CrossFit Open Kicks Off Brutal
The CrossFit Open has kicked off with Workout 26.1, described as a "brutal 300+-rep quad burner." Legendary athlete Rich Froning shared his pacing plan for the workout: breaking up reps early, managing rest intervals, and maintaining steady pacing to avoid burnout—valuable advice for anyone tackling high-volume endurance challenges.
The CrossFit Open is the first qualifying stage for the annual CrossFit Games, a global competition to find the "Fittest on Earth." It began in 2011 and has grown into the world's largest participatory sporting event, with hundreds of thousands of athletes competing in local gyms and submitting scores online. Workout 26.1 is a 12-minute race against the clock, combining wall ball shots with box jump-overs and medicine ball box step-overs. The workout follows a punishing symmetrical rep scheme that increases from 20 to a peak of 66 wall balls before descending again, totaling over 300 repetitions if completed. Rich Froning Jr. dominated the sport as an individual, winning the CrossFit Games four consecutive times from 2011 to 2014. After retiring from individual competition, he led his team, CrossFit Mayhem, to six team championships at the Games. While Froning is a legend, the current men's field is packed with contenders. Jayson Hopper enters the season as the reigning 2025 CrossFit Games champion. Other athletes to watch include Dallin Pepper, who placed second at the 2024 Games, and Colten Mertens, who dominated last year's Open. The 2026 Open consists of three workouts over three weeks, with one released each Thursday. Athletes have until the following Monday to complete the workout and submit their score to a worldwide leaderboard.
