A Letter from the CEO of CrossFit, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the weekend edition of the Morning Chalk Up. This is Justin LoFranco, your Editor-in-Chief to bring you a quick wrap-up of the major news items throughout the week.

Today’s edition is sponsored by The Granite Games.

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“Winners do what they fear.” — Franco Columbu

By Jeffrey Cain, CEO of CrossFit, Inc.

“Business is the art and science of creating uniquely valuable opportunities for other people,” CrossFit founder and chairman Greg Glassman has often said. Coach Glassman’s philosophy of business is the bedrock upon which CrossFit’s 15,000-strong (and growing) global affiliate network is built. That’s something that can’t be emphasized enough in talking about recent changes to the CrossFit Games season.

The CrossFit affiliate proposition is simple: delivering increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains has extraordinary value for other people because it is uniquely effective in producing fitness and health. CrossFit’s decentralized affiliate model supports but does not usurp that value by refraining from taking those things for itself that are best managed, delivered, and owned by fiercely independent CrossFit boxes. The value is inherent in CrossFit’s physiology, but the economic opportunity resides in the 15,000 affiliates, not CrossFit, Inc.

This same logic informs CrossFit’s sanctioning of competitive events. We’ve long recognized the efforts of CrossFit affiliates, coaches, volunteers, and athletes in building grassroots competitions around the globe. These competitive events wonderfully illustrate the community’s role as co-developer in the sport of fitness. The energy, excitement, and opportunity that animates the CrossFit Games season springs from the affiliate community and its members, not CrossFit, Inc.

This understanding, coupled with the explosive worldwide growth of the sport, demands that CrossFit, Inc. reduce its share of the competitive CrossFit season. The best athletes, sponsors, and media entrepreneurs in the sport of fitness have recognized that the new Sanctionals model doesn’t diminish their opportunities—it expands them. There are more athletes competing in more CrossFit competitions in more places around the globe than ever. CrossFit, Inc. hasn’t abandoned the sport of fitness, it’s stewarding its longevity.

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This week, Morning Chalk Up learned that 21 in-office employees across CrossFit publishing, health, video, writing, IT, e-commerce, project management, QA and operations departments were laid off effective immediately. This was the third round of layoffs in the past six months, which included Rory McKernan and Tyson Oldroyd, bringing the total let go to almost 100.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you’ve probably heard about the video Shape Magazine posted on their Instagram page featuring Jillian Michaels, who calls herself the “World’s foremost fitness expert,” in which she lists her qualms with CrossFit. The Internet went to town and we all got to watch.

On Monday, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, who has been locked in a legal battle for years with CrossFit over a false study claiming that CrossFit is dangerous, was dealt yet another legal blow. A federal judge denied a request from the NSCA to dismiss a lawsuit that the NSCA’s own insurance company filed against them. 

Morning Chalk Up caught up with CrossFit Games team athlete Sol Sigurdardottir. Sigurdadottir opens up about training, how to stay motivated through injuries and how she’s going to tackle the new CrossFit Games season format.

Earlier this week, CrossFit HQ announced a new program for licensed CrossFit competitions, events that will now officially be recognized by CrossFit. By becoming licensed CrossFit competition, event organizers will be able to use the CrossFit trademark in promotional materials, on their merchandise and in the title of their competitions.

This week was the week of moving heavy weight. Here are the top five lifts you guys loved.

1. Cody Anderson hit a new three rep max front squat PR at 390 pounds.
2. Fifteen-Year-Old Mahailya Reeves bench pressed 355 pounds.
3. Guilherme Malheiros cleaned 410 pounds for a new PR. 
4. Teresa Trojanowski cleaned 235 pounds from the blocks.
5. Lauren Fisher eased back into training with two 325 pound deadlifts. 

And maybe we’ll see this new handstand walk standard in the Open? Which would be just fine if you ask Sean Sweeney.

And if you’re looking for something to do today, do “Eva for Eva.” Eva Twardokens, who was in the original CrossFit “Nasty Girls” video, was badly injured in a plane crash last Saturday. Eva is also the namesake of the benchmark WOD Eva. Today, to show support as she recovers in the hospital, affiliates everywhere are doing “Eva for Eva”.