What does 500 wall balls look like?

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is fueled by ButcherBox, your neighborhood organic butcher for a modern America.

Each month, ButcherBox curates a one-of-a-kind selection of the healthiest, tastiest meats, humanely raised and free of antibiotics and hormones. Or you can customize your own box and select your favorite cuts. Either way, get $20 off your order today plus a free packet of bacon.

“Your workouts aren’t painful. What you’re experiencing is just discomfort and you can handle high levels of discomfort for very long periods of time.”  — Coach Ben Bergeron

PRACTICE YOGA, HIT PRs.

The experiment.

What happens to your fitness when you commit to a month of yoga? Gabrielle Kassel, a long time CrossFitter and writer, decided to find out.

Her serious dedication to CrossFit and lifting heavy things had definitely made her fitter, but with it came tight hamstrings, squeaky joints, and shoulder mobility that was keeping her from that next snatch PR.

So what happened?

First, she noticed her hips opening up. Then, her posture improved from all the shoulder opening and core strengthening. This improved her overhead position and helped her get more comfortable breaking parallel during squat cleans, squat snatches, and wall balls.

By the end of the month, she really felt like a more well-rounded CrossFit athlete.

You’re up next.

Ok so maybe this isn’t groundbreaking news. We all pretty much know that yoga or your daily ROMWOD sesh is going to pay off, but we challenge you to commit yourself a month straight and trying something new.

Then do some showing off in the box.

COFFEE BREAK CONVERSATIONS

What to tell your friend who wants to make a wager…

Five hundred wall balls for time. That’s what Daniel Petro bet his buddy that he’d have a girl. Well, he lost that bet and saddled up for 500 big ones, which is the equivalent of doing Karen three times plus another 50 wall balls. It took him 26:44 total, so that’s averaging a sub-8 minute Karen then a little extra. Yuck.

What to tell your friend who’s wondering whether the CrossFit Open is for them…

Oh it is, and for those of you on the fence you need to read this. You never know how far you’ve come in your fitness journey until you test it. Sometimes it takes being forced into the uncomfortable position of trying something for the first time to realize that you can actually do it. Experiencing that alone is worth signing up for.

THINGS TO…

WATCH: How Does Brooke Do it All?
Ep. 4 in this docu-series following Brooke Wells, focuses on time management and how Brooke balances being a student, training for the CrossFit Games and trying to have an actual social life.
FOLLOW BROOKE. 

HEAR: Stacie Tovar and the $3K iPhone
Stacie Tovar drops into CrossFit HQ and sits down for an episode sharing some of her greatest stories from a decade of CrossFit, like the one time the sheik of Dubai gave her a solid gold iPhone. 
BUT SERIOUSLY THO.

KNOW: CrossFit Open Nutrition Tips
With just a little more than two weeks until the CrossFit Open, you want to make sure you’re properly fueled throughout five intense weeks of fitness. Here are four nutrition tips for keeping things dialed in. 
OPEN PREP.

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

CHALK UP COMMUNITY

• CONGRATULATIONS — Kathleen Hills shared a special moment with the Chalk Up Community over the weekend. “[I] Had another week of celebration when I had a recheck of my metabolic panel after 3 months of healthy eating and hard workouts. I have lost my prediabetic status!!! The amazingly supportive community at CrossFit Armati in Sturgeon Bay, WI have stood with me along with Head coach and owner Dr. Derek Grenfell. What an amazing gift I have been given and I plan to make the most of it!”
• BUY BROOKE A BOX — Owner of CrossFit FIF in Kansas City, MO Chase Knight coaches Brooke, an athlete who’s visually impaired. Brooke wants to do box jumps RX and she’s not willing to stop until she gets there. Last wek, Brooke nailed a set of box jumps, and now Chase really wants to buy a foam box so Brooke can perform these more safely. So he’s asking for a little support.
• TIER 1 — CrossFit Tier 1 in Greenville, NC held their annual two person female only competition Saturday, raising $3,000 for families of the 724th special tactics squadron at Fort Bragg. Each year, Tier 1 selects a different charity to support.
• UNDISCLOSED — CrossFit Undisclosed, located on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar for servicemembers and funded entirely by donations, is selling t-shirts to help support the CrossFit community deployed.

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

The trailer for the new Fittest on Earth drops on Friday • When you want 95 pound thrusters to be easy, you do them at 225 pounds so the bar feels lighter • Alexis Johnson did a 12 minute
AMRAP of just 110 pound thrusters and lived to Instagram about it • Pro Golfer Scott Stallings stopped by LIFEAID HQ for a WOD before heading to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

…and this is will be all of us in just a matter of two weeks.

“Pull Together with Sam Dancer for Special Olympics” by Jessica Danger, Morning Chalk Up

Ask any athlete at QTown CrossFit who James is, and they’ll know. Sam Dancer and James Foster are best friends. When Sam spoke about his travel schedule preparing for the 2016 CrossFit Games, he cried when he thought of leaving James behind.

“I haven’t seen him in a while. I miss him,” Dancer said. “Down Syndrome is the most radical thing. They don’t screw anything up. They just love. They don’t know anything else. They’re my best friends.”

It’s this same passion for relationships that brought Sam to James in the first place.

When Jennifer and Sam Dancer planned their first Row Raiser, it was 2014, and they raised only a few hundred dollars. They were living in Cincinnati and had a friend, Heather Davis, who worked for the Special Olympics. Davis brought some athletes over to spend some time in the gym.

“It started as just a little thing, like ‘hey can we bring some athletes over and just spend an hour with them, getting them to move a little bit?’” Jennifer said.

2/10: Costa Rica w/ VoyEdge RX (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rice)2/10: Strength Is (Moorpark, CA)
2/10: Mirror Image CrossFit’s Cupid’s Clash (Panama City, FL)
2/10: New WODs On the Block – The Third Wheel (Nationwide)
2/10: Tuff Love (Boulder, CO)
2/10: A League of Their Own: A Women’s Only Challenge (San Antonio, TX)
2/10: Mayhem Showdown 2018 (Cookeville, TN) 
2/16 – 2/18: Iron Sharpens Iron (Miami, FL)
2/17: Lovers and Lifters (Springfield, KY)
2/17: Steel Rail Shootout 2018 (McComb, MS)
2/17: Wynwood Throwdown (Miami, FL)
2/17 – 2/18: The Shred Fest (Orlando, FL)
2/22: CrossFit Open 18.1 (Worldwide)
3/1: CrossFit Open 18.2 (Worldwide)
3/8: CrossFit Open 18.3 (Worldwide)
3/10: Women Who WOD (Barbados)
3/15: CrossFit Open 18.4 (Worldwide)
3/22: CrossFit Open 18.5 (Worldwide)
3/23 – 4/26: Garage Games Junior Open (Worldwide)
4/7: Battle of the Badges (Anaheim, CA)
4/7: The Revolution (San Antonio, TX)
4/14: Battle for the Mountain (Dawsonville, GA)
4/14 – 4/15: Mid-Atlantic Affiliate Challenge (Columbia, MD)
4/14 – 4/15: WOD Wars Fitfest (Dunedin, FL)
4/21: Festivus Games (Nationwide)
4/28: Battleground SoCal (Wimington, CA)
4/28: Girls Gone Rx (Cincinnati, OH)
4/28 – 4/29: Walter’s Cup Throwdown (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
5/4 – 5/6: European Masters Throwdown (Budapest, Hungary)
5/5 – 5/6: Tribal Clash (Quarteira, Portugal)
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Classic (San Antonio, TX)
5/11 – 5/12: Beast Mode Games (Greenville, SC)
5/19: Raising the Bar for Recovery (Medina, OH)
5/19: East Coast Battle (Hanover, MD)