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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition was chalked up while realizing there are only 56 days until we start making this pain face again.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Excuses are the nails we use to build the house of failure.” — Unknown
RESOLVED, PART 3
WHAT’S GOING ON?
If you’ve been reading the last few days, you already know that we asked a bunch of top Games, Regionals, and Teams athletes to share their 2017 fitness goals, and we’ve been releasing a few each day.
WHO HAVE YOU SHARED SO FAR?
Val Voboril (5x CrossFit Games athlete)
Madeline Shine (2016 Mad Apple CrossFit Regional Team)
Alethea Boon (2x CrossFit Games athlete)
Alyssa Ritchey (4x CrossFit Regionals athlete & 48kg Olympic Weightlifter)
Carly Fuhrer (CrossFit Games Rookie)
WHO’S NEXT?
CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU HIT THE BOX
Around 50 wounded Ukrainian warriors competed in Kiev at the Games of Heroes, a competition inspired by the Invictus Games for service members wounded in the line of duty. Brooke Wells hits 5 back squats at 295 pounds.Camille Leblanc-Bazinet returns to compete at Wodapalooza. CrossFit HQ media team member Johnathan Haynes shares a final photo from the StubHub center. Julie Foucher reps out strict muscle-ups. Jared Enderton is giving out some free t-shirts. Ariel Stephens’ engagement photos are super adorable.
For a good laugh — The seven different squatters you’ll see at almost every box.
ON THE RADIO
Julie Foucher sits down with Brigid Titgemeier to talk about their top 5 tips for nutrition success that will last well into the New Year. Brigid is a functional dietician nutritionist at the Center for Functional Medicine and nutrition blogger at BeingBrigid.com. “Your new year’s resolutions…you should be able to sustain them forever, and make that lifestyle change that’s going to do so much more for you than just a 21 day fix.”
CHALK UP READS
“Drinking the CrossFit Kool-Aid” by Sara Hastings, Mercerspace
Warning: This piece is LONG but a great history of CrossFit
But if I’m going to be an enthusiastic member of a cult — and CrossFit is kind of like a cult — then maybe it’s a good idea to explain it to the people such as my parents, co-workers, and assorted non-Crossfitting friends who think that I and the people I work out with every day are nuts.
Shortly before 7 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, I am lying on the floor, gasping for air, and not entirely certain that my legs still work. No, I have not just awoken from a particularly gruesome nightmare by falling out of bed. I have just done “Karen” — a WOD consisting of 150 wallballs completed as fast as possible. The movement is simple: hold a medicine ball against your chest. Squat below parallel. Stand up and throw the ball up against a 9 or 10-foot target. Catch and repeat, 150 times. The workout is quick — a top athlete can finish it in under 5 minutes; a normal person in closer to 10. But it is decidedly not painless, and 7 minutes after hearing the starting call of “3, 2, 1, go!” I am feeling its full wrath.
That is the basic goal of CrossFit: general physical preparedness — not specialization. You won’t be the best weightlifter or gymnast or runner, but on average you’ll come out ahead. The program’s mantra is “constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity” and its intent is to prepare participants for the unknown and unknowable. That pretty much means anything that life throws at you: from helping a friend move a heavy couch or being mobile enough to play with your grandkids to, in my case, scaling 10-foot walls, scrambling under barbed wire, and carrying buckets of rocks up mountains during Spartan races.
CHALK UP AFFILIATES
Calling all CrossFitters in the Mountainside and Edison, New Jersey communities, Golden Phoenix CrossFit is hosting a full-day blood drive on Martin Luther Kind Jr. Day (January 16) in honor of the Folger Family. Signup details here.
Coming to the basement of a carpet store near you (that is if you live in Newcastle, England) the soon to be Reebok CrossFit Tyneside and their £750,000 renovation.
Meet Manny Coya, the owner of CrossFit Mutare in Bossier City, LA. Him and his wife Dana opened an affiliate in Peru in 2010 together. Before Dana passed away from cancer, they moved back to the U.S. and today, Manny carries on their shared passion for transforming lives: “People grow together when they suffer. Sports, natural disasters, and war bring people together. This is a team sport platform that draws people together. It’s never too late to start, you’re never too old or out of shape. Every workout will be tailor made to your ability, you don’t come in where we’re at.”