CrossFit Open 22.3 Strategy, Tips And Tricks

Written By Ben  |  CrossFit, Open 

We’re wrapping up the 2022 CrossFit Open with 22.3! If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the workout and standards here.

We hope you’ve had a great Open so far this year and with our 22.3 Strategy Guide we hope to help you secure your best score yet!

This guide is packed full of tips and tricks for each movement and advice on how to pace, so keep reading or watch our video below.

22.3 will bring out many people’s firsts; first double-under, first pull-up, first chest-to-bar, or first bar muscle-up! We are excited to see your videos of these achievements and hope some of our tips help you get it.

Be sure to sign up to receive our free open strategy guides straight to your inbox! When you sign up you’ll get exclusive content that consists of bonus content for the scaled divisions, additional strategies and tips that we develop throughout the weekend, and mental prep notes!

Although this is a shorter workout, you should probably have a longer warm up than normal. In this workout, your heart rate will get really high and you need to prepare your system for that shock. There are several movements to warm up, so pay attention to each movement in your warm up.

We provide a warm-up and have live strategy discussions with our private WODprep Masters group. If you’re looking to be competitive or smoothly hit these open workouts as a master, join our group now!

Open 22.3 Strategy For Pacing & Rep Schemes

This workout is going to be a sprint for higher level athletes. Many top athletes will finish in under 5 minutes. Those athletes will probably complete this workout entirely unbroken.

You need to determine your weakness in this workout and pace around that.

If Thrusters Are Your Issue:

If the thrusters are your weakness, then you don’t want to get to the barbell blown up. If you do, you won’t want to pick up the bar and you’ll waste a lot of time.

So, even though you may be great at the gymnastics, you will want to break this up so that you can efficiently get through the thrusters.

You could consider breaking the thrusters up into manageable quick sets; ideally no more than 3 sets.

We recommend hitting descending rep sets; 8-7-6 for the round of 21, 7-6-5 for the round of 18, and 6-5-4 for the round of 15. Descending reps help you mentally, because you have less reps each set. This also allows you to go into the next movement easier because your last set was the easiest set.

If The Gymnastics Are Your Issue:

Small quick sets! If you really struggle with any of the movements here (pull-ups, chest-to-bar, or bar muscle-ups), then you should consider doing quick singles from the start.

Often athletes end up getting faster times by doing quick singles because they just continuously move through the reps.

If you can do pull-ups but struggle with chest-to-bar, you may do larger sets of the pull-ups but go to singles on the chest-to-bar from the start. We recommend that if you can’t do 3-5 unbroken CTB then you should do singles.

Your score will make it or break it based on the last gymnastic movement for your division. For example, The difference between 1 muscle up and 0 muscle ups will be thousands of positions on the leaderboard. You don’t want to be so worn out by the time you get there that you end up just failing reps and you don’t get one.

Most people will get there in their division but that may be the end of the line.

If Double-Unders Are Your Issue:

Fortunately, there are not too many double-unders so you won’t have to suffer for too long. However, for this it’s going to be about managing your grip fatigue and your breathing.

Keep reading below for our tips and tricks for double-unders that will help you get through those reps.

Gaming The Tiebreak

If you know you are not going to finish this workout you’ll want to not only aim to get the most reps possible, but the best split time on your last completed set of thrusters.

So if it’s coming down to the time cap, get those last thrusters in for a good split time. Don’t rest too long between your thruster sets.

This Workout Is Grippy – Wear Grips!

Everything in this workout will wear down your grip, your shoulders and your triceps (which will also make “holding on” that much harder).

The standards do allow you to wear grips, gloves, or other hand protection. You just can’t do that AND tape the bar.

We recommend you do wear grips, if you have some you are comfortable with. Wearing grips for the first time in the Open Workout is probably not the way to go.

Check out our tips on how to wear grips to improve your performance!

CrossFit Open 22.3 Tips And Tricks

Not only is it important to properly pace and pick a good rep scheme but it’s also important to do your reps efficiently with good technique. We’ve compiled a ton of tips and tricks on improving the movements in this workout so that you can get even more reps!

Double-Unders Tips For Smooth And Relaxed Reps

  1. Have soft knees.
  2. Point your toes down.
  3. Keep your chest up and eyes forward.
  4. Spin your wrists and not your shoulders.
  5. Let the rope click the ground.


Check out this slow-mo video going over good double-under form:

How To Stop Tripping In Double-Unders

If you struggle with tripping in your double-unders a few tricks could help reduce this, and hopefully give you some unbroken sets in this workout.

Here are a few reasons you may be tripping:

1. Your rope length is not right for you.


2. Your arms are too wide, or are drifting apart.


3. Your feet are too wide, or are moving apart.


Don’t have double-unders yet but are hoping to get your first one this open?

Check out this video below where I teach two people on how to get their first double-unders.

Tips And Tricks To Use For Your Thrusters In 22.3

Let’s face it, thrusters are hard! You’ll want to be really efficient with your thrusters in 22.3 to get your best score! However, there are a few common faults most people face in their thrusters. Below are a few cues to think about to improve your thrusters:

1. Get A Good Rack

  • This will allow you to relax your grip. You’ll want to keep all the grip you can in this workout!


2. Make Sure You Use Your Legs

  • This workout will use a lot of arms, so you’ll want to make sure you are driving with your legs to get out of the thruster. Don’t rely on your arms.


3. Breathe In Your Thrusters (And Do It At The Top)!

  • Breathe out as you press up and breathe in as you go down. You don’t want to hold your breath or start hyperventilating here.


4. Don’t Lazy Lockout

  • The last thing you want is a no rep in the thruster. Make sure you press all the way out and lock out your elbows. Think about driving your head through the window.


Check out our ultimate guide on thrusters:

Tips For Efficient Kipping Pull-Ups And Chest-To-Bars

Here are a few tips on how to improve your kipping pull-up:

1. Push Away From The Bar

  • After getting the pull-up, you may drop straight down. This makes it very hard to get your next kip! After you pull into the bar for your rep, you should then push away from the bar. This will put you back on your kip swing so you can easily get another rep.


2. Don’t Bend Your Knees In Your Kip

  • Some athletes have a tendency to bend their knees when in the arch position of the kip swing, thinking that the more they move their feet the more momentum they will get. However, you end up just expending extra energy and you actually lose tension in your kip. Tension is what will make for a snappier and easier kip. Think about keeping your feet together and your knees extended!


3. Pop Your Hips!

  • This is especially important in getting chest-to-bars, but popping your hips in the kip swing will get you more power and get you higher. This will help get your chin over the bar or get your chest to touch the bar.


We normally don’t recommend this as it isn’t an efficient way to do it. But, if you are really struggling with getting your chest-to-bars, you can try to extend your chest out a bit to decrease the distance from your chest to the bar. Again, this is NOT an efficient way to do chest-to-bars but it just might get you a couple extra reps.


Check out our video on how to improve your kipping pull-ups:

Tips For Butterfly Pull-Ups & Chest-To-Bar

If you can, butterfly pull-ups are the way to go in this workout. Butterfly pull-ups require less time under tension, meaning they’re less muscularly fatiguing. Also, you can release your grip a little during the rep to relax your forearms.

However, because they are faster, they can jack your heart rate up! Butterfly pull-ups are also much more difficult to do than regular kipping pull-ups. With that said, we don’t recommend trying to learn butterfly pull-ups until you can do 10-15 unbroken kipping pull-ups.

If you are doing singles, it probably doesn’t matter whether you do kipping or butterfly.

Here are some tips to improve your butterfly pull-up:

1. Go Up And Away From The Bar

  • This tip is for you if you feel like your face is going to hit the bar. Your face will be further away from the bar at the top of the butterfly kip versus the regular kip. Keep this in mind when doing your next butterfly pull-up!


2. Be Patient & Ice Cream Scoop

  • Be slow with your legs and think about scooping them up, versus pulling them back.


3. Do Mini Butterfly Pull-Ups

  • Getting a hang of the rhythm can be tricky. In your warm-up practice with some mini butterfly pull-ups. It doesn’t matter that you don’t get a full rep, you’ll start to get the motion and can then increase in your height!


Check out our video guide on how to fix common butterfly pull-up mistakes:

Tips & Tricks For Bar Muscle-Ups (& How To Get Your First BMU)!

We believe that this is a bar muscle-up workout. Getting more reps in the bar muscle-ups will mean seriously higher positions on the leaderboard.

If you already have bar muscle-ups but you struggle with stringing them together, this one tip could help you start getting unbroken BMUs:

1. Don’t push yourself back

  • Unlike a kipping pull-up you don’t want to push yourself backwards off of the bar when you’re at the top. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a completely different second kip than your first, and this may cause you to miss your second rep. Instead, re-dip down to the bar, and then push yourself back.


If you struggle with chicken-winging, try the following to try and fix it for this workout:

1. Try some banded bar muscle-ups in your warm-up.

  • This will give enough assistance to think about pulling and pressing evenly and popping your hips high to get both of your arms over the bar.


2. Think about throwing your elbows over the bar kind of early.

  • This will prevent you from pulling too much on the bar and it gets your hands transitioned even before your body does.


3. Jump into the arch position.

  • This will help create more tension in your kip swing, giving you a bigger snap and just enough more momentum to get you higher over the bar.


If this could be your first time getting a bar muscle-up check out these tips below! Let us know if any of our tips helped you get your first muscle-up!

1. Make sure you have a proper grip.

A good grip could make or break your bar muscle-up. If your wrists are positioned directly under the bar it makes it very difficult to rotate the wrists over the bar.

2. Try a box drop in!

There is nothing in the standards that says you can’t start on a box and drop in. This will give you a lot more momentum than just jumping up on your own.

3. Try the hat trick!

If your kip swing is great and your hips are getting high, but you just can’t turn over, give this a shot:

We hope that you found all of our strategy guides helpful this year for the 2022 CrossFit Open!

If you feel like you had a particular weakness that held you back in this year’s Open be sure to check out our WODprep Academy in order to fast track your progress in strength, conditioning, mobility, specific skills, and much more! Or, check out our 1-on-1 Coaching for a fully customized program designed just for you based on your goals!

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Useful Links:

22.1:

Blog: CrossFit Open 22.1 Workout & Standards

Blog: CrossFit Open 22.1 Strategy & Tips

YouTube Video: CrossFit Open 22.1 Strategy & Tips

22.2:

Blog: CrossFit Open 22.2 Workout & Standards

Blog: CrossFit Open 22.2 Strategy & Tips

YouTube Video: CrossFit Open 22.2 Strategy & Tips

22.3:

Blog: CrossFit Open 22.3 Workout & Standards

YouTube Video: CrossFit Open 22.3 Strategy & Tips

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