
Chipper! 14.4 was the classic CrossFit chipper. A well designed workout geared towards testing your capacity and skills. Our initial thoughts on 14.4 was that this would be a good workout for our athletes. However, CrossFit Reflexion was bested this week by six other gyms in the Portland area and was closer to the average line than in any other previous open workouts. Although we stayed above the Northwest Regional average for reps completed, it is safe to say that this workout didn’t go as well as he had hoped. CrossFit Reflexion scored a 3.1% increase above the NW regional average. Our lowest above average gap for the open. However, that’s OK! This is why we participate in the open. So we can test our fitness, find holes in our game and improve.
So, what is the take away? What do we need to improve on? Let’s look at the next graph.

This chart clearly shows that completing the cleans for most of the Northwest’s athletes was the sticking point of this workout. The subsequent set of 20 muscle-ups proved to be the money round. Only 39.55% of all NW athletes completed the cleans and got to the rings. 0.99% of NW athletes actually completed the 20 muscles-ups. That’s 65 out of 6574 athletes that logged a score for 14.4. Finally, 1 person was actually able to fully complete the second set of the 60 calorie row for a score of 260. That’s incredible.
CrossFit Reflexion saw a similar trend to the NW. Nearly half (54.55%) of CrossFit Reflexion athletes could not complete the 30 cleans and, given our gym rep average, not many of our athletes scored high into the muscle-ups.
Again, what’s the take away? The data shows us that we, again, need work on highly skilled gymnastic movements. We saw too many athletes struggle with the toes-to-bar portion and were gassed and out of time when they met the cleans. In addition, for those athletes who reached the muscle-ups, many were left with enough time on the clock but failed to record a large amount of reps.

This week’s men versus women’s breakdown shows a decent gap again between the men and women performances. Again, this re-establishes that both our men and women need to increase their gymnastic skill movements, but especially regarding the muscle-up. CrossFit Reflexion had 3 (25%) of 12 women who completed the cleans record 1 or more muscle-ups. However, every women who got to the rings was left with enough time on the clock for more than 1 muscle-up attempt. 12 out of 18 men (67%) who got to the rings were able to record a muscle-up.
Again, through the open, we are establishing that our athlete base needs gymnastic work. The toe-to-bar movement was difficult as was the muscle-up as was the chest-to-bar in 14.2. As coaches we are going to be focusing on skill work development in our athletes in addition to continue building foundational strength and capacity.
Still, this doesn’t mean we didn’t see inspiring performances this weekend. Folks who completed muscle-ups when tired, or surprised us by completing not just one but TWO muscle-ups is what the open is about. You athletes know who you are. Let’s keep it up for one more week. As a guess, we may be expecting some type of thruster/burpee ascending ladder for 14.5. Everyone get rested, hydrated, and moblilzed. See you this weekend.