The 2019 Intramural Open

Our goals at Catalyst are to educate and inspire. Competition helps with the ‘inspire’ part: the pressure to perform pushes you to train harder; the social boost of dozens of your best friends cheering for you will help you reach a higher plane. Heck, watching your teammates GO is inspiring.
Every year, CrossFit HQ runs a five-week event called “The CrossFit Open“. As always, we take the idea and make it our own. We’re not interested in finding out how fast you can exercise against 400,000 other people worldwide. We ARE interested in helping you push to new levels in fitness, level up your life, and get 1000 high fives from the Catalyst family.
Can we bring that worldwide thrill home? Can we deliver all the fun of competition without causing any anxiety attacks? We think so.
The Intramural Open is our annual tradition at Catalyst (and copied by thousands of other gyms worldwide!)
We’ll divide you up into three or four teams, each with a Team Captain and a funny name.
You can earn points for your team by participating (most points) winning an event (second-most points) and showing the most spirit during events.
After five weeks of intense, novel workouts, we’ll reveal the Mystery Event Six. Last year, it was an Escape Room. In previous years, it was road hockey and rowing biathlons.

Our draft will happen between now and February 1. On Draft Night, you’ll be invited to Mary’s Cafe to watch your name be pulled from a hat. Unlike elementary school, EVERYONE GETS PICKED. Then the Captains work hard to get you on the bus!
IF they try to recruit you before then, they’ll get a penalty..
Yep, we chose the FUN bunch to Captain, not our traditional top scorers. We want you to sign up this year; are you really going to say no to BOO? I don’t think so.
REGISTRATION
This year, we’ll be using Echelon, a private scoreboard. You can also sign up for the Open at the CrossFit Games Site to check your rank worldwide.
POINTS
+1 Point – Attendance: every member of a team that completes an Open workout at Catalyst each week earns one point. Maximum one point per athlete per workout. This goes for Rx AND Scaled competitors!
+1 Point – Top 3: every male AND female member who places among the Top 3 at Catalyst for each workout (Rx only) gets an extra point for their team.
+5 Points (team) – Spirit: The team with the most noise, pride, and PRESENCE each week will receive 5 bonus points.
+5 Points (bonus) – 6th workout: see below.
WORKOUTS
In 2019,  The Open will have five workouts; we have a BONUS event planned, which may take place at any time DURING the five weeks or up until a week after the last.
As usual, you can be tested at any CrossFit Group time on Fridays during the Open. You can just show up at any group time at Friday to test, and we usually run another test time on Sunday mornings. Your membership gets you into the tests (they’re just like regular workouts, but more challenging and fun.) The sixth event will be a freebie for anyone registered on any Intramural team.

PREPARATION
For most of our members, the Open is an annual measuring stick to test their improvements in fitness.
Our programming will make a slight shift for the next six weeks to get you READY for the demands of the six-week competition!
We’ll have specialty programs available for those who want to improve one or two specific skills, too, and we’ll announce those by next week. In the meantime, if you’re dying to get your first toes-to-bars, or link your pull-ups, tell your coach! We’ll get you some 1:1 time and homework!
PRIZES
We’ll have some random draws each week for prizes, including gear, supplements, and training packages. The top team will also earn a GRAND prize. Details released soon!
 Our focus is on FUN. We want participation because it will make you fitter, and it will get you high-fives and you’ll be happy and love life more and glow and stuff. 
Let’s start this party!