How Greg Glassman is Reshaping the CrossFit Games

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is powered by NOOMA, makers of organic, simple-ingredient sports drinks with no added sugar. CrossFit boxes across the country provide NOOMA for their members, including Scott Panchik’s CrossFit Mentality.

“My members love it. We go through cases like crazy. Best customer service and no hassle ordering.” – Scott Panchik. Check out NOOMA’s wholesale program: get a free fridge, free fill, and other awesome perks for your members. Click here for more info!

“Some days we will not know whether to laugh or cry.  But trying to be everything to everyone, all the time, is a recipe for disaster.  And endlessly striving for perfect balance only turns our lives into a tightrope, upon which we never dare to dance, for fear of a terrible fall. So remember: The pages of your life belong to you.  Write a story that makes you happy and proud.  And someday, somewhere, a wonderful little girl will read it and say, ‘I want to be just like her.’” — Queen Rania of Jordan

Pulling Together for Cancer Research

The story.

In February of 2017, Sally Bondurant and husband Svend Pedersen learned that their son, Eric, had testicular cancer.

“The sense of helplessness and powerlessness as a parent, when your child is sick, there’s nothing else like it,” Sally said.

Since then, Eric’s fought with courage, strength, grace, and humor that is truly inspirational. This spring, he endured four intense rounds of chemotherapy at the University of Virginia Cancer Center in Charlottesville. Early, post-chemotherapy results are positive and Eric’s family is confident he will move forward for a long healthy life.

That’s great news.

But his parents aren’t through yet. They wanted to thank the UVA Cancer Center, who gave their son a fighting chance in this battle through their skill and compassionate care. So they called on another strong support system to help — CrossFit.

Sally and Svend had the idea to host a fundraiser to raise awareness and funds for the UVA Cancer Center. Their box, CrossFit Nittany in State College, PA agreed. Owner Bryan St. Andrews offered the use of the gym and members donated their own rowers for use. One member had t-shirts made, another designed flyers and social media. Others are donating prizes and offering to set up and help coordinate the teams.

It takes a village people.

Sally was caught off guard with the overwhelming response. “We live in a college town. It’s a very broad community. We go to the gym every day and see such a diverse group, but to then see that same broad group come together for this, it just means the world to us.”

Eric’s father thought that rowing was the perfect metaphor to battling cancer. “Cancer sucks. It absolutely sucks for everyone. The fight is long; it’s hard, it’s painful, it’s all consuming, you don’t know when, or if, the fight will end or even if you can fight that long, and at times it’s boring as hell. That pretty well sums up rowing on an Erg.”

Sounds a lot like a row marathon…

The event is Sunday, September 16 from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM at CrossFit Nittany. But you don’t have to be there to participate. You can row too, in your own box, and let CrossFit Nittany know how you did. And if you hate rowing as much as you hate cancer, well then you can just donate.

“The fundraiser for us, shows that the community is always willing to pull together. Love is an action word,” Sally said. “And what better way to show that than coming together as a community and showing our gym, and all the gyms in the world, ‘Look. We care about our members. We do the right things.’”

It was the end of the 2010 CrossFit Games season and Greg Glassman, CrossFit’s Founder and Chairman, realized that the Games season needed to change. That year, approximately 33 sectional events around the world determined the fittest athletes to compete at Regionals. But the Sport of Fitness was growing so rapidly that in order to meet the demand next year they’d have to expand Sectionals exponentially, something that was financially and logistically untenable.

“Dave [Castro] and Justin [Bergh] liked the Sectionals we were having but the problem was that the number of sectionals we needed was outpacing affiliate growth and the infrastructure to handle hundreds and hundreds of sectional events was fundamentally going to have an online system that looked like the leaderboard in the Open anyway,” Greg Glassman said in a call earlier today.

Glassman recognized the problem immediately and in 2011, CrossFit ditched Sectionals and introduced the Open — and with it came 26,000 more CrossFitters participating, up from approximately 4,500 the year before.

In one season, the CrossFit Games grew by 470 percent, and in 2018, more than 400,000 participated in the Open.

The new CrossFit Games season: What you need to know.

Continue Reading…

Coffee Break Conversations

What to tell you swolemate tonight at dinner…

Pass the salt, please. If your go-to sweat session is in the weight room or CrossFit box, a sodium deficiency can actually make your muscles weaker, workouts harder, and dehydration worse. One recent study shows that athletes just might benefit from more salt, not less. So start searching for that lost shaker of salt. 

Things To…

WATCH: Off the Carbs, Off the Couch

CrossFit Founder Greg Glassman explains the simple correlation between lifestyle choices and chronic disease to trainers at the 2017 Level 1 Seminar Staff Summit. “The independent variable that controls your health,” Glassman says, “are the lifestyle choices of what you ate and what you did for exercise.”

A GOOD REMINDER.

HEAR: The Start of Kill the Quit

In this episode of the Kill the Quit podcast, Mark Zinno chats with Kill Cliff’s first employee GW Garrison on the early days of Kill Cliff, launching a beverage company, and selling drinks out of the back of GW’s car.

TUNE IN. 

EAT: Grain Free Peanut Butter Zucchini Bread

Low carb grain-free peanut butter zucchini bread made with simple, nutritious ingredients. There are two options to make it: with coconut flour or with protein powder! Soft, fluffy, moist and a good source of protein and fiber.

DELICIOUS AND HEALTHY.

Today’s edition of the Morning Chalk Up is powered by

Chalk Up Community

• DOWNTOWN GETDOWN — A two-day festival going down this weekend in Utica will host a free CrossFit community workout Saturday at noon. 
• CROSSFIT IN THE PARK — New CrossFit  equipment has been installed at Mullet Bay Park in St. George’s, Bermuda, in honor of the parish’s victory in the 50 Million Steps Challenge, which challenged teams to record the highest number of steps over a two-month period.

CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES (a highlight reel around social media of CrossFit pros and average joes)

Kayla Ketchum gets her first handstand push-up • Charissa Johnson gets her first handstand push-up too • 16-year-old Jared Fleming got a 125kg/275 pound snatch PR • Daniel Camargo, AKA Mattie Rogers’ coach, took second place at the Masters World Championships • Kristi Eramo and Kristin Holte are hanging out in Italy • Do you think you could beat Dave Castro in a quick draw? • Coltey Mane is doing a Reddit AMA. 

…and when you’re having one of those days maybe just go home.

A Tough Recovery — Mary Beth Prodromides, a middle school physical education teacher, was also just crowned the Fittest 55-59 year-old woman on Earth. However, her fourth title happened to be the hardest one to achieve. From tearing her meniscus in 2017, having surgery, her dad getting sick, and re-injuring her leg, Mary Beth had to overcome a lot to etch her name in history.

CrossFit 204 Turns Nine — “With thanks to all the coaches, gym owners, colleagues and clients who helped me learn them; Keep going forever. We’ve seen people lose their canes and then need them again after taking time off. We’ve seen people make amazing positive changes and then make equally dramatic negative changes. Momentum is key. To stay healthy, you can’t stop working out—not on vacation, not because you’re busy, not because you’re tired. You have to keep going. You’re a person who works out now, so do it regularly no matter what. If you do, you’ll be richly rewarded.”

Bringing Her Passions Together — Diana Volant has a passion for two things: fitness and helping those in need. She combined bot of these when she created Future Fittest on the 45th, a trauma program designed to help struggling or at-risk youth through physical fitness. “We’re committed to developing the healthiest child by improving mental, physical and emotional health at the same time,” she said.

“Off the Carbs, Off the Couch,” by Brittney Saline, CrossFit Journal

Consider CrossFit’s Sickness-Wellness-Fitness Continuum. Glassman that “nearly every measurable value of health can be placed on a continuum that ranges from sickness to wellness to fitness.” Just a few among these values are blood pressure, body fat, muscle mass and triglycerides—as well glycated hemoglobin, or red-blood-cell protein molecules bound to glucose, an excess of which is a marker of Type 2 diabetes.

On Day 1 of the Level 1 course, CrossFit Level 3 Trainer and Seminar Staff member Pablo Cervigni had explained CrossFit’s definition of health: fitness measured across age. As we train, each of us can work toward our own genetic potential, the highest possible expression of our individual fitness. But can people get there without addressing nutrition?

“They cannot, not even close. It really comes back to Coach Glassman’s Theoretical Hierarchy of the Development of the Athlete. Nutrition is at the base of it all,” Westerlin said, referencing the famous “pyramid” he had drawn earlier.

He continued: “So the person that’s increased work capacity at a typical gym, their scores do go up, yet they still hang on to their excess body fat. Usually you can find (the cause) in the fundamental question, ‘Well, what’s your diet look like?’”

So regardless of whether you’re training a gifted athlete or a 300-lb. woman in her 50s, nutrition matters. And if you think choosing broccoli over a blueberry muffin is common sense, and thus not something you need teach your clients, you’d be wrong in far too many cases.

“I don’t think that most people know that (chronic disease) in a very, very large part comes from the way that we eat,” Westerlin said. “I think most people think that the obesity is due to inactivity and that the chronic conditions that their parents have or that everybody’s taking medication for is just kind of in the cards or is a byproduct of just getting older, whereas it’s just not.”

8/25: Iron Belle and Femme Royale Women’s Competition (Austin, TX) 

8/25: CrossFit Sua Sponte Summer Slam (Raleigh, NC) 

8/25: AMRAP For Autism (Waxhaw, NC)

​8/25: CrossFit Decathlon (Indianapolis, IN) 

8/25: Best of the West Summer Event (Bend, OR)

8/25: 2018 Firewall Frenzy (Holliston, MA)

8/25: The Hero Games 2018 (Farmington, AR)

8/25: 2018 Rivertown Throwdown (Cape Girardeau, MO)

8/25: South Central Summer Games 2018 (Richland, MS)8/25 – 26: Battlegrounds Nevada (Reno, NV)

8/25 – 8/26: Battle at the Barn (Ft. Worth, TX) 

8/25 – 8/26: Battle of the Boxes Highland Games (Mt. Airy, MD) 

​8/31: Greece with VoyEdge RX

9/1: Tampa Bay Games (Tampa, FL)

9/1: Battle At The Base 3 (Oklahoma City, OK)

9/6 – 9/9: Kill Cliff Granite Games (St. Cloud, MN) 

9/7: Koski Training Camp (Lloret de Mar, Spain) 

​9/8: Midwest Fall Classic (Tulsa, OK)

​9/8: The Sugar Skull Showdown (Agawam, MA)

9/8: I Can CrossFit Competition (Georgetown, TX)

9/8: Global Aftermath 2018 (Online)

9/8: The Catalyst Games (Bastrop, TX) 

9/8: BoxLife Games @ CrossFit Bear Cat (Bunnell, FL)

9/8: BoxLife Games @ CrossFit Wynwood (Miami, FL)

9/8: Booties in Action (Wilsonville, OR)9/8: Hookd2Hops 2018 (Newtown, CT)

9/8: Rumble in the Jungle 2018 (LaVista, NE)

9/8: 2018 Battle of the Bluegrass (Louisville, KY) 

9/8: Decima Throwdown (Littleton, CO)

9/8: First Timers Fitness Festival 2 (Burlington, MA) 

9/8: Girls Gone RX (Bridgeville, PA) 

9/8: BoxLife Games at CrossFit James Island (Charleston, SC) 

9/8: Femme Royale (Denver, CO) 

9/8: Double Trouble Throw Down (Twinsburg, OH)

9/8 – 9/9: The Vermonster Team Challenge (Berlin, VT)

9/15: Warrior Affiliate League Three Amigos (Pomona,CA)

9/15: No Mans Land 4 (Painesville, OH)

9/15: Average Joes (Troy, MI) 

9/15: Stateline Throwdown 2018 (McHenry, IL)

9/15: Project Uplift (Fort Collins, CO)

9/15: Barbells for Bullies (Lexington, SC)

9/15: Barbell Brawl IV (Kennett Square, PA)

9/16: 2018 Battle at the Rock (Castle Rock, CA)

​9/16: 5th Annual North East Masters Classic (Plainville, MA)

9/22: Shatter the Stigma III (Boyertown, PA)

9/22: New Kids on the 321 Block 2018 (Topsham, ME)

9/22: Femme Royale at Eagle Wing CrossFit (Orange, CA)9/22: 2nd Annual CrossFit TUFF Charity Row-A-Thon (Nashua, NH)

9/22 – 9/23: The Cascade Classic (Seattle, WA) 

9/22: Girls Gone RX Denver (Denver, CO) 

9/22 – 9/23:The D-Town Throwdown (Decatur, Illinois)

9/23: Games of the Ages Masters Team Competition (Hanson, MA)

9/23: Cadre Crucible Team Competition (Hudson, OH)

9/23: Detroit Red Wings WOD (Detroit, MI) 

9/23: IronWorkz Gauntlet (Medina, OH)9/28 – 9/29: The Primal Games (Savannah, GA)

9/29: Kilo Crush Fest (Hampton, VA) 

9/29: Fallout Powered by Battleground Events (Long Beach, CA)

9/29: Battle for Boise (Meridian, ID)

9/29: K-9 Pursuit (Bristol, CT)