Open Magic - Week 1: Box Jumps 1, Ego 0

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Setting The Stage: Open 2026

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Train for a Great Life. We are not even half a day through the 2026 CrossFit Open. And already the open is doing what it does. And I'm gonna unpack that a little bit with

The Magic And The Messy

SPEAKER_00 0:22

a story. Like sometimes we talk about the open magic and getting, you know, a first movement or a PR, or like just finding another gear and just being so locked in. And sometimes it happens on the other side. And I'm gonna talk about one of those because it is still within the magic of the open. It just has a couple of layers to it. So this is my 15th year of doing the open. I've seen a lot of opens. I've seen a lot of um, I've seen a lot of people do the open every year. I've done a lot of competitions and and just seen how people handle things, and I've done a lot of them myself, and you know how I've handled things. Um, so I'm gonna tell you a quick story. So we we know what the workout is 26.1, it's got a wall balls, ton of wall balls, box jumps, stepovers.

Wayne’s 20-Rep Score Explained

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm gonna talk about Wayne Smith's workout. Okay. Um I just saw, I was curious, you know, because Wayne's been on a great year. Um, you know, he he his results, his weights, everything. He's just kind of hitting another level. Um, and so I was curious how he would do that with this one. And um I'm gonna read his his notes from the from from Sugar Wad. He entered a score of 20 reps, which means he did 20 wall balls, and then he didn't get a box jump in the next 11 minutes. Womp fucking womp. Lost the 24-inch box jumps at the worst possible time. Far too much in my head about them. Was hoping once we got going, the energy would get me going because I know once I land one, they will just flood back again. But poor Avery spent over 11 minutes trying everything and it just wasn't happening. Even Britt showed me a picture of me clearing the box by miles, didn't do the trick. I can't put my frustration into words, but at least I had the privilege to get to try. That's tough. That's tough. Um, that's tough to stand in there. I know how much this stuff means to Wayne. He's been doing it for like seven plus years now. And um this isn't failure though. My I'm gonna read you my comment.

Owning Frustration And Character

SPEAKER_00 2:35

There's been he's getting a lot of love in the comments, as you would expect. Um and I said it's the it's the stuff like this that sometimes ends up the defining moments of the open. It's the memorable memorable stuff and the growth. And I'd much rather someone bump against this every now and then than be constantly watching them and thinking they're capable of more. Um I've seen many and many opens and competitions, and this stuff happens. It's all about how you handle it. It's character revealing. The fact that you entered your score of 20, owned it, told the story of how frustrating and gutting it is. I've got nothing but respect. He could have just not entered his score, and everyone would be like, What happened? What happened to Wayne? Where's where's Wayne's score? Right? Um, I I really mean this. I would rather you bump into this every now and then. It means you're pushing the limits. There's a there's a great saying from from Greg Glassman who who created CrossFit

Failing At The Margins

SPEAKER_00 3:34

way back in the days that we fail at the margins of our experience, meaning we have to into push those margins. So what's not said in there, where we read between the lines, is if we don't push the margins of our experience, we never fail, we never grow. Okay. Um, it's how do you respond, right? Wayne responded, not in a way of like, oh, this is like everyone's got their thing, everyone's got a height of a box jump that they're gonna get a little gun shy with. Everyone's got a weight that's just you know, or a you know, it could be whatever movement. Wayne's just so happens to be it's it's right at that height of a 24-inch box jump, whereas which is like very often standard height for men. Um, and he's done them before, right? Um, but he didn't fall victim to the workout, right? It's not like, oh, this is a bad workout, it's just a workout, it just is, right? He's owning it, he's saying it's me, right? And and I agree with him. And then it's not in a bad way, where we just found a gap, it's a hole, it's something that he he

Everyone Has A Sticking Point

SPEAKER_00 4:39

can't do, couldn't do today. Doesn't mean he can't do it, he has done it and he will do it again. Um, you know, the what I read from this and the I think the intent that he was trying to get across, even if he was, you know, he's just kind of letting it all out was like, oh, I'll be back. I'll be back to to to conquer this thing, and I don't doubt it, right? Let's go work on it. Um, you know, if that doesn't make you want to run through a brick wall for this guy, you know, and there it is, boom, the magic of the open, right? Someone else is gonna inspire you, and not even necessarily

Inspiration Beyond PRs

SPEAKER_00 5:16

from the amount of work that they did or something new that they achieved, it could be how they handle frustration, okay?

Spirit Of The Open: Dave’s Story

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Um quickly, I'm gonna tell a couple other examples. So every year we give out the spirit of the open, and the first year that we gave it out in 2014, there was a guy named Dave, and he was uh he was a little heavier guy, and he had some atrophy in one leg. One leg was a little bit shorter than the other, like it just made movement pretty challenging, and we would we would modify around things for him, you know, quite often. And then 2014 came up, and there was no scale division back then, and we were still big proponents of people doing the open um for exactly the same reasons that we do now. It's just that now we we do it a little bit different to get everyone participating. Um, every single week, Dave had to do something he's never done before to keep going in the workout, right? There was five weeks, and every single week he either had to get a new movement or PR something. And then the final week, it wasn't a new movement or a PR. There was a workout that came up, it was a monster. It was a ton of thrusters, it was a ton of burpees over the bar, and it was the first time ever that they announced a workout that had no time cap. And famously Dave Castro laid it out and said, No time cap, you will finish or you will quit in trying. And um, you know, for many, what was like uh under 20-minute workout, um, I think maybe even under 10, maybe 15, I'm not, I can't remember exactly. But what I do remember again, this is the memorable stuff. Um Dave went through uh Dave Dave, I believe took 54 minutes to do this workout, and we had um his judge had to leave, so someone else took over. Um, you know, he was frustrated, he had a water bottle that he threw across the gym a few times, but he never quit.

No Time Cap And Not Quitting

SPEAKER_00 7:20

And it was just the easiest choice. Um, it might have even been the reason that we started doing Spirit of the Open.

Muscle-Up Gate: 2015 Lessons

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Um, here's another one, the next year, 2015. Um, they had RX and Scale divisions, and you know, back then it was we were still doing intramural, but it was very much about like the CrossFit Games leaderboard and um you know anybody who did the workout, the RX version, even if they got one rep, they were ahead of everybody that had done scale, so it was almost like you know, it just puts you into a different tier, right? Well, 15.3 2015 week three started with seven ring muscle ups, right? And the the reaction was, you know, you can imagine what it was. Um mine, and I I I did this type of this is what I do. I coach people through things. Um it's just the workout, it's just a test. This is the test, right? Uh you can you can say that it's not a valid test, but it but it is. And um, you know, it might it might not be something that everybody can do. But here's the thing is on that day, in you know, I guess globally, North America, Canada, United States, whatever, probably more people got their first muscle up than any other day in history. Wow, wow, you know, why would people be trying it? And that's that's a beautiful

Testing The Test And Firsts

SPEAKER_00 9:03

thing, and you know, it put it pushes people that are on those margins to say, oh, like this is maybe something that I should I should do and I should be able to do and I should be striving for, right? Um and you know, I talk about these things, I I have my things. I you know, in over the last however many years, I never want to test a 5k run because I'm I don't want to know that I'm over 20 minutes, I want to be under 20 minutes, and I've done that before. Just it's it's safe to say, oh, I'm I'm I've done that. Yeah, can you do it now? The answer

Our Own Avoidances

SPEAKER_00 9:42

is I don't know. Um, right, so everyone's got their thing. So anyway, this is getting a little bit longer um than anticipated, but you know, hopefully, if you're still listening, uh, there's definitely something to take from this. There's gonna be way more magic from the open that's gonna happen um tonight that's already happened throughout the day. Uh so Wayne, nothing but a respect, buddy. See

Takeaways And Salute To Wayne

SPEAKER_00 10:06

you the gym.