The anxiety of the Open is no joke. Even as I write this, the thought of Castro’s maniacal test of fitness looming on the horizon is enough to make my palms sweaty. Sleepless nights, stress-fueled conspiracy theories, all are fair game during the first step in finding the fittest on Earth. Football season, rugby season… the Open is quite literally our season as CrossFitters.

For the overwhelming majority of us, sadly it’s the start and finish to our season as well. That’s it. Five weeks, five workouts and you’re done. With only five opportunities to prove yourself on a global scale, a disproportionate amount of weight and stress is placed on each test. The funny thing about stress, though, is it can make you do some crazy stuff.

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Everything about the Open is created to make you uncomfortable. The number of tests, the way they’re structured, the way Castro loves to trickle out clues only to be dissected ad nauseam on Reddit. Everything is designed to push you out of your comfort zone.

The single best piece of advice I can offer to you is don’t let the Open bully you around. Don’t let the pressure of the moment cause you to fall into the biggest trap laid by the Open: thinking you have to switch up your routine to succeed.

Stick to What You Know

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The Open, the sport in general, hinges on the concept of preparing you for the unknown and unknowable. It’s this level of variability that drives adaptation. It’s the reason this sport as a fitness program is so effective. Yet, just because CrossFit makes its money by subscribing to the chaos theory of fitness, that doesn’t mean routines are inherently bad.

In fact, the athletes that are most successful during the Open are those who understand how to eliminate any excess variables and instead fall back on the routines they’ve built over the course of the year – for better or for worse.

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What I mean is, if your normal pre-workout meal on a day-to-day basis consists of a Whopper with an extra large Coke, then that’s exactly what you should do come the Open — the reason being you know exactly what to expect from your body if you do so. If your everyday warm-up consists of hopping on a bike for five minutes, checking memes on your phone for another 15 and a couple of leg swings, then that’s what you should do.

Too often I see people try to cram a year’s worth of good habits into the week prior, or even more hilariously, the 30 minutes before the start of the workout. People who have never rolled out a day in their lives now have a mobility setup that would put Kelly Starrett to shame. Better yet, they decide today’s the day they need pre-workout supplements, end up taking three scoops, do their first thruster and crap their pants — don’t be that guy.

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Understand the difference. I’m not advocating for bad habits or unhealthy eating. I’m advocating for not switching up your routine come game day. What’s the saying? “Practice how you play.” Eating healthier, warming up properly and taking the time for mobility are all tremendous habits, but habits that need to be tested and built into your daily routine months ago. If you are unsure how anything under your control is going to affect your performance, even with the off-chance it might have a positive effect, the day of the competition is the last day you want to test it out.

One way to be prepared for anything? Make sure you have all the right gear on you. Shop for all the Open essentials with TWL.