With 6 months to go until the CrossFit Games Open, how do you prepare? Costa Rican Jonathan Varela offers these tips.

The Nobull CrossFit Games are the biggest event in this discipline. It is a worldwide competition held every year since June 30, 2007 , where athletes compete against each other in intense physical conditioning exercises; however, they first have to qualify to be able to attend.

The first step to travel and participate in this great competition will always be the Open, then Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Last Chance and finally the CrossFit Games.

The season for this event begins at the start of each year, with the CrossFit Open, a three-week international competition in which anyone, regardless of their fitness level or ability, can compete. The 2023 Open begins on February 16th.

We are currently six months away from the start of the qualification for the world's largest fitness competition, which is why if you want to participate, you need to focus more on your training.

Jonathan Varela, the only Costa Rican athlete present at the 2022 CrossFit Games, shares some tips that can help you prepare to give it your all in 2023. Varela also mentioned that he hopes to participate in next year's Open if he doesn't suffer any injuries or encounter any problems.

1- There are 6 months to go, what advice would you give someone to help them prepare for the Open?

My best advice is that there are six months left, that's plenty of time. Find a program that covers strength. Right now you should be doing strength training, but it's not the time to be setting personal records. That's something you should leave for later. Right now, everyone should be focused on the off-season, working on strength, aerobic capacity, and gymnastic movements that are challenging for each individual. Also, work on conditioning, which means bicep curls, pulldowns, and farmer's carry walks— these are very important movements at this stage.

My main advice would be to be patient; there's still a long way to go, it's a long time, and no one should be at their peak training right now. My recommendation is the Mayhem Program because it includes everything; it's a very comprehensive program, and as I've always said, the person has to be coachable and trust the program they're doing, not try to do everything themselves.

2- In your opinion, what is an essential exercise that people should practice?

There isn't one specific exercise; in CrossFit you have to be prepared for everything. There are more than 25 exercises that we do for the Open, and as always, they're sure to reveal some new exercise or some variation of an existing one. So, going back to the main concept of CrossFit, which is high-intensity functional training and the part about constantly varying it, and that's important, because we don't train just one exercise, we train several exercises; that's the key.

3- What is something I definitely cannot do without for the open?

Look, if your main intention and your main competition is the Open, focus on that, don't have other distractions, know what stage you're in, for example, I have stages and right now it's "off season" and my peak training starts to rise depending on where I am, the stage I'm in, and what I can't lack is the desire, the wish and focus on yourself as I've always told everyone, focus on yourself, not on what someone else is doing.

In the end, as I often tell myself, I have no control over what other people do. I can't control whether someone is stronger or faster than me. To me, in the best sense of the word, that doesn't really matter. I'm going to focus on what I can do and how I can benefit from the training. And let's not forget to train with intention, not just train. Don't expect overnight results, but you should gradually see improvement.