Canadian Jeffrey Adler started working with his coach (and partner) Caroline Lambray in 2015. Their goals and strategies have seemingly always aligned, and unlike others who came into the sport around that same time, they have seemingly always taken the long-term view: trusting that building a strong foundation and playing the long game would eventually pay off. Given Adler’s recent accomplishments, it’s easy to say it has.
Although the relevance of the CrossFit Open has changed (several times) in the past few years, it remains a consistent early season “check-in” for fitness. CrossFit’s mastermind Dave Castro has been the backbone of programming for every iteration of the Open, and despite some of the workouts, or tests as he prefers to call them, being drawn into question when looked at in isolation, the totality of the test that is the Open is typically a good one.In Adler’s first Open he placed 2,709th worldwide, and 188th in Canada. He has made a steady climb up the leaderboard since then. In his second year he was 410th and 37th, and by his third year he was inside the top 100 worldwide and inside the top 10 in the impressive Canadian men’s field.
His worldwide ranking in the Open continued to climb in 2019 (26th and 5th) and 2020 (5th and 1st). The top-five finish, and becoming the fittest man in Canada in the 2020 Open, came on the back of what some have called the most impressive Open performance ever. In 20.4, a test which featured box jumps, single-leg squats (pistols), and ascending weight clean and jerks, Adler set the world record with an incredible time of 12:41.
His time was one minute and 41 seconds faster than the second best time among all men worldwide that week, that belonging to five-time CrossFit Games champion Mat Fraser.
The 2021 Open brought several changes, chief among them the introduction of a prize purse for a top-five finish, with the eventual winner earning US$15,000. After two weeks it was pretty tight at the top of the men’s field, with several notable names well within striking distance and only one week remaining.
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CrossFit's China ambitions face huge hurdles despite middle-class demand for exercise options
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The announcement of 21.3 and 21.4 revealed a high-volume test of gymnastics and lightweight barbell cycling, coupled with a max lift complex which featured Adler’s best movement, the clean and jerk. More specifically it was a deadlift, plus a hang clean, plus a clean from the floor, plus a jerk. But either way, the final test seemed to be tailor-made for Adler, and potentially become not just the fittest in Canada, but the fittest in the world at the 2021 CrossFit Open.
And that’s exactly what happened. When the dust settled and the leaderboard was finalised, Adler sat atop. He totalled 101 points across four tests, 40 points clear of second-placed Scott Panchik. Adler got there, not just because of his success on the lifting complex (he cleared 317 pounds for a 46th-place finish in that test, his worst finish of the Open this year). But, the reason he won calls back to the strong foundation he and Lambray have been building for over half a decade.
The first test this year, 21.1, was a test of shoulder endurance, transitions, and managing a new movement to the Open (the wall walk) under fatigue. Adler took 20th. Week two saw a repeat from 2017, a work capacity test featuring only two movements: the dumbbell snatch and burpee box jump overs. In 2017, Adler finished that workout in 11:52, good enough for a 695th-place finish worldwide. Fast forward four years and Adler completed this year’s version of the exact same workout in an incredible 9:14, good enough for eighth place worldwide, which would be his best finish this year.
Finally, the test preceding the lifting complex, 21.3, which for the top athletes came down almost entirely to a set of 30 bar muscle-ups, yet again proved not to be an issue for Adler. His time of 8:15 earned a 27th-place finish and was the final piece of the puzzle towards checking off a new career accomplishment, the worldwide winner of the CrossFit Open.
Although winning the Open is a major accomplishment, Adler has his eyes set on bigger feats. He’s qualified for the Games each of the past two seasons, taking 33rd in the cut-heavy 2019 version of the Games, and then turning several heads with a top-five finish in the 2020 Games.
While a top-five finish could be viewed as a career capping performance for many, taking fifth in a five-person field probably feels like as much of a loss as it does a win. All outward signs are that Adler recognises the fact that he’s continued to get better, which has always been part of the plan. The question remains if he can leverage his career-best performance in the 2021 Open into a career best (and possibly podium) finish at the 2021 CrossFit Games later this season.
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