The CrossFit Games season is upon us... the OPEN begins next week. I created this video to share with you my thoughts about participation this year... below are the details.

2012 CrossFit Games Open
What is it? A worldwide fitness competition/search for the fittest athletes in the world.

Who is it for? EVERY person that consideres themselves a CrossFitter. Participation is the name of the game. Last year there were 30,000 in the Open - 95% of them did it just to participate - to be in the game, on the playing field.

What is the format? One workout is announced each week on Tuesday for 5 weeks. Every registered athlete has from Tuesday night through Sunday at 5pm to complete the workout and post their score.

But I can't do prescribed workouts... can I participate? Yes. Most of the workouts are written so that pretty much any CrossFitter can do them. If you get to a point where it's not smart for you to do it as Rx or you simply can't do the weight / reps, you can scale it, however, if you do, your score won't count that week.

What does it cost? $20

What does it cost to NOT do it? Missing the opportunity to put yourself at risk. This is the ONLY fitness competition of its kind in the world... and it ONLY happens once each year, over the next 5 weeks.

How are we doing it at CFLA? The WOD will be announced on Tuesday at 5pm. We will post it on our site on Tuesday night... and it will be the WOD for Wednesday, all day in every class. If you are registered for the Open and you want your score to count, you have to make sure you have a qualified judge to count your reps. Every Saturday at 3pm, Team CFLA (and any athlete registered for the Open that wants to participate) will gather for our official TEAM running of the WOD. We will also open up time on Sunday afternoons for a makeup if you've missed both Tuesday and Saturday.

How do I register? Go to http://games.crossfit.com/. Click on the red button, "Register". Get signed up. Join Team CrossFit Los Angeles. That's it... takes about 2 minutes.

Lululemon Beverly Hills goes up against Brentwood and Santa Monica in a head-to-head CrossFit competition!

Sage & Ingrid go head-to-head on "DT" while Jonesy smokes it!

This is a video Devlin put together for our Grand Opening with shots of the old and the new.

The prelims and finals of our Elizabeth Challenge

We took the crew training for the CrossFit Games to the biggest hill in our neighborhood.

We invited Leyon & Leroy in for a CrossFit workout - their first. We knew it would be an ass-kicker... and it was. The following day, Jonesy and I decided to give it a whirl. This is what happened...

We embarked on a three-month journey to create a better design for a plyo box. This is what we came up with. In this video, Tony Grover, the chief woodworker/master craftsman, describes the boxes themselves and how to make them.

This is part two of my video series of taking care of your hands - how to make a protective tape wrap for your hands. This is the best method I know for protecting your hands (or existing rips) from workouts with a lot of pull ups. Watch and use... and don't forget to keep your calluses trimmed (from part 1)!

Take the time to care for the skin on your hands or they will literally keep you out of the game!

The workout:

5 rounds for time of:
400m Run
15 Overhead Squats - 95 pounds

We shot this at the finals of our "Nancy" Challenge at the Santa Monica High School Track. Was a lot of fun to do the workout at a completely new/different location - and surprisingly not really faster, running around the track.

The workout:

5 rounds for time of:
800m Run
30 Kettlebell Swings - 2 pood
30 Pull-ups

In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult CrossFit Girl workouts. It chews you up and spits you out. The 800m runs for me become "rest" from the swings and pull-ups.
FYI - this isn't the original music - we were forced to change it due to copyright infringement issues with YouTube.