The CrossFit Open 2024 is rapidly approaching, and as is tradition for this open-to-all fitness competition, the workouts are being kept under wraps. It’s a savvy rule because it sends any committed CrossFitter into a frenzy of speculation.
A great place to start if you’re looking for clues is the Workout of the Day (WOD) on CrossFit.com, commonly referred to as main site workouts.
As CrossFit Games podium athlete Lindsey Valenzuela said in the 2015 Fittest On Earth documentary: “If you’re an athlete and you’re not looking at main site workouts, you’re not intelligent, because a lot of those movements appear either at the Open, regionals or Games.”
At the time of writing, the latest WOD is the hero workout Erin, which includes the dumbbell split clean, a move never-before seen at the Open. The exercise involves moving two dumbbells from the floor to your shoulders and catching them with your feet in a staggered stance as you would with a split jerk.
To pour a little extra fuel onto this fire of speculation, the CrossFit Games Instagram account also recently posted a video of “the first time we saw dumbbells in the Open”— it was 17.1, the first workout of the 2017 CrossFit Open, for those wondering.
How To Do CrossFit Hero Workout Erin
Five rounds for time:
- Dumbbell split clean x 15 (40lb for men, 30lb for women)
- Pull-up x 21
What Other New Movements Could Feature In The 2024 CrossFit Open?
CrossFit competition director Adrian Bozman is responsible for programming the CrossFit Open, quarterfinals, semifinals and Games. Since taking the reins for the 2022 Games, he’s not been shy about introducing new movements.
In the 2023 Open we were hit with shuttle runs for the first time, while Boz’s first Games saw a slew of new exercises including double-under crossovers, wall-facing deficit handstand push-ups and dips with parallel bar traverses.
However, last month he told the CrossFit Games podcast that while CrossFit was “not going to do an equipment list this year” it is “very committed to using an equipment profile that’s, you know, pretty vanilla”.
It doesn’t get much more vanilla than dumbbells, and other new faces that have recently made an appearance on the main site and which don’t require unusual equipment include wall-facing handstand push-ups and squat clean thrusters (otherwise known as clusters).