Get Your Affiliate Pumped for the Open

Good morning and welcome to the weekend edition of the Morning Chalk Up. This is Justin LoFranco, your Editor-in-Chief, to bring you a quick wrap-up of the major news items throughout the week. Today’s edition is powered by Steady MD.

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By Alyssa Royse

Our Intramural Open has always been huge at Rocket CrossFit. But we didn’t use to push people to register online because, like many people, we mistakenly believed that the point of the Open was to qualify for the Games, and we knew we weren’t going to do that. The last Open was the first one that we encouraged online registration. That was a game-changer.  

Charla, a 62-year-old member who doesn’t have a history of athletics at all, registered for the Open for the first time last year. She wound up ranked #26 in her scaled division, which blew her mind.

“I went to bed many times, laughing and feeling the warmth of all the good cheer from my fellow Rocketeers – that is the afterglow of the Open,” Charla said.

I know people are grumbling that we just did it, and that it’s football season, and … People just grumble. At Rocket CrossFit, we’re ready. Although we literally have 100% participation in the Open, it requires little or no extra effort on our part. Really. 

How do we have 100% participation? We just run it as a class, but with bonus costumes. We also run it as intramural teams, but members still just work out on their own schedule, which fills the classes with costumes and friendly competition, so everyone feels the energy. That, more than anything, creates excitement all day long and increases participation for the next time.

Every class is run in heats so that every person, whether they’re registered or not, is judged. This is a great opportunity for us to enforce standards in a friendly and loving way. Being judged seems to push people to do things they didn’t know they could do, and we see loads of PRs and “firsts” during the Open.

As one of our long-time members, Clare, says, “I have had so many breakthroughs in the open: first toes-to-bar, first double-unders in a workout, many a weight PR! I love watching people try things they thought they couldn’t do, and be successful.” 

Yup, we love it too. So here’s how — and why — we do it. We make it easy on us, and fun for everyone. 

Continue reading…

The massive overhaul of the 2019 CrossFit Games season brought significantly more competition opportunities, and with it came the chance to make some extra cash in the process. Between the Open, Sanctionals, and the Games, here is what the top ten CrossFit athletes made last season.

Dubbed as the “Regional of the Southwest,” the Southwest Championship was a competition run by Chaco Comrie from August 30-31 at Utah Valley University. After hearing that podium finishers were promised “cash prizes” and “sponsorship” but left empty-handed, Morning Chalk Up did some digging and discovered that no one received a single prize at the event.

At sixty-three-years-old, Dave Hippensteel is a husband, father, dentist, and a staunch competitor in CrossFit, having notched three consecutive CrossFit Games championships in seven total appearances. Here is a closer look at Hippensteel’s life.

Two weeks ago, CrossFit Mayhem was packed with more than sixty teams of two, fighting their way to the top of the leaderboard in a workout that Rich Froning personally wrote. But this wasn’t an ordinary Saturday class at Mayhem. This was the first Amrap 4 Autism in their newly launched global initiative.

Yesterday, the Morning Chalk Up announced official media partnerships for eight Sanctionals during the 2019-2020 CrossFit Games season that will give CrossFit fans exclusive access to the biggest events of the season. At each one of these events, Morning Chalk Up reporters and staff will be present to give fans exclusive access to stories, interviews, videos and daily updates. Here is where you can expect to see us this year. 

This is the last weekend to sort your life out before the Open begins. Here are a few things to help with that and get you motivated for five weeks of testing your fitness.

1. If you’re on the hunt for work, O2 is hiring a Content Wizard. Email them a cover letter and resume. 

2. Tasia Percevecz front squats 265 pounds at the end of a training day.

3. Billy Sapp front squats 300 pounds for a new PR.

4. If you’re looking for the best Interview of 2019, you’re welcome: Jacob Heppner and Hunter McIntyre in bathrobes by the fire.

5. If you’re traveling this weekend, here is how you should be eating.

6. The Open kicks off next Thursday. Make sure you’re registered. 

…and don’t forget you can register for OUT in the Open with the OUT Foundation for a chance to compete at the West Coast Classic.