Open Gym – if you are new to CrossFit these two words are probably foreign to you.
Let’s clear up just exactly what Open Gym is, and why you should be using it to your advantage!
Open Gym at KCI is on Thursdays from 9-10am and in the evening from 4-7pm. Instead of a coach running a class, the coaches are helping athletes work on individual skills, drills, or workouts. It’s one of the best weekly opportunities to improve your fitness! Here are the best ways to maximize Open Gym to your advantage:
1) It’s a chance to do a workout from earlier in the week that you missed. Let’s face it, no one is perfect and sometimes we miss a class. Open Gym is your opportunity to complete a workout you missed!
2) Open Gym is an opportunity to benchmark your fitness. There are dozens of “benchmark” workouts in CrossFit. A great way to test if you are getting fitter is to re-do those benchmark workouts every so often during open gym! Find a friend, pick a workout, and record your results. Rinse, lather, and repeat in a few months!
3) Active Recovery. You might be sore on Wednesday or Thursday and your body is telling you to take a break. Good, do it! But if you are sore, the best thing for you is what we like to call “active recovery.” Stretching, light rowing, jogging, or biking will serve you better than “resting” on the couch at home. When you are sore, being stagnant (not moving) is the worst thing you can do. You’ll become less sore if you move around and spend time on active recovery! Open Gym for the win!
4) Open Gym is an opportunity for you to work on your weaknesses. Well, that sounds awful, doesn’t it? Maybe for the first or second session it will suck, but the more you practice things that are hard for you, the easier they become! A baby spends some time falling down when learning to walk, but it’s exactly what they need to do! And the more frequently you train your weaknesses in the gym, the less of a weakness they will be. No more kryptonite, Superman! Open Gym is your time to improve all aspects of fitness!
There you have it, the top 4 reasons why you should start using open gym to improve your fitness! Commit to coming this week and see what happens!
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