How the CF Open is similar to Managing a Box

The Crossfit Open is an exciting time for all athletes across the globe. For the elite, it is the beginning of their games journey, for everyone else, it’s an opportunity to test their strength and training and break new personal records.

Preparation and training start months before leading up the Open: if athletes want to reach their goals, they have to put in a lot of work. This kind of discipline and accountability is parallel to what is required of gym owners that want to open and manage their own box.

What is the Open?

The Open is a series of five workouts, released every week for five weeks. All athletes across the Crossfit industry are open to signing up (with a fee) and register their names on the global leaderboard so that they can log in their scores and see how they rank in the workouts worldwide.

Finding out their WHY

One of the first questions box owners must ask themselves is: why? Why are they opening a business? This WHY will serve as a basis to every goal they make and task they list. This allows them to keep moving despite challenges and motivates owners to solve the constant problems that arise when running a box.

Similarly, athletes also keep working towards their WHY— the reason they began fitness in the first place. Athletes that don’t have anything they are working towards will give as soon as the going gets rough.

Making Goals and Tasks

After figuring out their WHY, athletes and box owners will have big goals that they work towards. Under the “To Dos” of these goals, they are broken into smaller tasks that need to be accomplished day-to-day.

Box owners would have to their own goals too. Except they would not only list out their business goals but their mission and vision as well. Beyond that, they would also need to establish what type of culture his/her box needs to have. When they’ve built that foundation, they will then create systems and processes that would cater to these

For athletes, after figuring out WHY they are in fitness and joining the open, they would have to figure out what their goals for the Open would be. On example of that would be “unlock pull ups” or “join the RX category,” then would have to figure out the related accessory work into their regular programme two to three times a week.

Leaving Egos Out the Door

Several aspects of Crossfit tend to humble its athletes and owners alike.

In the sport itself, there is always room for improvement: there’s always a new skill to unlock, a weight to lift, a time to beat, a score to reach… An athlete’s journey never ends and they can never assume they will be the best in every aspect of the sport.

The entrepreneurial side on the other hand, like all businesses, not only requires hard work but also the ability to accept that you cannot manage all things at once. The responsibility is highly demanding, so it is important that owners are able to accept that they will need to tap into extra help sooner or later.

Don’t Burn Out

It’s easy to get caught up on goals— every day you just want to get closer to the finish line.

In Crossfit, you want to keep coming to the box to train and in business, you just want to get all the tasks done. But sometimes athletes and owner need to cut themselves some slack and catch a break because there is such thing as working too much that it becomes inefficient.

It’s never advisable to work so hard on something that you decrease quality of life. Athletes need to take a break from training when their bodies are fatigues and box owners have to step back and learn how to delegate tasks.

Just like athletes need to find the right coaches and community for support, box owners need to find people to help man the box. Without the right support, owners can burn out attempting to do all tasks by themselves.

Monitoring and Measuring Goals

Both athletes and box owners must then monitor and measure their goals and tweak them accordingly.

Athletes need to take a look at where they are in relation to their goals and their timeline and tweak their training, nutrition, or mindset accordingly. In the end, they have to listen to how their bodies are responding to their training to make sure they reach their goals in the most efficient manner. Similarly, box owners need to see the numbers they are hitting and take into account any feedback from employees and members, then adjust based on their findings. When running a business, it develops according to its market, therefore box owners will often find themselves listening to the business environment and changing aspects to acclimate to it.

The beauty of Crossfit as well as running a business is that they constantly put you out of your comfort zone. Athletes and businessmen alike learn about their thresholds and what they are capable of. It forces them to stay organised and really focus on their goals to achieve the results that they are looking for.