Mat Fraser Shares Pacing and Strategy Tips for CrossFit Open 26.3

Five CrossFit Games titles give Mat Fraser a particular authority when he says a workout is designed to fool you. Open Workout 26.3 is exactly that kind of test, and Fraser's advice, published in Men's Journal on March 16, 2026, cuts straight to the core mistake most athletes will make: going out too fast because the opening weights feel manageable.

"Workouts that start with a lighter weight and get progressively heavier are always a trap," Fraser says. "They lure you into staying with a fast pace because the weights feel comfortable, but that comes back to bite as the weight creeps up."

The framework he builds around 26.3 applies across every movement in the workout, from the power cleans to the thrusters to the burpees that dominate the rep count. Each section has a specific fix, and none of them require extraordinary fitness: they require discipline.

The 16-Minute Reality Check

Before breaking down individual movements, Fraser establishes the most important number in the workout: 16 minutes. That is the time cap for the vast majority of athletes, and Fraser is direct about what it means for pacing. "It's a 16-minute workout for pretty much everyone, and very few athletes in the world will get this under the time cap," he says. "You want to be able to maintain the same output through the whole workout, so keep asking yourself, 'Can I keep this pace up for 16 minutes?' Hold yourself back from getting too excited in the beginning!"

That question, "Can I keep this pace up for 16 minutes?", is less a motivational cue than a real-time pacing tool. Fraser intends it to be asked repeatedly throughout the workout, not just at the start. The structure of 26.3, with weights increasing across rounds, makes early exertion especially costly because the moments when you need the most power arrive precisely when your tank is most depleted.

Power Clean Strategy: Singles Are Not a Weakness

The instinct for experienced CrossFitters is to string reps together wherever possible, treating touch-and-go sets as a marker of competence. Fraser pushes back on that logic for 26.3 specifically. "I'd recommend opting for singles on the power cleans for most, even in the early rounds. It's important you use that opportunity to keep control of your breathing and heart rate," he explains.

The reasoning here is physiological, not motivational. Each rep that returns to the floor gives you a brief window to take in oxygen before the next pull. Fraser is explicit about using that window intentionally: "Take advantage of getting oxygen into the lungs when the barbell is descending to the floor before you pick it back up on the power cleans." Stringing cleans together in the early rounds might save a few seconds, but it accelerates heart rate and breathing in a way that the later, heavier rounds will punish.

For most athletes, the power cleans will feel easy at the start. That is exactly when the trap springs. Singles keep the work honest and preserve the aerobic headroom needed when the bar gets heavy.

Thruster Management: Breaking Smart

Thrusters are the movement most likely to spike heart rate uncontrollably, and Fraser's guidance on them reflects a similar philosophy: build planned rest into the set rather than pushing through to failure. His specific recommendation is to take a small break at a 6-6 or 7-5 split within the thruster sets.

"For the thrusters, taking a small break at 6-6 or 7-5 is a good option," Fraser says. "Take advantage of getting oxygen into the lungs when the barbell is descending to the floor before you pick it back up on the power cleans, or when you take a quick break on the thrusters."

The logic connects directly to the broader pacing strategy. A thruster requires a front squat and a push press in a single continuous movement, which means the legs, hips, shoulders, and lungs are all taxed simultaneously. A brief, planned stop mid-set costs less time than an unplanned breakdown later, and it keeps heart rate from spiking into a range that bleeds into the next movement. Athletes who try to go unbroken on thrusters early in 26.3 typically pay for it in the burpees that follow.

Burpees: Where the Workout Is Actually Won or Lost

26.3 is, at its core, a burpee-heavy workout. You will spend more time on burpees than under the barbell, which makes movement economy on the floor the single biggest lever available for improving your score. Fraser's technique recommendations are specific and counterintuitive for athletes who default to explosive movement everywhere.

Fraser suggests staying as low as possible when coming up and out of the burpee, using minimal effort for the jump over the bar. Rather than popping up aggressively and bounding over, step up out of each burpee and step over the bar, reserving any jumping for the last 60 to 90 seconds of the workout.

This matters because burpees are a full-body power movement that raises heart rate quickly. Every unnecessary explosion during the first 14-plus minutes of the workout is cardiovascular debt. Stepping, by contrast, is sustainable across a high volume of reps without the same heart rate spike. Saving the jumps for the final 60 to 90 seconds means expending that additional energy precisely when it cannot hurt the rest of your workout.

Protecting the Energy System for the Final Bar

All of Fraser's movement-specific advice connects back to a single principle: the final bar in 26.3 is the hardest bar, and you need to arrive at it with something left. "Having power and intensity left in the later rounds depends on not depleting your energy system early on, which circles back to avoiding an overly aggressive start," he says. "That final bar will demand an extra bit of power on every rep."

This is where athletes who followed the pacing check ("Can I keep this pace up for 16 minutes?") throughout the workout separate from those who burned out in the middle rounds. The heavier clean and thruster work late in 26.3 is not just physically demanding: it requires neural drive and explosiveness that simply are not available if the aerobic and muscular systems have been taxed too hard early. Fraser's entire framework is built around keeping those systems intact long enough to matter.

The difference between a score that reflects your actual capacity and one that undersells it often comes down to the opening rounds. Go out controlled, treat the singles as intentional strategy rather than conservatism, use the planned thruster breaks, step through the burpees, and trust that the athlete who paces will outperform the athlete who sprints by the time the final bar comes off the floor.