What it Takes to Compete at the CrossFit Games
Written by Conquer Athlete Coach Tommy Pomatico
The ultimate goal of every Crossfit competitor is to qualify for the “Crossfit Games”. The Crossfit Games is an annual event that showcases the fittest athletes competing against one another in various modalities of fitness. In order to compete at this level, an athlete must posses amazing work ethic, talent and some luck. Today, we will be addressing the sport requirements to compete at each stage of the Crossfit Games season. We’re hopeful that by the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what you need to address in order to compete!
There are 4 stages throughout the Crossfit games season. The open, quarterfinals, semi finals and the game. Each stage has a prerequisite level of fitness in order to “compete”.
Before we go any further I would like to define “competing”. Competing is not just showing up to a competition, completing each event and then ultimately getting handed your participation trophy at the end. In fact, it's quite the opposite! Competing is being able to display that you are not only capable of completing the required tasks but in fact do them as well if not better than anyone else participating.
The Open
The “Open” is the first and “easiest” stage of the competition. This is simply because anyone in the world is allowed to sign up, granted they will pay the $20 fee. Because of this, the requirements to participate are lower. The open is 3 weeks long consisting of one workout or “test” a week. At this point in the competition, an athlete must be able to perform light to moderate weightlifting activities, relatively lower gymnastics skills and be able to display a decent amount of aerobic fitness. An example of some skills that are required would be, a bar muscle-up, a 225/155 lb deadlift and the ability to cardiovascularly train for upwards of 20 minutes straight. Now to the general eye this doesn’t sound easy and that's because it's not! But when you’re talking about finding the fittest on Earth, it is!
Quarterfinals
The next stage is the “Quarterfinals”. In order to qualify, you must have roughly placed in the top 10% of the competition in the open. This Competition consists of 5 tests over 3 days, which alone makes it harder due to the amount of work that needs to be done within the time frame. Aside from that, the prerequisite levels of fitness increase. The amount of weight that needs to be lifted becomes heavier, the skills become more challenging and your ability to operate at an elevated heart rate is mandatory. For example, in the open one might be required to clean and jerk 185/125 lbs but in Quarterfinals , one would be asked to clean and jerk 275/185 lbs. Now there have been workouts in the open that require you to lift the same amount of weight, but the difference is that if you don’t lift it in the open, you can still have the ability to qualify for the next round. However, if you can’t lift this weight in quarterfinals, your odds of qualifying for the next round is slim to none. As for the skills, the movements are relatively similar, but what changes is that one now must be able to perform them at higher volumes and at a faster rate. For example, the open may only ask an individual to perform 20 ring muscle-ups, whereas the quarterfinals may ask you to perform 30. Once again, not only do you need to be able to perform all these reps, but faster than the rest. An average of 10 ring muscle ups every 90 seconds seems to be a minimum requirement to even have a chance at moving on to the next stage. A large factor in one's ability to perform these movements at high efforts comes down to their aerobic capacity. As we can see many people around the world move these weights or perform these skills but to combine them all together and make them aerobic is what separates this sport from the rest.
Semifinals
The 2nd to last stage is the Semifinals. How one advances to this stage varies from region to region but ultimately we are left with 300 competitors in the world from both the men and female side. At this point every single competitor is an amazing athlete and would make the average human look silly. What is scary is that the top 10% of this field makes the bottom 10% look silly. The requirements of this competition once again advance by degrees. The weights become heavier and now the skills become more challenging. At this past years Semi-finals events (2023), the skills really played a factor in who would be advancing to the next stage. Movements such as pirouettes, seated leg less rope climbs, and weighted ring muscle-ups paved their way into the events. The difference between the best and the rest is that the best were able to complete these tasks, while the others hopelessly attempted their best. Although skills stole the show, weights certainly played a factor as a 275 lb snatch would have gotten you a measly 16th place at the North East Crossfit semi finals. The best snatch being a 305 lb snatch. Years ago this would have been a top clean and jerk but that is certainly no longer the case! Your aerobic fitness certainly played a factor but for most, they were limited by their ability to demonstrate strength and high level gymnastic movements.
CrossFit Games
The CrossFit Games is the ultimate destination for every competitor and only 40 male and female athletes from all over the world have the opportunity to make it each and every year. Anyone who can make it to this level of the competition has my utmost respect as they are capable of performing tasks that we did not believe were possible just 10 years ago.
Hopefully after reading this you not only understand what it takes to compete at each stage of the Crossfit Games but what you will need to work on in order to do so.
If you have any questions or want to learn how we work with athletes with our Individual Design coaching, email help@conquerathlete.com. Or, check out our website www.conquerathlete.com and set up a free discovery call.
