The CrossFit Open rolls on, and 26.2 is a very different beast to last week’s quad-melting wall-ball slog. Where 26.1 was about grit and restraint, Open Workout 26.2 brings skill, grip and overhead stamina into the mix – pairing dumbbell work with a gymnastics ladder that will create a serious bottleneck for anyone short on pulling endurance or ring confidence.

It’s the second of three official workouts in the 2026 Open, with scores due by Monday evening.

This week’s test is a 15-minute race through three rounds of overhead walking lunges, alternating dumbbell snatches and increasingly difficult gymnastics: pull-ups, then chest-to-bar pull-ups, then ring muscle-ups.

For time (15 min time cap)

80-foot dumbbell overhead walking lunge
20 alternating dumbbell snatches
20 pull-ups

80-foot dumbbell overhead walking lunge
20 alternating dumbbell snatches
20 chest-to-bar pull-ups

80-foot dumbbell overhead walking lunge
20 alternating dumbbell snatches
20 ring muscle-ups

For men in the Rx division, the dumbbell is 22.5 kg. Athletes must complete the lunges in 20-foot sections, keep the dumbbell at least 5 feet away from the pull-up bar and rings, and a tiebreak is recorded after each set of snatches – meaning your speed to the final completed set of snatches could matter a lot.

As with every Open workout, 26.2 can be performed Rx, Scaled or in the Foundations division, meaning athletes of almost any ability can take part.

For men in the Scaled division, the structure of the workout remains the same, but the technical barrier is lowered. The dumbbell weight drops to 15 kg and the gymnastics ladder becomes far more accessible – swapping pull-ups, chest-to-bar pull-ups and ring muscle-ups for jumping pull-ups, pull-ups and chest-to-bar pull-ups respectively for each round.

Meanwhile, the Foundations version keeps the same flow of movements but removes the higher skill demand even further, subbing in bent-over rows, ring rows and jumping pull-ups across the three rounds.

If 26.2 looks like a chance to send the first two rounds and pray later, think again. According to Rich Froning and the Mayhem team, the opening rounds are the trap. In their 26.2 strategy video, Froning says the overhead walking lunge should ideally be unbroken, with athletes switching arms halfway to avoid torching one shoulder and tricep too early. He also advises relaxing the grip as much as possible overhead, where simply stabilising the dumbbell can quietly cook your forearms.

On the snatches, the advice is much more frugal – just move. Froning calls them the easiest movement of the workout, but still warns against muscling every rep if it means frying your grip. Use the hips, punch to lockout, and keep things smooth rather than ragged and fatiguing.

The real tactics come on the pull-up bar. Froning suggests the first set of pull-ups should be unbroken for stronger athletes, while the chest-to-bar set may be the place to break once – say 12 and 8, or 10 and 10 – to leave enough in the tank for the rings. For everyone else, this becomes a tiebreak chase: get through the third-round snatches as fast as possible, then see what happens on the muscle-ups.

Above all, Mayhem’s advice is to plan your breaks before you need them. Don’t hit failure. Don’t stare at the bar. And if you do make it to the rings, start with smaller, sustainable sets, not one heroic effort followed by a slow-motion collapse.

With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.    

As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.   

Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.   

 You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.