“Change can be good and while this may bring some athletes frustration, I think trying to look on the positive side and knowing it all happened for a reason will help with accepting the decision made by CrossFit.”- Marissa Nichols, CrossFit Games Teen athlete, discussing the decision to move the teen end-of-season competition to the Pit Fitness Ranch
PROFILE
Pit Teen Throwdown Documentary “More Than CrossFit” Provides Glimpse into New Season Format
A new documentary, produced by teenage athlete and longtime community member Ellie Tinker, featuring the 2023 Pit Teen Throwdown sheds some light on how the “Teen CrossFit Championship” (CrossFit has not yet provides a name for the end-of-season competitions for the age groups) next season could prove to be wholly beneficial for the community.
The documentary premiered the same day that CrossFit announced major changes to the Games season for 2024, namely that Age Group and Adaptive Divisions would compete at separate championships hosted by specialty partner hosts.
The Pit, which has hosted some of the top teenage athletes in the world since it’s inaugural year in 2020, will serve as the championship destination for teenage divisions. The community at the Pit Fitness Ranch has routinely stepped up, filling in after the Games were cancelled for teenagers in the pandemic year. The youngest athletes in the sport are the sole focus of the operation, and the staff are poised to make sure they all get the attention they deserve.
The Pit has always been around for the teens who choose to attend.
Next year, though, the Pit will be the place to be, with every elite teenager from across the world descending on Three Rivers, Michigan.
One of the top athletes in the teen division right now, Marissa Nichols, says that the announcement that teens wouldn’t be competing in Fort Worth, TX (her home state) was disappointing at first. But over time, she’s come to terms with the decision.
“At first, i was surprised and honestly even a little upset, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to realize that the situation is a really good thing,” Nichols said. “(I know) how much they love and value the teen athletes..The Pit is the most teen-positive place on Earth for CrossFitters and I can attest to that.”
It’s that time of year: leaves are falling, mornings are getting crisp, PSLs are back in the rotation. The weather calls for bundling up, which for a lot of us can be a bit…tricky.
Months spent working hard in the gym are coming back to bite us, with flannels that are too tight in the chest and shoulders, sleeves that are too short, or pants that fit in the legs but not at the waist. To make layering-season a lot more comfortable, Born Primitive has created the Campfire Collection.
🎙️ 🎙️ The Weekly Buzz: Check out the new collab between the Morning Chalk Up and Kettlebells and Cocktails and get caught up on some of the top community, affiliate, and sport stories of the week.
On this week’s episode: Joe and Niki discuss a BIG CrossFit rumor about the 2024 season, competition updates from TYR WZA, Down Under Championship and Dubai, WHOOP announces AI Coach, Kansas State University study shows the effectiveness of CrossFit vs regular PE in high school setting and more.
🔥 🔥 The TYR Wodapalooza Team Online Challenge and Qualifier began last week with the first workouts being announced. Registration closes and scores are due on October 23 and video submissions are due on October 26. Learn more now and get registered!
The 2023 Fittest Tour: Fittest Man on Earth, Jeffrey Adler, his coach and partner Caroline Lambray and Aerobic Capacity guru, Chris Hinshaw are coming to Europe the first week of November. Check out all the stops (London, France, Belgium, Italy) and get tickets now.
Have a Speed Read you think we might like? Hit us up.
LIFESTYLE
MEMBER EXCLUSIVE
Six Ways to Make Yoga Work at Your Gym
We got a question on Chasing Excellence recently from a coach and yoga instructor who feels stuck trying to get members of her gym into her yoga classes.
While it’s not a huge part of our business model, we have successfully offered yoga at CrossFit New England and think it can be a valuable addition to our members’ overall health and fitness when done right.
I’ve found Yin yoga to be an outstanding balance to CrossFit. It’s slow-paced, not focused on holding poses or excessive balance work, and an excellent way to recover from what we do in the gym every day.
Julien Pineau Uses the Power of Fitness to Help Neurodivergent Population
Julien Pineau’s love of fitness started early.
In his twenties, he was in Brazil studying Ju-Jitsu and met a Cuban conditioning coach. Every Monday, this coach would put the students through intense, long CrossFit-style workouts, adding partner carries, partner runs, and anything partner to the programming.
Pineau was massacred after every session. He loved it.
Years later, Pineau took the basis of that training to create StrongFit, a program that incorporated sandbags and strong man aspects, in Torrence, CA, and it took off like wildfire. The Barbell Shrugged Podcast stumbled upon Pineau and contacted him to do an interview.
The guys did a workout first–Pineau put them through the wringer, knocked them sideways, and then did two episodes of their podcast.
A day after the first episode was released, he had hundreds of emails, and before he knew it, he was traveling nonstop around the world teaching seminars. When COVID almost killed his business–the traveling and teaching became almost nonexistent–a pivot presented itself.
Pineau: “Right before the pandemic, I started talking with Mike Ramirez from Divergent CrossFit, the place where I had held my first seminar. Over the years, he was my coach, and he had anxiety issues himself.”
“So at some point, during the three years of COVID, I started to develop this system to work towards anxiety and the nervous system. And out of that, with Mike, we started to see if we could apply that system to autism.”
If you're struggling with strict pull ups, or perhaps you have a few but want to build volume... try these scales using a box, which can help activate the lats... moreso than some other scales you may have tried.
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Try these drills to improve your snatch speed and stability. Train jumping and landing as well as drop snatches and you'll be PRing with great form in no time.
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