Your Coffee is ready.
Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. It’s almost Friday. June gloom in Southern California appears to be over and there are 24 hours of sunlight in Iceland. All’s right in the world.
P.S. What does your desk say about you?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“When you think you’re done, you’re at only 40% of your bodies capabilities.” — David Goggins
CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU HIT THE BOX
Jamie Hagiya takes her fitness out to the beach for a WOD on the stairs. Colleen Fotsch hit a front squat PR of 300 pounds. Kelsey Kiel’s blooper reel of trying to kick up into ring handstand holds. Dani Sidell puts a dress on. Bill Henniger, CEO of Rogue Fitness, has maybe the most epic grill of all time. CrossFit HQ is hiring a junior motion graphics designer.
Penalty Box…This is what happens when you leave equipment out at CrossFit Akureyri in Northern Iceland, you have to do 200 burpees with a 20 pound weight vest.
Hitting a YouTube Ad near you...Carson CrossFit is the first affiliate we’ve seen running YouTube pre-roll ads, and yes they have an in-house DJ.
WHAT TO TELL YOUR FRIEND WHO’S STRUGGLING WITH THEIR BODY IMAGE…
Meet Candice Wagner. She’s strong, fit and capable of doing so much with her body. But before she found CrossFit, she had a different idea of what it meant to be fit and she didn’t see her body the same way. She struggled with an eating disorder and her body image for years. Well, here are five things she’s said about her body that every woman needs to read.
THINGS TO…
WATCH: Day in the Life of Darren Hunsucker
Rich Froning’s cousin and member of the 2x CrossFit Affiliate Cup champion team CrossFit Mayhem, here’s a look into an average day down in Tennessee with the coach, husband and athlete.
WATCH.
WATCH.
HEAR: The Evolution of a Games Athlete
Perennial Regionals athlete and affiliate owner Wes Piatt joins Barbell Shrugged podcast to talk about the evolution of a competitive CrossFit athlete and how the game has changed over his seven year career.
TUNE IN.
TUNE IN.
DOWNLOAD: Your Summer Beach Guide
Heading to the beach or lake this summer? Working Against Gravity’s summer beach guide is chalk full of tips for maintaining the confident YOU, macro-friendly snacks, macro-“friendlier” cocktails, a swimsuit guide and workouts from Brute Strength.
GET THE GUIDE.
GET THE GUIDE.
EAT: Grain Free Tahini Brownies
According to Ambitious Kitchen these are the best brownies they’ve ever eaten. How can these no butter, flour, oil or refined sugar, paleo, gluten free and grain free brownies really be the best ever? Hard to say, but if someone’s gonna throw out the B word we think it’s worth calling ’em on it.
TRY THESE OUT.
TRY THESE OUT.
CHALK UP AFFILIATES
STORY SERIES: How’d you come up with your affiliate’s name?
“Just like any other affiliate, after going through every possible name, I finally used what I thought would identify us to the Nashville area while being unique as well. BNA is the identifier for the Nashville airport. It’s also where I work as a 2nd/main job. I am an air traffic controller and have been for 15 years. CrossFit is what helped me quit an unhealthy, unfit, stressful life, and brought me into a community that helped me deal with the rigors of stress. Contrary to popular believe it does not stand for Brandfast Ninja Association, which most people think.” — CrossFit BNA in Mount Juliet TN
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Two coaches from CrossFit Amend in Mountain Home, AR grabbed a bunch of military reservists for a day of physical training.
Caitlin Byczko, a lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, uses CrossFit to get a mental and physical break from the rigors of working as a lawyer. “You can’t be focused on, ‘Did I make a typo in footnote seven on page eight of that brief I wrote?’” Byczko told her local Indiana paper.
CHALK UP READS
“Human Power Output and CrossFit Metcon Workouts” by Tony Leyland, CrossFit Journal
I have had many conversations with CrossFitters, and others, about the efficacy of CrossFit programming. As somebody who teaches about physical conditioning at the university level, I am interested in the unorthodox nature of CrossFit and the results it achieves. While the majority of trainers and athletes easily understand many aspects of CrossFit programming, there is a certain mystique (the infamous “black box”) regarding the metcon (metabolic conditioning) workouts.
We all know that a “Deadlift 1-1-1-1-1-1-1” WOD (Workout of the Day) is a strength workout and that “Run 10K” (everybody’s favorite!) is an aerobic workout. However, one of my favorite quotes from the CrossFit philosophy is Greg Glassman’s injunction to “strive to blur distinctions between ‘cardio’ and strength training. Nature has no regard for this distinction.”
But how does CrossFit blur this distinction given that strength/power training and cardiovascular training are at different ends of the power spectrum? More simply put, when you do “Grace” or “Fran” or “Angie” or even “Linda,” what kind of training are you doing? Is it power, strength, or cardio? Can they be combined? To what extent do they overlap? Obviously, they in fact do, and this is one of CrossFit’s huge contributions to fitness, but it flies in the face of much of the accepted knowledge in exercise science. How does it work? What are the mechanisms? These are complex questions and the answers depend on many factors.