Open 14.4 Strategy and Tips

Open WOD 14.4 is a chipper however, if you finish the 20 muscle ups and there is time left you can restart the chipper. First up is 60 calories of rowing. This is the first movement so all athletes will be fresh. Don’t go too fast but you should definitely have a calculated pace. Best way to determine a good pace is write down your best 500m row (in seconds) and multiply it by 1.2. The number you will get is the pace you should keep for this row. Here is an example… if you row a 1:30 500m row then multiply 90 (seconds) by 1.2. This comes out to 108. Now subtract 60 because that is 1 minute and you have 48 seconds remaining. That means your row pace should be around 1:48 for this entire row. Next up is 50 toes-to-bar, this is something that can go really fast and then you are stuck doing 1 rep at a time. Consider breaking them up into sets. 5-10 reps at a time then rest. After the toes-to-bar you have to do 40 wall balls. Just like Karen you can eat up a ton of time if you rest a lot doing the wall balls. If you are unable to do these unbroken break these up in sets and mentally tell yourself you aren’t going to stop until you get ten reps and do four sets of ten, or two sets of twenty. Be mentally tough during this part of the workout!

After all that then you begin the toughest part of the WOD, thirty power cleans! 135 pounds for men and 95 pounds for women. Touch-and-goes for this movement and reps might be really tough. If you can’t do any touch-and-goes it might be best to do one at a time. After you drop the bar once it stops bouncing you pick it up and do another rep. The most important thing to remember during this workout is your calculated rest. You need to set a pace and stick with it through every movement. Lastly, and we all knew this was coming sooner or later… 20 muscle ups! Tie breakers go to whoever completes the cleans faster therefore it is still important to complete all reps as fast as possible even if you don’t have muscle ups.