“There are people who have money and people who are rich.”- Coco Chanel
COMPETITION
CrossFit Adaptive Athletes Feeling the Love in Europe
The European CrossFit community is putting a big emphasis on supporting adaptive athletes. Wodcelona took place in Barcelona on September 16-18, and now The Nationals Adaptive Edition will take place in 2022 and 2023 while welcoming hundreds of competitors across more than two dozen total divisions.
The details: The Nationals Adaptive Division is part of a larger competition based in The Netherlands – The Nationals. This event has run for multiple years and has featured an online portion with five events and then an in-person finals for the top athletes.
The Nationals Adaptive Edition will play out in a similar manner as the larger competition. There will be four online events, starting on November 3-10, 2022, and running through February 2-9, 2023.
The athletes will film every workout during the online portion and upload a URL when submitting their score in The Nationals app.
The Adaptive Games featuring the top athletes from each category will take place on April 15-16, 2023,at Dekker Zoetermeer in The Netherlands.
The Nationals Adaptive Edition is more expensive than a traditional online qualification. It will be €65. One reason is that there will be prizes, trophies, and other items earned during the online events, which will ship to different parts of the world.
Back to the beginning: Peter Kramer, co-creator of The Nationals, wanted to support the adaptive community, but he did not have the expertise. He reached out to Sybille Blitgen and Mandy Loes, the founders of CrossFit Iron Sparks, Luxembourg’s first affiliate inside a high school. This duo had the knowledge after working with the adaptive community and could make this idea come to life.
Sybille Blitgen, Co-founder of CrossFit Iron Sparks: “[Peter] said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ And so without thinking, I was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Not knowing what that would entail, how big it would become. I just said, ‘Yes’ because it was an opening. It was something we had wanted to do for such a long time. And Peter – we had never met before – trusting us with something like that was pretty huge to us.”
In case you missed it: Lauren Kalil, the host of The Bottom Line, spoke to Ben Bergeron in an extended interview about all the changes that have gone on at CompTrain lately.
Get them while they’re hot: TYR Wodapalooza tickets go on sale October 3rd. Single-day tickets, three-day passes, and VIP tickets will be available for purchase. 😎
Industry update: Live event production specialist CP Communications has announced that it worked with the 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games.
Partnership update: Battle Cancer and The OUT Foundation have announced they will be working together to help the LGBTQ+ community.
Mainstream love: Great piece in Women’s Health about CrossFit athlete Natalie Allport helping elderly people stay in shape, including her own grandmother.
INDUSTRY
MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
More Full-Time Coaches Required For Long-Term Success Say CrossFit Box Owners
Last week, we put out a survey in an affiliate owners forum asking gym owners how many full-time coaches they have, where we considered a full-time coach to be someone whose role at the gym is their only source of income, and where they make a full-time living coaching with the intention of it being their long-term career.
The result: 190 owners responded, and 113 of them—59 percent—said they didn’t have a single full-time coach, while another 33 of the respondents said they had just one full-time coach. Only 14 owners said they have three or more full-time coaches. The other 30 were somewhere in between.
Why this matters: When it comes to long-term sustainability, business profitability, and in order for the gym owner to live a balanced life, gyms need full-time employees, experts in the industry say.
The leaderboards are populated for the Dubai CrossFit Championship and TYR Wodapalooza after both online qualifiers took place simultaneously. Morning Chalk Up’s Lauren Kalil and Brian Friend discuss which notable athletes we will most likely see compete, who didn’t make the cut, and even some storylines we expect to follow once the competition’s kick-off.
Multi-Million Dollar Funding Rounds Galore for CrossFit in 2022
Over the past several months, there has been a growing trend in the CrossFit industry of companies securing large, sometimes multi-million dollar funding rounds to fuel growth.
A brief timeline: All told, there have been five major financial moves in the last nine months.
In September 2022, 2x All-Pro safety for the Arizona Cardinals, Buddha Baker, invested an undisclosed but “significant” sum in LIFEAID Beverage Co.
In September 2022, WIT Fitness announced an upcoming crowdfunding campaign, however, they didn’t specify how much they were seeking to raise. Their 2017 campaign raised 1,258,970 GBP.
In August 2022, gym management company PushPress secured an $11 million Series A funding round.
In August 2022, beverage company Yerbaé announces intentions to IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange. They simultaneously offered stock to retail investors through a crowdfunding campaign that raised $145,682 from 107 investors. Their previous campaign brought in $1,069,782.
In January 2022, beverage company O2 raised $1,592,282.46 in a Series A crowdfunding campaign. One notable investor was Spartan founder Joe De Sena who personally invested in the company.
The big picture: While these five investments are only the most recent examples, they’re part of a growing chorus of major money being invested in CrossFit endemic brands which is something of a new trend. Investments of this kind are a signal that the industry continues to mature, and appeal from non-CrossFit investors is a healthy sign of interest from outside the industry.
THINGS TO...
...WATCH
Barbells Cycling Tips from Mat Fraser
Want to cycle a barbell like 5x Fittest Man on Earth Mat Fraser? Yeah, us too. But at least he is giving us tips so we can try to be ⅓ of the athlete he is!
Annie Thorisdottir and Yerbaé have created the world’s first pumpkin spice energy drink with all of the fall flavor and none of sugar, calories or artificials found in PSLs. Get your clean fall energy with Yerbaé Pumpkin Spice.
Do the backs of your legs feel tight when you deadlift, run or even bend over to pick something up? Ding ding ding, you have tight hamstrings! Do these stretches to help.
If you've been eyeing up a new pair of shoes to wear to the gym and you are a bargain shopper- then keep reading. The Nano X2 is marked way down to only $89.97 for a limited time. What's better than new shoes? New shoes and a bargain!
We all have different bodies, so it would make sense that we all have different squat stances! Use these tips to help find your *perfect* stance so you can squat all the weight.
Katrina Rasmussen from Pleasant Grove, UT completed this clean/front squat complex at 240 pounds/109kg in CrossFit Lehi’s Monster Throwdown 2022, helping Team Wasatch Thundercats take first place overall.
Watch 13-year-old Stella Atwood from CrossFit Dwala in Marietta, GA progress over the last four years of her CrossFit journey.
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