Rich Froning Gives Tips For Successful CrossFit Open 19.4 Workout Strategy

Who better to get CrossFit advice from than the four-time World’s Fittest Man” Rich Froning. He won the 19.2 Open Workout and now offers some very useful tips for a successful 19.4 workout strategy.

Here’s the 19.4 workout:

For total time:
3 rounds of:
– 10 snatches
– 12 bar-facing burpees
Rest 3 minutes
Then, 3 rounds of:
– 10 bar muscle-ups
– 12 bar-facing burpees

M 95 lb.
W 65 lb.

Time cap: 12 minutes

So, Froning recommends pushing the first three rounds of snatches and burpees quickly if you’re not great at muscle-ups; which come later in the workout. The reason being is you’d be wasting too much time trying to finish muscle-ups which affects your overall time.

For the snatches, Froning gives three ways to perform the movement. You can either do the “meathead grip and rip it“ where you don’t make contact with the hips and muscle the weight up. You can also do a muscle snatch where you make contact with the hips or just a traditional power snatch. You have to “go to that dark place for a little bit and put the metal to the metal,” says Froning since this should be a fast workout.

For the second round, Froning advises taking your time with the muscle-ups if they are difficult for you. He says you never want to chicken wing over the bar, “always try to stay calm, stay in the moment try not to push too hard if bar muscle-ups are going to be the hard part for you”. For the burpees, you can take one step after you hop up on two legs off the floor for a little momentum. You do need to do a two foot take off to hop over the bar for each burpee.

For warm-ups, Froning says to hop on a rower to get your heart rate up and do the Burgener warm-up to prepare for snatches. He then recommends doing a few rounds of the actual 19.4 Workout… and that’s it! You should be ready to take on the actual workout.

More tips and strategies for the 19.4 Open Workout…

Notes for the 19.4 Workout: (h/t Crossfitgames.com)

“Prior to starting this workout, the athlete will need to set up a barbell, with standard plates, to jump over during the burpees. This workout begins with the barbell on the floor and the athlete standing tall. After the call of “3, 2, 1 … go,” the athlete may perform 10 snatches and 12 bar-facing burpees for 3 rounds. Upon completion of the first couplet, the athlete MUST rest 3 minutes while the clock continues to run. The athlete then may continue to the second portion of the workout: 3 rounds of 10 bar muscle-ups and 12 bar-facing burpees.

The athlete’s score will be the total time it takes to complete the entire workout or the total number of repetitions completed before the 12-minute time cap.

If the athlete doesn’t complete the first couplet until after the 9-minute mark, their workout is over. In this case, the athlete’s score will be 66 reps (with a tiebreak time)”.

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