The Open Is Over… Now What?

The excitement of the Open has come and gone. The adrenaline of Friday Night Lights, the nerves before the countdown, and the thrill of pushing a little harder than you thought possible are behind us for another year.

But the end of the Open isn’t the end of the process. It’s actually the start of one of the most valuable phases of your training year.

Now it’s time to look at the data.

Step 1: Remove Emotion, Look at the Facts

The Open can be emotional. Maybe you hit a new skill. Maybe you missed a movement you were chasing. Maybe you performed exactly as expected.

Before setting goals, take a step back and objectively review your results.

Ask yourself:

1. Where did I place relative to my division?
2. Which workouts felt like strengths?
3. Which movements slowed me down or stopped me completely?
4. Did fatigue, strength, skill, or pacing limit me most?

This isn’t about judging your performance. It’s about gathering information.

The Open is one of the few times each year where thousands of athletes complete the exact same workouts, which makes it an incredibly powerful benchmarking tool.

Step 2: Identify Your Limiting Factors

Most athletes don’t need to get better at everything. They need to get better at the right things.

Look for patterns in your performance:

Strength limitations

1. Barbell weights felt heavy
2. Struggled with squats, cleans, or deadlifts under fatigue

Gymnastics limitations

1. Pull-ups, chest-to-bar, or muscle-ups were barriers
2. Couldn’t maintain sets once fatigued

Engine limitations

1. Heart rate spiked quickly
2. Long workouts or repeated intervals fell apart

Skill limitations

1. Double unders
2. Wall walks
3. Efficiency on barbell cycling

Your biggest opportunity for improvement is usually the thing that stopped you from continuing the workout.

Step 3: Turn Weaknesses Into Training Priorities

Once you identify your limiting factors, the next step is prioritization.

You don’t fix everything at once. Instead, choose 2–3 key areas to improve over the next year.

Examples:

1. Build strict pulling strength to unlock chest-to-bar and muscle-ups
2. Improve squat strength for heavier thrusters and cleans
3. Develop aerobic capacity to maintain pace in longer workouts
4. Practice high-skill movements consistently when fresh

This is where training becomes intentional instead of random.

Step 4: Set Long-Term Goals

Use the Open to set targets for next year.

Examples might be:

1. First chest-to-bar pull-ups
2. First ring muscle-up
3. Barbell cycling at RX weights
4. Finishing every workout within the time cap
5. Moving up a percentile bracket in the worldwide rankings

Goals should be specific and measurable, but they should also be realistic and exciting.

Step 5: Trust the Process

The Open only lasts three weeks, but the progress that leads to those moments is built over hundreds of training sessions throughout the year.

The athletes who improve the most year to year aren’t the ones who train the hardest for three weeks.

They’re the ones who train the smartest for the other 49 weeks.

Use what you learned.

Identify your priorities.

Commit to the work.

Then next year, when the Open rolls around again, you won’t just hope things go differently.

You’ll know exactly why they will.