Crossfit Open 16.1

The Crossfit Open is the first stage of qualifying for The Crossfit Games. To learn more about the basics of Crossfit and to understand the jargon used in this article, read our article on Crossfit here.

The Crossfit Open workout 16.1 is the first workout of the 2016 open and it's not for the faint hearted.

The WOD

20 minutes AMRAP 

• 25-ft. overhead walking lunge (5ft per rep)
• 8 burpees
• 25-ft. overhead walking lunge
• 8 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Rx

Men lunge 95 lbs (42.5kg), Women lunge 65 lbs (30kg)

Athlete Results

Emily Abbott, who took 8th place last year, completed a mighty 290 reps in this WOD! 

We spoke to our personal trainers competing in this year's games to see what they made of this year's first challenge.

Personal trainer Liam Scott, 26, from Crossfit Southeast Witham, has been training 6 times a week, rotating strength, skill and endurance as well as completing WODs and previous open workouts in preparation for this year's challenge. Liam gave himself a trial run competing in The Icon Online Championship last month, where he took 34th place. Prior to the games, he told us, “I’m excited for the open to get started and see what crazy stuff is in store for us over the next 5 weeks, preparations have been going well!” 

“The moment I saw 16.1, I knew it would be a great test. Overhead walking lunges are a rather difficult exercise and with 42.5kg overhead, let’s just say it’s not going to get any easier. I watched Emily Abbott do the workout live via the Crossfit website which got me more excited” he said.

There were 10 other athletes competing from Liam’s box, which created a great atmosphere with all the competitors spurring each other on.

“When I noticed that the other guys were scaling and using 30kg front rack lunges and only getting 6 rounds it made me more nervous about my turn, but on the beeps I started with my power snatch to get the 42.5kg above my head and the first 25ft walking lunges began. They were definitely the hardest part of the workout, but once I’d done 2 rounds I started to relax a lot more, like everything I’d been working towards was starting to come together.”

Liam completed a whopping 205 reps, his legs were cramping and he even had to go outside in fear of being sick, but he didn’t give in. When we asked how he felt the rest of the day, he joked "it wasn’t too pleasant either”.

In true macho competitor style, Liam was chuffed to have beaten his best friend and coach's score. He told us he is “confident for the rest of the open” and is currently sitting around 600th in England. 

Our female athlete Beth, 42, is a Personal Trainer and a great lover of the outdoors. She has been Crossfit training for two years but this was the first open which she completed without scaling the workouts. At just over 5ft, Beth has well and truly proved herself small and mighty.

She told us, “16.1 was a good workout for me. My first RX! The overhead lunges were not a problem nor the burpees. I have only just started being able to do chest-to-bar pull ups so these were the real challenge as the rounds progressed.” Despite having to go down to singles there was no stopping Beth and she gave it her all until the very last rep.

“Overhead lunges are a challenging move for the shoulders and core primarily more than the legs, well in my case anyway. It was good to see them included.”

“I never push myself over the edge...I'm too old now and it takes too long to recover” she joked. When we asked her about her aches, she rather modestly told us they “weren't too bad”. Clearly, age is just a number because Beth could outperform women half her age and twice her height with her inspirational performance.

Crossfit 16.1 has no age limit, whether you're 26 or 42, what the Crossfit open shows is that if you’re prepared to work, it pays off. The diversity of entrants and spontaneity of the workouts are what makes the open so exciting. 

If you want to try Crossfit yourself but are intimidated by the challenge why not scale down the workout and give it a try next time you're at the gym, without the pressure of competing? It's a great workout and is really good fun, as well as being very rewarding.