A Weekend with Fran’s Cousin

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

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“Engross yourself in the process rather than waiting around for the product.” — Greg Everett 

By Adrian Conway, Head Performance Coach with Brute Strength, Co-Owner of FNX and CrossFit Seminar Staff.

Programming and training have been talked about to a high degree. People are dropping programming left and right and following different coaches, athletes, brands and sites. If there’s a certain flavor you’re after, you can find a program for it. I say this not to bash or discredit any program, or even to lift another, (Full disclosure: As most of you know I’m a coach for Brute Strength.) but just to share my thoughts.

The thing is, training is more simple than you realize. There are coaches out there who will lead you to believe there is an exact formula or a specific method that will get you to the CrossFit Games. This is not true.

Here is what works: do constantly varied, functional movements, executed at varied intensities while focusing on the basic foundational skill sets that others overlook and moving like a professional. As you do these things, weaknesses will become apparent and as you find them, obsess over them until there are no longer any weaknesses.

Also, when you are not in the gym put fuel in your body that meets the demands of your training and spurs recovery. Understand that at home is where the hardest work must happen to train well all year. We’re running a marathon here, not a sprint.

This works because the magic isn’t in what you do. The magic is in how you do it. Fitzgerald, Khalipa, Salo, Holmberg, Froning, Smith, Fraser (If you don’t know who each of these men are, you don’t know the sport, stop here and go study.) could each release a training program listing exactly what they did to win the title of Fittest on Earth, yet you’d never beat them.

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Shortly after starting CrossFit, I dragged my husband to a local fundraiser competition because I wanted to share my newfound passion with him. But, later that night, my husband told me he “doesn’t find muscular women attractive.”

Um, excuse me?

Only one week remains in the 2019 CrossFit Open and the races for the National Champion qualifying spots are in the home stretch, some with a lot on the line. Here are the five races you should be watching as we wrap up the Open.

Dani Speegle has been an athlete her entire life. At 25-years-old, Speegle’s athletic journey spans more than two decades and has included a variety of different athletic pursuits. It took her a bit to find CrossFit but once she did, she was hooked before she even started. 

No athlete from outside the top 50 after week 4 has finished in the top 30. But, over the past four years, 86% of the athletes who are in the top 30 after week 4 finished in the top 30. If we use 30 as the cut off line there are a significant amount of Games athletes not qualifying this year. 

This is it friends. The final weekend of the 2019 CrossFit Open. 19.5 is an old friend, but with a twist. Before you have a go at it, or take another stab at it before Monday, make sure you’re ready. 

1. Read the workout and review the standards.
2. This one is a doozy. Read all the tips and form a strategy.
3. Don’t even second guess all that mumbo jumbo like lucky socks or shaking your pre-workout exactly 17 times. DO IT. (Notice this is a list of seven things? Coincidence? We think not.)
4. Do your best and plan a re-do if you need one, just like Noah Ohlsen has been doing.
5. Remind yourself that everyone performs differently and every body looks different too. 
6. Be nice and play nice, per CrossFit’s recent reminder.
7. Treat yo’ self homie. You did it!