Gettin Cheeky With It

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is powered by RP Strength, the leaders in strength sports nutrition. RP has helped hundreds of thousands of clients worldwide lose fat, gain muscle, and improve their performance. Start the new year off right, get the newly released RP Diet Templates 3.0  to dial in your nutrition. Use code “NEWYEAR15” to save $15 but hurry, the code expires this week.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt

GETTIN CHEEKY WITH IT.

Na na na na na na na nana.

So it’s 2018, which means 2017 was so last year and it’s time for the new you.

And as the clock struck midnight, you sealed the deal on a whole host of resolutions like learning to love your body regardless of what number is on the scale — a resolution we wholeheartedly support.

One question though: are you willing to get naked to achieve it?

Come again?

Meet Hanson Fitness, a gym in the big apple that celebs like Rhianna, Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts have been known to frequent. Well they just came up with a novel idea: working out completely nude.

On January 5th, they hosted their first nude personal training session and plan to keep it up three times a week: one mixed, one for men, and one for women.

Oh hell no.

Right, we said the same thing, but Hanson Fitness does make a good point: The gym claims that working out naked keeps you cooler, releases endorphins, increases body awareness, gives you unrestricted movement, and scars you for life (okay so maybe we added that last one).

But in all seriousness, please, no naked CrossFit. Come on people, let’s all make a pact here and now. Just think of the injuries. 

To be honest, 2018 is starting off great. After all people are drinking unfiltered water and working out naked, what could go wrong…

COFFEE BREAK CONVERSATIONS

What to tell your kid who doesn’t want to get off the couch…

Want a cookie? Robert Huffman, an 8th grader at CrossFit Poipu in Hawaii, was bribed into going to CrossFit. His mom said if he came to class every day for one month, she’d buy him this video game he wanted. Eighteen months later, Robert hasn’t missed a single class. See, mom’s know how to get sh*t done.

What to tell your friend who’s not sure how to break it off with beau…

It’s not you, it’s me. The holidays can be pretty rough when it comes to sugar. Everyone from coworkers, that crazy neighbor lady who baked you a pie, relatives, friends, clients, you name it. By the end of Christmas, you’ve soared through a dozen boxes of See’s. It’s time to kick the habit and balance things out a little, but you’re finding it hard to say no to those sugar cravings. Here’s your first step: grab a buddy and commit to dropping sugar for the next month, then follow these other four steps so you can say “moving on”. 

THINGS TO…

WATCH: Battling Addiction Through CrossFit

At Per Ingem CrossFit in Boston, MA, CrossFit is changing more than just physical lives, it’s restoring hope, confidence and helping athletes recoverying through substance abuse find a community that supports and believes in them. 

A MUST WATCH.

TRY: Sleep Better in 2018

People often think training stops after the WOD. You couldn’t be more wrong. Sleep is one of the most important components in recovery and therefore growth. Dr. Allison Brager put together a few tips for getting more rest at night so you can perform better.

WHEN YOU SNOOZE YOU WIN.

EAT: 34 Healthy Chicken Recipes for Everyday Meals

Having pre-cooked chicken in the fridge is going to make last-minute meals a lot lot easier. What goes well with a few greens and a half an avocado? Chicken. A bunch of stock and leftover veggies about to go bad? Chicken.

CHICKEN, BUT DON’T BE. 

BUY: 16 Ready-To-Eat Whole30 Snacks

Because your desk never can enough snacks, especially since you’ve upped the intensity a little and you’re spending your 9 – 5 going from one hunger craving to the next.

ALL THE SNACKS.

Today’s edition of the Morning Chalk Up is fueled by

CHALK UP AFFILIATES

• THE CROSSFIT RULEBOOK — The 2018 CrossFit Games rulebook is out, detailing all the new changes you need to know for this season. You’ve heard most of it before, but we found one previously undisclosed change: winners will receive $300,000 each, up from $285,000 in 2017.  
• HOME SWEET GYM — Brian Slover’s father died of a heart attack at age 49. Approaching that age, Slover said he wanted to pass “GO” and collect his two hundo, so he got his L1, dropped $10K into his garage and started doing CrossFit with his son. Now he’s also a member of Common Ground CrossFit, but since they’re closed on Sundays, a few members hit the garage with the Slovers. 
• EVERYBODY LOVED DANIEL — Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputy, Daniel McCartney, died in the line of duty Sunday night. Friends said he loved to workout at CrossFit Yelm in Yelm, WA, 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. “As soon as you met him, instantaneously you felt like you’ve known him forever. And he just made you feel like you were one of his family members,” co-owner Shon Malone said.
• CONGRATS — Congratulations to Raymond and Kayleigh Peterson who opened CrossFit Parts Unknown in Claremore, OK the end of last year. 

CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES (a highlight reel around social media of CrossFit pros and average joes)

Fourty-six-year-old Masters Athlete Michelle Wright hit a 260 pound front squat PR • Every single one of you secretly asked us to post this funny video so we did, so #YoureWelcome • Samantha Webster from Swift River CrossFit
in Conway, NH got her first strict muscle-up yesterday • Grandma Betty hit her first WOD of 2018 • 18-year-old Birna Aradottir hit a 305 pound back squat PR •

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet on attacking imbalances and weaknesses…“A few years ago, Coach Greg Glassman…had a really interesting experience with some Olympic downhill skiers. He noticed that as good as these girls were at skiing, they were pretty bad at air squatting and none of them could really do a pull-up well. His thinking was that any world class athlete should be able to do these very basic things well, so he constructed a simple program that included air squats and pull-ups. No fancy movements to re-create downhill skiing, no balancing on a BOSU ball or holding a tuck. And sure enough these
girls got better at squatting and pull-ups — and they started skiing faster and had the ability to train with more volume than even some of the men.”

“The Open: Participate and Celebrate” by Mike Warkentin, CrossFit Games

You’re never going to make it to the CrossFit Games.

At least not without a ticket.

Oh, about 500 of you will prove me wrong, but I’m not talking to you, Mat Fraser and Tia-Clair Toomey. In fact, you guys should stop reading and go train. We can chat at Regionals.

I’m talking to the 99.9 percent of Open participants, with a very special nod to those people who have voiced concern about changes to Regionals and Games qualification.

Never mind that the changes make sense if you look at population numbers and numbers of affiliates in various regions. We can ignore that part to focus on more important numbers: 0.17 percent of Open participants make it to the Games. Last year it was about 640 out of 380,000. This year it will probably be 560 of half a million, or about 0.11 percent. Bad odds, indeed. But they were always bad—at least after 2008, when Games qualification procedures evolved beyond a single click on this link.

ON BEING COACHABLE — Not just how not to be a total A-hole in class, but actually learn and develop from your coach and someone with more experience than you. Brute Strength’s Adrian Conway sits down for a few minutes to share how to take your ego out of training so you can actually grow as an athlete. 

1/11 – 14: Wodapalooza Fitness Festival (Miami, FL)

1/11: Row’d Royalty (Worldwide)

1/13: Abominable Snowdown II (Orem, UT)

1/13 – 14: War of the Wods (Greensboro, NC)

1/20: Winter WOD’rland 2018 (Bend, OR)

1/20: Garage Games’ World Wide WOD (Worldwide)

1/27: Winter Chiller (Fairmont, WV)

1/27: NorCal Masters 2018 (Richmond, CA)

1/27: IceBreather Classic (Springfield, IL)

1/27 – 28: The Fittest Experience (Austin, TX)

2/3: No Weak Links “V” (Whitesboro, NY)

2/3: Caution Grounds 7 (Hialeah Gardens, FL)

2/3: Output Fitness Trials (Miramar, FL)

2/3: 6th Annual Women’s WOD Jam (Broomfield, CO)

2/3: 5th Annual Golden State Games (Stockton, CA)

2/3: Garage Girls Tour (Milton, GA)

2/10: Mirror Image CrossFit’s Cupid’s Clash (Panama City, FL)

2/10: New WODs On the Block – The Third Wheel (Nationwide)

2/10: Tuff Love (Boulder, CO)

2/17: Lovers and Lifters (Springfield, KY)

2/22: CrossFit Open 18.1 (Worldwide)

3/1: CrossFit Open 18.2 (Worldwide)

3/8: CrossFit Open 18.3 (Worldwide)

3/10: Women Who WOD (Barbados)

3/15: CrossFit Open 18.4 (Worldwide)

3/22: CrossFit Open 18.5 (Worldwide)

4/21: Festivus Games (Nationwide)

4/28: Battleground SoCal (Wimington, CA)

4/28: Girls Gone Rx (Cincinnati, OH)

4/28 – 4/29: Walter’s Cup Throwdown (Amsterdam, Netherlands)