4 down. 1 to go. With muscle-ups and handstand push-ups in back-to-back weeks, 15.5 should feel like a breeze. Here’s how the BTWB community managed on 15.4.
CrossFit Games Open 15.4 – Rx’d
Interestingly, at the 95+ percentile categories, the women had the slight edge in reps. For all others, the men outscored the women, which is to be expected given the pressing demands of the handstand push-up. Getting through the 1st tie breaker (27 reps) was possible for more than 50% of the participating athletes. You have to jump all the way up to between the 90th and 95th percentiles to find the next tie breaker at 90 reps.
The chart above shows a breakdown of where athletes finished 15.4 by movement. A lot of women got stuck on the very first 3 handstand push-ups. These are likely women who earned their first ever handstand push-ups, or women who couldn’t quite clean 125 lbs. A lot of men also got stuck on the first set of handstand push-ups but a majority appear to have been bogged down by the initial reps of the 3rd (9s), 4th (12s), and 5th (15s) sets of handstand push-ups. By comparison, far less men finished 15.4 while performing cleans. Dramatic spikes and dips aren’t as present for the women. The distribution is much more even, though small spikes can still be found at the same HSPU sets as the men. The bottom line? 15.4 was much more about how good you were at HSPUs than how you could handle 185/125 lb cleans.
CrossFit Games Open 15.4 – Scaled
The scaled version of 15.4 was more like a classic CrossFit style workout than the Rx’d version. As a result, the graph above has a much more even distribution of results. With 15.4 Rx’d, because of the existence of handstand push-ups, and the ascending rep scheme, most athletes were always going to be stuck in the early stages of the workout. The push press in 15.4 Scaled, and the classic 10-10 rep scheme, posed far less barriers to accumulating lots of reps. The weights for the clean and the push press were very doable, which made it more about an athlete’s engine than his/her skills. The percentile breakdown is as follows:
99th Percentile Men: 7.5 rounds (150 reps)
90th Percentile Men: 5.8 rounds (116 reps)
50th Percentile Men: 4.3 rounds (86 reps)
99th Percentile Women: 8.1 rounds (162 reps)
90th Percentile Women: 6.3 rounds (126 reps)
50th Percentile Women: 4.6 rounds (92 reps)
The women held the slight edge in each of the percentile categories.
15.5 – What To Expect
If you remember from our CrossFit Games Open 2015: What To Expect article, nine movements have appeared in every CrossFit Games Open since its inception in 2011. Six of those movements have already made an appearance in 2015. The three that have yet to be seen are box jumps, burpees, and thrusters. There is a strong chance you’ll be seeing all three in 15.5. Do yourselves a favor and get in some extra work this week with those movements. There is also a chance that Dave Castro throws everyone for a loop with his 15.5 announcement, but history usually ends up repeating itself.
15.4 Top 5
With one more workout to go, several BTWB users are well positioned for a trip to Regionals. Here are the top 5 BTWB men and women for 15.4. Congrats!
15.4 Men
- Ben Williams – 155 (Fitness Level 92)
- Nick Scott – 144 (Fitness Level 78)
- Neal Maddox – 141 (Fitness Level 85)
- Matthew Sherburne – 134 (Fitness Level 94)
- Steuino Italiano – 133 (Fitness Level 91)
15.4 Women
- Julie Foucher – 160 (Fitness Level 93)
- Gabriella Oxford – 149 (Fitness Level 74)
- Maude Charron – 146 (Fitness Level 96)
- Christy Adkins – 141 (Fitness Level 96)
- Allison Ehle – 136 (Fitness Level 89)
