Annie Sakamoto’s CrossFit Santa Cruz Central Closes Its Doors
After 15 years on Research Park Drive in Santa Cruz, California, Annie Sakamoto’s CrossFit Santa Cruz Central closed its doors on July 1st. While this has been nine months in the making, the end was incredibly bittersweet for Sakamoto, as well as the gym’s coaches and community.
“Fifteen years later, I’ve been through multiple different owner partnerships, expanded the space and our community and met some of my closest and dearest friends. I’ve also lost two of my best friends and business partners who I know are with me everyday. And I’ve gained the most incredible business partner I could ever hope for…Today we moved everything out. But everything that we built in that place, all the relationships and memories, the community will come with us to our new space,” Sakamoto shared on Instagram.
One big thing: Founded in 2008, by Sakamoto and four other fellow CrossFitters turned business partners, the team opened the doors of CrossFit Santa Cruz Central 200 meters away from the very first, original CrossFit gym. It was one of the longest running boxes in the world.
What happened: In October of 2022, Sakamoto and her staff were informed that the business with which they share the space had purchased the building.
“We were never given the chance to counter the offer, but now, what’s done is done, and we’re moving forward. In retrospect, we would probably have tried to counter-offer, to buy the space, if we knew then what we know now.”
“At the moment, we didn’t realize how hard it would be. Fifteen years ago, we walked down the road, 200 meters from the original gym and said, how about this?” said Sakamoto.
While trying to find a space that could accommodate their vision and community needs, Sakamoto faced major challenges. What they needed in a gym was very specific: it needed to be a large enough space, with roll up doors, high ceilings to facilitate ropes and rings. The area needed to be zoned as industrial, as per Santa Cruz city code, and there needed to be a specific number of parking spaces per square footage.
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📋 🗒️ 📈 Yesterday, CrossFit released the scoring tables for the 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games. Take a closer look.
Fittest Experience, held just outside Austin, TX in Janaury, just announced new divisions and changes to their online qualifier. Check out the new Rookie division and more.
🥇 ⭐️ 🥇The Professional Fitness Athletes’ Association met with as many athletes as possible during Semifinals this season. Here’s a compilation video of a few of those meetings, hosted by Games podium veterans Brent Fikowski and Pat Vellner.
Four-time Games athlete and 2019 fifth-place finisher, James Newbury announced that he will take on a HYROX when it comes to Sydney, Australia 2023. Newbury has been known to take his fitness outside, competing in multiple Ironman events, among other races.
In 2015, 15-year-old Angelo DiCicco stepped onto the CrossFit Games floor for the first time and walked away with a first-place win after competing in the first-ever teenage division. Following that, DiCicco stood on a podium every year during his time in the teen division, including one more championship victory in his final year in 2017.
But health challenges put a temporary halt on DiCicco’s CrossFit career.
Booze and Barbells: Alcohol Facts for the Fitness Enthusiast
Trying to juggle fitness and fun in the summer can be tortuous, especially with barbecues and social gatherings happening (what feels like) every weekend.
The allure of being outside and connecting with friends and family over drinks can add unnecessary stress and FOMO to your life if you’re trying to “be good” and stay on track with fitness. This article isn’t about whether or not you should drink, but to help you understand what alcohol does to the body.
What qualifies as “one” drink? Due to varying concentrations, it’s important to understand quantities based on the type of alcohol you’re drinking.
12 ounces of beer
5 ounces of wine
1.5 ounces of liquor
It’s all about the dosage. The science is clear that excessive alcohol intake is detrimental to your performance and health. In the short term, it negatively impacts rehydration and glycogen resynthesis, which are both essential for recovery and performance.
The good news is moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t seem to have these same negative side effects. “Moderate” can be defined as about three drinks in a day for a 180-pound man. If you have plans to work out the day after drinking, it would be wise to keep things in a moderate zone.
According to sleep expert Matt Walker, alcohol trashes sleep. The part of sleep that is most negatively affected by drinking is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, where the body repairs tissues and cells. This stage of sleep is also where the body resets central nervous system energy and function, which is vital in recharging mental and physical readiness. If you’re coming off a big workout, it may not be wise to drink excessively later that day when your body needs quality sleep.
They’re literally empty calories. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram, but it can’t be converted into usable energy (has no vitamins or minerals). On the days you know you’ll be drinking, loading up on high protein meals paired with low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods like fruits and vegetables can help balance the empty calories you’ll be taking in later that day.
Tracking macros and drinking doesn’t have to be complicated. If you track macros, you’ll need to account for the calories you’re taking in from alcohol. Nutrition labels on alcohol can be misleading, so here’s a simple way to track your alcohol macros.
If you want to count alcohol calories towards your daily carb budget, divide the total calories in a drink by four to get your grams of “carbs” for that drink.
If you want to count the calories towards your daily fat budget, divide the calories in the drink by nine. This will give you the “fat” grams for that drink.
The bottom line: Your actions should align with your goals. People often go all-or-none with their fitness, making it extremely difficult to sustain for the long-term. Unless you’re training for something specific, focus on developing a sustainable balance between training and enjoying yourself. Everyone is different, so it will require experimentation on your part to figure out what the minimum level of commitment is to be satisfied with your performance, aesthetics and quality of life.
INDUSTRY
Amazon Prime Day: CrossFitters Edition
Prime Day is here! From July 11th to July 13th, you’ll be able to snag some of the best deals. We saved you some time and wrangled up a few of the best deals for CrossFitters.
I’m Trying Wild Health, Here’s What I Learned From My Genetic Blueprint
As you may know from a previous article, for the last month-and-a-half (ish), I’ve been going through the health optimization protocol of Wild Health, a Precision Medicine service helping you achieve optimal health by providing personalized, genetics-based care.
I left off my last article right before the “big reveal” of my genetic blueprint. And since then, I’ve had the chance to sit down with my Physician and walk through my health report — a 50-page document that combined my genetic and laboratory tests into a comprehensive look at my overall health, including diet, exercise, and longevity.
The report: The 50-page, slightly-intimidating document was divided into seven sections: diet, exercise, sleep, neurobehavioral, microbiome, chronic disease, and longevity. (I did not have microbiome testing, so that section was blank for me.)
Noting that this report was just a summary of some of the biggest influencers on my health, my Physician walked me through each section while providing lighthearted anecdotes to match the jargon-y description of my genome in the report. Here are some of the highlights of what I learned:
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A fan favorite (joking), the wallball seems like a simple movement… until you are fifty reps in and struggling to survive. Use these cues as you hit fatigue.
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Have you ever had the embarrassing moment of having plates get stuck on the barbell while you are trying to unload them? Marcus Filly is here to make sure that never happens to you again.
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