Fittest On Earth

The Games

The Crossfit Games is the “Olympics” of the Crossfit world, where arguably the fittest athletes in the world compete each July to be crowned the “fittest man/woman” alive. They must first, however, qualify at Regionals in one of the 18 Regions across the globe. But, to compete at Regionals, you must first qualify in the Open, five workouts released across five weeks. Source

Live Announcement 18.5

A Recap of this week's Live Announcement of 18.5 can be viewed on YouTube by clicking below:

---

---

In this epic Live Open Announcement three of the most dominant women in Crossfit—Sara Sigmundsdottir (2x Third Fittest Woman on Earth), Katrin Davidsdottir (2x Crossfit Games Champion) and Annie Thorisdottir (2x Crossfit Games Champion)—showed off their elite athleticism as they competed in a workout chosen by the Crossfit community.

---

Image Source

---

In a bold move by the Director of the Crossfit Games, Dave Castro, three workouts were selected to be voted upon in the two hours leading up to the live announcement, which took place at Crossfit Reykjavik in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Although, this tiny country provides only 1% of the Crossfit Games female competitors, those Icelandic athletes make up 27% of the Games Female Podium Positions AND 36% of the Games Female Champions.

The Vote

The workouts selected to be voted on by the Crossfit community were:

---

Image Source

---

The Community was given two hours to place their vote via Facebook Live comments.

The Winner Is???

---

Image Source

---

What The What?

Let me decipher...18.5 as voted on by the Crossfit Community is a repeat workout, created in 2011 and repeated in 2012.

Here’s how it works, you have 7minutes to get as far as possible in a workout consisting of:

• 3 Thrusters (95/65#)
• 3 Chest-To-Bar (C2B) Pull-ups

In the next round, you add 3 reps to each, completing:

• 6 Thrusters
• 6 C2B Pull-ups

Continue adding 3 reps per round until time runs out. Your score is the total number of reps completed.

Movement Standards

This demo video from YouTube, clearly explains the movement standards and gives you a visual of what the workout should look like:

---

Video Source

---

Catch Up

Hopefully, you’ve read the previous week's posts introducing the CrossFit Open and 18.1, 18.2, 18.3 as well as 18.4.
If not, take a minute to catch up on all the action!

Follow Along

Personally, 18.1 and 18.2 were not strong performances for me, which you can read about in my Week 1 Results and Week 2 Results. Week 3 allowed me to hold steady, which you can check out here. Week 4 bolstered me slightly as I was able to accumulate several reps of a very challenging move, the Handstand Push-Up.

My Week 5

The workout I voted for, Option 1, was the workout that won! I chose it because Option 2 had the same movements (Thruster and C2B Pull-ups) as this one, but it required me to get more reps of a more challenging movement for me, the C2B Pull-up. While Option 3, had Overhead Squats, which already destroyed me in 18.3. I think Option 1 was a good choice.

Although, I hadn’t tried C2B Pull-ups in over a year, I was able to knock out reps one at a time. As a result, I achieved a much higher score than I anticipated. Below, shows my results and ranking for each workout:

---

Image Source

---

In The End

When I started the 2018 Crossfit Open, my goal was to improve upon my ranking from last year.

---

---

This year, I achieved my goal by moving up the leaderboard slightly:

---

---

Finishing 6,644 out of 19,859 Women Ages 40-44 years old, which is in the top 36%!

---

---

I’m proud of my accomplishments and happy that I met my goal, but the 2018 CrossFit Open only fueled my fire to improve my performance drastically by next year. My goal is to jump into the top 25% in my Division.

I’ve already begun systematically working on my biggest weaknesses and already seeing improvements! Bring on 2019!

Thanks,
Coach JJ


All information for this article was sourced from this YouTube video and the Crossfit Games website.

---

Hi Friends! Thanks For Reading!

---

---

Hi! My name is Coach JJ and I've been coaching and inspiring athletes to better health and fitness for over five years! I'm a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer at CrossFit Edwardsville in Edwardsville, IL, USA. But, my vision is to bring together the Fitness Community on Steemit in order to have a greater impact on improving the health and fitness of our fellow Steemians.

I'm also a mother of two teens and a self-defined “spicy, sassy Christ-follower” who posts about my personal journey, but loves all those on any journey. Feel free to check out my intro post, get inspired on your fitness journey, or ponder on my faith-based posts. If any of this connects with you, follow me and say Hello!

Happy Steeming,
Coach JJ

---

---