Having finally decided to take the plunge and get involved in your first competition you’re probably wondering how you should be preparing and how you should structure your training in the week leading up to it.
For the most part, don’t change a lot. We’re not competing at the CrossFit Games here and over the course of a competition you probably won’t complete much more volume than a normal weekend of heavy training. The biggest difference will be the start stop nature of the day. Getting warm for your first WOD and then performing like a boss is easy. Keeping warm, motivated and switched on between the workouts is the hard part. Make sure you wrap up after your workouts so your body temperature doesn’t drop and try to refuel with something easy to digest. Make sure you keep hydrated throughout the day and don’t start taking any form of pre-workout or supplementation you wouldn’t normally use! Before a competition is not the time to start surprising your digestive system with new and wonderful treats.
With regards to training – keep doing it. No one needs a week off before a competition. For a weekend comp, you should keep the week before relatively normal Monday to Wednesday but try to avoid any dramatically heavy squats or deadlifts – you don’t want severe DOM’s in the days before a competition. Be mindful or your hands – a tear in the week before a competition is never ideal!
On the Thursday before a comp consider a rest day or active recovery day. Don’t just sit at home and stress about the competition – go for a walk, hit a slow row or do some mobility work. Sitting still doing fuck all will just make you stiff and sluggish.
The day before – train! Nothing heavy, nothing hardcore. Go to the box and move. Work on some of the movements you will be doing in the comp, get your heart rate elevated and sweat a little. Then mobilise, mobilise, mobilise! The night before – sleep! Get to bed early and rack up some serous zzzz’s.
On comp day – you’ve made your bed, so lay in it! Nothing you can do now to get any fitter so enjoy the day, work hard and give it your all. As long as you don’t quit you’ve achieved your goal and made your memories – awesome work!