Once the stream goes black, the athletes at Mantra warm up.
Each Wednesday night, CrossFit Mantra looks more like a movie theater than a box. The owners turn the lights down low and shine the projector on a blank wall. Their athletes sit on boxes, or mobilize on the floor.
At 8 p.m. ET, the stream cuts from video reruns to the Live Open Workout Announcement at a box somewhere in the United States. Over the last three weeks, it has moved from Charlotte, N.C., to Brooklyn N.Y., and then to Boulder, Colo.
The athletes of CrossFit Mantra watch as Dave Castro announces the workout and two top Games competitors go head-to-head.
Once the stream goes black, the athletes at Mantra warm up.
“We’re preparing them for the unknown and unknowable,” Ann Fuerst, owner of CrossFit Mantra, says.
Dan Bailey, Scott Panchik, Annie Thorisdottir, Lindsey Valenzuela, Kristan Clever and Talayna Fortunato didn’t get a chance to practice the Open Workout, and neither do their athletes. It’s a way to make the Open more like the later stages of the season, and real life, Fuerst says.
“It’s all about being able to prepare yourself for things that might happen, whether physical or emotional,” she says. “(In that moment, you have to learn) how you have to view problems differently, and figure out a way to solve them.”
Robert Janics, a first-time Open competitor, says the nerve-racking anticipation gives him the adrenaline needed to push harder in the workout.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” he says. “(But) I had so much energy building waiting for that announcement.”
Although the judges and scorecards are new, the athletes at CrossFit Mantra are used to learning the (workout) moments before they start. To prevent cherry picking, CrossFit Mantra posts the workout at the end of the day and tells earlier athletes not to reveal the workout.
“That’s our thing every day,” Fuerst says. “(The Open) has made it that much more exciting.”
Fuerst wants well-prepared, adaptive athletes.
“We have one guy who loves (to use) gloves, and we tease him about him all the time,” she says. “If someone pushed you off a cliff, would you stop to put your gloves on? We try to teach people about how CrossFit truly is functional, and in some unforeseen event could save your life, so I think (this approach to the Open) kind of plays to that theme very well.”
And what if the newly released Open Workout has a movement that you just did yesterday?
“Tough luck,” Fuerst says.
“We work out yesterday, today and tomorrow. That’s CrossFit. It’s something different every day and sometimes you might know what you’re gonna do, and sometimes you might not.”
