Chalk It Up to Greatness: Elly Hutchens

T-10: Oceania athlete Elly Hutchens is a rocket primed for take off. 

T-9: In 2020 after one month of CrossFit, 21 year old Elly Hutchens enters her first CrossFit Open and places 20,293 in the world.

T-8:  After one short year, she ranks 176th amongst Oceania women.

T-7: The year 2022, Elly skyrockets to Semifinals where she finishes 8th at Torian Pro. 

T-6: Ascending to the atmosphere of an elite CrossFit athlete requires patience and tolerance and Elly is aimed for the stratosphere. 

T-5: With her family as her launch pad, Elly has a foundation of support. 

T-4: There is no stopping this young athlete as she warps to intergalactic space.

T-3: Ground launch sequencer is a go.

T-2: Main engine started.

T-1: Solid rocket booster ignition.

T-0: Blast off, Elly Hutchens.

Elly, tell the MCU community about yourself.

EH: My Name is Elly Hutchens, I am 24 years of age and I am currently a Semifinals level CrossFit athlete from Adelaide, Australia. CrossFit is the main priority for me, it gives me purpose and an opportunity to strive for something beyond my current capabilities. I spend a lot of my time outside of work in the gym, either training, coaching or socializing with our gym community. Outside of CrossFit I have a job for a local South Australian company in their marketing team. I am very close with my family.  I have 2 older brothers and 3 nieces who I love spending time with. Aside from CrossFit, work and family time, I take any opportunity I can to get out in nature, go camping and see what our country has to offer.

Your efforts in CrossFit are astounding! You and are aimed toward your first CrossFit Games appearance in 2023. How would it feel to get recognition for your hard work? 

EH: I have loved the sport of CrossFit from the get go. I started CrossFit approximately a month before the 2020 Open began as a way to keep fit for netball which was the sport I was most involved in at the time. The open was a big community aspect of the CrossFit gym where I first began, so naturally, I got involved. This grew my addiction to the sport. I enjoyed having new goals to work towards and an amazing, supportive community to be involved in. I also clearly remember members of that gym moving the bar so efficiently and swinging around on the rig with ease, knowing that one day I wanted to be able to do the same. Not long after this realization, I gave up netball and started training CrossFit properly.  Thanks to my parents raising me in a sporting family, CrossFit movements seemed to come quite naturally. 

By 2022, I was lucky enough to compete in my first Semifinals event where I placed 8th in Oceana. This year I am super excited to hit the competition floor and hopefully improve on that ranking. I would love to see the sport as a whole and everyone involved receive more recognition considering the time, money and effort that goes into being an athlete in the sport of CrossFit. I believe there is a huge middle ground in this sport, in which you are working so hard to get to the level where you may finally receive more recognition but some people quite simply cant afford to take the steps it requires to make it there (giving up full time work to become a full time athlete).

I [used to believe] that every spare second was supposed to be spent in the gym training. I have since come to learn how important daily mobility, saunas, massages, physio/chiro treatments, and fueling are. 

Elly Hutchens

What resources have you utilized to improve training and recovery in order to maximize your progress?

EH: Recovery has been one of the most important aspects of my training. Prior to learning this, I believed that every spare second was supposed to be spent in the gym training. I have since come to learn how important daily mobility, saunas, massages, physio/chiro treatments and fueling are. 

I have spent a lot of the past year and a half finding experts in each of these fields who have helped educate on how I should be treating and fueling my body and believe it has been a huge benefit to my training, injury prevention and recovery time.

How does love and family contribute to your joy of life and training?

EH: I am very close with my family. I was raised in a sporting household where both my siblings and myself were encouraged to try a number of different sports from a young age. I participated in a variety of sports such as gymnastics (at a very young age- and unfortunately no carry over here haha), netball, tennis, basketball, athletics, and many other sports throughout my schooling. My parents have always supported my decisions when falling out of love with a particular sport and trying something new. I am very grateful that they brought me up in sporting communities as I believe it taught me the importance of a number of different skills such as team work, discipline, resilience, and also gave me a competitive edge and body awareness. Outside of my sporting endeavors they are the most supportive people I could ever ask for. I know, no matter how or where I go with my CrossFit career they will be there alongside me for support. 

How do you train the mind for greatness?

EH: This is actually still something I find a challenge and am working on. A confident athlete is a good athlete, and having confidence in myself and my abilities is still something that doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to earn this and prove it to myself and even after that I feel the need to prove that it was not a fluke.  However, reflecting on the competitions I have been a part of and being confident in the work that has been done in the gym certainly helps, and at times I just need to remind myself of these things. 

Watch Elly compete at the Torian Pro CrossFit Semifinal on May 26 - 28th where the top 3 men and women will continue on to the CrossFit Games. Follow Elly's launch into greatness on Insta @ellyhutchens