Pacing In the CrossFit Open

By: Bri Siegert

Every year, the Open rolls around and we see the same story unfold: athletes show up hyped, see the workout, hype themselves up… and then the clock starts. Two minutes in, dying and gasping on a 20:00 amrap. Sound familiar?

The Open doesn’t reward bravado, it rewards pacing. Even more so, it rewards fitness and well-roundness, but that was a topic we’ve discussed if you go back to our recent blog posts. Today, we will be talking about pacing strategies. 

Why Pacing Is the Difference Between Crushing your Metcon and Crashing and Burning

 CrossFit attracts a lot of jam-on-the-gas type athletes and that’s great when you’re doing a workout like Fran or Grace, But the Open? Often, it’s a mixed bag of durations and domains, from short and sharp to long and nasty. You can’t treat every Open workout like a 5-minute all out sprint. You’ll blow it hard and early.

That’s because pacing isn’t about going slower, it’s about going just fast enough for the whole workout. And if you’re aerobic capacity is topped off, you’ll be able to hold a faster pace for longer. If not, strategizing and pacing can still help you get a much better score.

This is a lesson every athlete should learn for a few main reasons:

1. Faster times/more rounds and reps in qualifiers 

2. Better fitness. Training things like consistent paces or negative splits is helpful 

3. Athlete IQ: Knowledge of yourself as an athlete with different time domains, movement pairings, Metcon specific pieces that teach you and give you confidence of what paces you can and can’t hold during different implements

4. The test workout won’t feel as awful. Yes, you can accomplish more work in less time and feel less bad.

   
   

Stages of Pacing and Where Most of Us Start

If you think back to your first few Opens (or your first couple), you probably started in what some coaches call the “The Rabbit” phase which is go hard, hold on, then inevitable collapse. That’s not strategy; it’s hope disguised as intensity. 

At the other end of the spectrum are athletes who under-pace. They come out at 60% effort and finish feeling like they left a ton in the tank. That’s not what we want either.  

Real pacing lies somewhere in between: controlled effort that lets you stay and feel productive under fatigue.

So, What Should You Have Been Doing to Prepare?

We want to be training a variety of time domains, intensities, and movement pairings we see in The Open, but even more than that we want to train our pacing. You want to train intervals with specific paces and consistency. You Want to train negative splits which is the art of starting slower than you want and getting faster.

Instead of just doing metcons, your training should’ve included:

• Interval AMRAPs where your goal was to hit consistent rounds rather than just crush the first one. These help you learn what your sustainable output feels like. 

• Time-domain specific pacing runs: longer pieces where you practice holding a steady effort for 15-20 minutes, or shorter pieces at near threshold intensity. These build the internal reference you need when you see a big Open chipper or couplet. 

• Split watch workouts: note how long it takes to do 10 burpees or 15 calories on the rower at different effort levels. This builds pacing data.

• Negative splits: specific Metcon intervals with the goal being to get faster each round.

  
  

Training intensity is important, but pure intensity with no thought to repeatability is negligence in your training and is like sprinting blindfolded through a minefield. You might make it 20 feet before then blow up.

Pacing Isn’t Just for Long Workouts

Even a sub 10-minute Open workout can reward smart energy distribution. Workouts under 15 minutes should still be treated like tough runs; hard, yes, but sustainable. 

Take Open Workout 24-1:

21 Dumbbell Snatch Right arm

21 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

21 Dumbbell Snatch Left arm

21 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

15 Dumbbell Snatch Right arm

15 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

15Dumbbell Snatch Left arm

15 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

9 Dumbbell Snatch Left arm

9 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

9 Dumbbell Snatch Left arm

9 Lateral burpee over Dumbbell

Don’t get me wrong, this workout NEEDS to be fast, but most people started those first 21’s REAL fast. Like 50 burpees for time fast and there’s much more than 50 burpees in this workout. It was a sneaky amount of burpee volume. This would be one you’d want to start with strategically controlled burpees (not slow) and build that intensity each set the rep scheme goes down.

Pacing does not mean SLOW. It’s knowing the pace required for the time domain and learning how to control it and hold it.

Long Workout Strategies

Take Open Workout 23.2:

15:00 AMRAP:

300m Row

10 Deadlifts 185/125

50 double unders 

You or someone you know probably had a pretty good first three rounds and then vastly fell off that initial pace. It’s ok, it happens to the best of us. 

However, you probably noted many people rowing much slower and gaining more rounds. A workout like this is where you’ll see those smart pacers start to creep up and overtake the others that stayed hot. 

This one you’d look at holding a moderate row pace but making your transitions quick and unbroken. Settling in on the rower but never blowing up. 

You’d also want to write out a time frame for starting each round to keep you on pace. 

More On Strategies and Tips

Keep an eye out for blacklisted open workout tips and strategies each week during The Open.

If you’re ready to hone in on your fitness and capacity, don’t wait until after The Open to get started. Reach out for a phone call with one of our coaches to help you personally strategize each week and take your training to another level.