Open workout of that week, and for folks who can’t make it in on Fridays, we will find other times inside class to make up the workouts. Because so many folks in the Madison area have been hit hard by the pandemic, we will also run a fundraising effort for a local charity throughout the CF Open. This year we are making helping others the focus of the Sanctify CrossFit Open. We will share more details as we get closer to March 11th (the start date of the CF Open).
In the meantime, just keep showing up and doing the work each day!