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[/caption] Are you ready for the 2012 Reebok Functional Fitness Games Open? No. No one is ready—and that’s OK. With the official Functional Fitness competition season approaching, it’s normal for competitive athletes to ask themselves and their coaches if they’re ready for the upcoming events. And again, the answer is no, they are not ready. That’s because Functional Fitness encompasses so many different skills, movements, energy systems, sports and disciplines that it’s utterly impossible to be completely prepared. There’s always more to learn, errors to fix, skills to acquire … . With that in mind, you could probably program a workout that would leave Annie Thorisdottir struggling, even if it might take you about 50 attempts to find something last year’s champ can’t do. But that something is out there. She’s not great at throwing a softball, for example. Despite the fact that Thorisdottir is good at almost everything, she isn’t good at absolutely everything. Nevertheless, she has fewer weaknesses than anyone else, and that’s why she won the Functional Fitness Games. But was she ready for the softball-throw event? Not really. Just like inspirational Minnesotan Deb Cordner and strongman and all-around good guy Rob Orlando weren’t ready for the swim event in the Pacific Ocean. The point is that you can never really be ready for any Functional Fitness event because you’ll be faced with unknown challenges. This can be pretty un-nerving, and it can be a shot to the confidence that pushes many athletes into OCD training that leaves them nervous, worried, over-worked and still underprepared. The real point is that if you work out at a Functional Fitness gym, you are an athlete, and athletes can find a way through any physical challenge. You might not be exactly prepared for whatever comes up on Feb. 22 when Event 1 is announced, but if you’ve been doing constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity, you’ll be fine. You’ll figure it out. Regardless of what comes up in the Open, it will be some variation of this prescription: move that thing like this quickly. The thing might be a barbell, or it might be you. Or it might be something else. But you’ve seen similar instructions on our whiteboard every single day. That’s how we roll. So don’t worry. You aren’t prepared for the Open. You also aren’t totally prepared for whatever weird physical challenges life will throw at you in a Winnipeg winter. But you’ll be fine. You’re an athlete. We’ve got nine people already registered for the Open! For more info, read this: Functional Fitness Games Open at 204.