CrossFit Games

So Your CrossFit Season is Over, What Do You Do Next

March 23, 2023 by
Photo Credit: Corey Young
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Unless you’re moving on to Semifinals and potentially the Games, for the majority of us, our CrossFit season is over. Can you believe it? It feels like it takes forever to come around and then it flies by once it’s here!

Some may be feeling proud of their effort and like all their hard work has paid off. While others may be left feeling disappointed because their expectations were not met with reality and ended up finding out on game day. Regardless of where you’re feeling, hopefully you can help use your results and awareness of where you are in the sport and motivation and fuel for the fire for another year of fitness and dedication.

After three adrenaline filled weekends of the Open and the chaos of Quarterfinals, it’s time to start planning your next year out. But where do you start?

Take Some Time Off

Most athletes are so ready and gung ho about getting right back to work and striving for perfection they don’t think about their longevity in the sport. Which is fair, you’re excited!! 

However, if you take the purposeful time off now, you hopefully won’t be forced to take time off later due to injury, sickness, or burn out. Quarterfinalists may need a little more time than those who finished their season at the end of the Open, but regardless of where you fell, about one to two weeks off should do it. Even a week off from the gym and then a week of bodybuilding and zone two engine work is a great place to start ramping back into training. 

This purposeful time off goes for your nutrition too! If you’re someone who tracks all year round, take the time now, because you’ll be getting right back to it when you get back in the gym. When your coach or your gym recommends the time off, truly take it. Spend some time outside of the gym and use that fitness you’ve been working so hard on to improve. Spend some time celebrating and sharing meals with family and friends. 

Do Some Reflection

Review the following questions:

1. A general recap of your Open and/or Quarterfinals fueling strategies, overall energy, subjective recovery time, and “motivation” to attack the workouts. What are things that you think went well and things that you think need improvement?

2. How was your sleep quality and quantity throughout your season? Throughout the months leading up to competition? A good measure of this is how refreshed you felt after waking, how fast it took you to fall asleep, and how many wake-ups you had in the middle of the night on average.

3. What are 1-3 things you want to focus on immediately? What are 1-3 things that you want to improve long term in regards to your nutrition?

4. Assess each event. What were your limiters, what were your strengths? Which events were your best scores, which were your worst?

Tackle your biggest weaknesses first

For example, if you need to get stronger in the sport, you may start off with a more serious or intensive strength block. 

The same goes for your nutrition. Whatever your biggest area of improvement with regard to your body composition, whether it’s gaining muscle mass or losing body fat, the bulk of that work should be done within the first three to six months of your off season. Leaving you time to return to maintenance and ramp up accordingly for the peaking of your season. Most people are so worried about hitting 100% effort in the gym and hitting their macro targets perfectly today, they don’t always think about things on a yearly view. 

Don’t get caught trying to do a calorie deficit while peaking for your season

Establish processed based goals

Of course finishing in the Top 100 of Quarterfinals or making it to the Semifinals of your region is an amazing goal. However, you really have no control over that or the leaderboard. Think about small tangible goals that you can do every single day that will “move the needle” of your chances of achieving your outcome based goal (Top 100 or Semifinals). 

Some process based goals may look more like: hitting your macro targets six days a week, getting eight hours of sleep a night, setting an intention for each training session you have, and going to the sauna one time a week. Those are all things you can actually control that can also leave you feeling more accomplished.

We can get so caught up in our outcomes and comparing ourselves to others in the space, don’t forget to remember why you started CrossFit. You were drawn to it in some way. Maybe it was the competition, the mental and physical challenges, the whiteboard in class with everyone’s name and scores on it. 

Whatever it was for you, always bring your mind back why you started CrossFit. I think we can lose sight of that in pursuits to be more competitive. This space is so much bigger than any one person. It’s an amazing community of individuals looking to better themselves every single day.

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