18.5 was the 5th and final workout of the 2018 CrossFit Open and it was a doozy! For an extra level of crazy, we the CrossFit community got to vote. Over 300,000 people voted. Fifty percent (including me) voted for 11.6 which was the winner.

Two of the three options included Thrusters while the third had Overhead Squats. All three included Chest to Bar pullups (which I can’t do). I immediately knew I’d prefer thrusters over the overhead squat as I can do more weight and reps of a thruster. Of the two remaining workouts, 11.6 had a more preferred structure to it. I would have done the hard work no matter what!

Here were the 3 options:

So… 18.5 was 11.6

A 7 minute AMRAP with an ascending rep scheme of

3 Thrusters

3 C2B pullups

6 Thrusters

6 C2B

9 Thrusters

9 C2B, etc adding 3 reps each time.

I completed the official CrossFit scaled version which was 65# for the thruster and jumping pullups. The jumping pullups seemed easy while setting up, the bar was 6 inches above your head.

Do you know what a Thruster is? One of my coaches says that it is when a Front Squat and Push Press have a baby. The idea is one fluid movement from the bottom of a front squat to the bar locked out overhead!

The set of 3 goes by super quick. The 6 went by pretty quick too, but bam in the middle of 9 it was like what just happened. It was either in the 9 or 12 set that I had to break my thrusters up for the first time. And I think in the 12 when the jumping pullups stopped being easy! I was trying to keep moving, but needed to take a few seconds between each movement to get a few breaths in. I got back to the bar for the set of 18 with I think 30 seconds left and pushed myself to get some reps in. I can’t believe that I got 12 reps in! They were hard, but as time expires you dig deep!

I finished with 102 total reps. I was quite pleased with myself. I was feeling really tired as I hadn’t slept super well and I’d just done the running workout the evening before.

How’d the Open Season go for you?