Happy New Year

Happy New Year and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is fueled by FITAID, the Official Recovery Beverage of the Morning Chalk Up. According to a recent Statistic Brain study, those resolutions you just made have only a 58.4% chance of making it past the first month. So FITAID is here to help with 50% off your first month’s BEVBOX subscription plus a free t-shirt. What’s better than fueling up with FITAID delivered right to your doorstep?

P.S. After a week off, we’re excited to be back. We missed you all. Hopefully your mornings weren’t too boring. 

“There isn’t any luck about it. Work is the thing; good, earnest, honest, hard work in the right direction — work with brains — but everlastingly, persistently, continuously — work. If it requires no brains, no energy, no work, there would be no glory in the achievement. What everybody can do nobody wants to do. Difficulties are the best stimulant. Trouble is a tonic. Making good is merely a matter of exerting sufficient energy.” — Hamilton Carhartt

RESOLVE TO SMASH YOUR GOALS

2018 is here.

2017 came and went in the blink of an eye and you realize you haven’t even thought about your New Year’s resolution since February. Maybe you haven’t got that first muscle-up or mastered double unders like you wanted to.

Let’s be honest, sometimes New Year’s resolutions seem kind of pointless. They don’t have to be. With a little change of perspective, you can make resolutions work for you.

1. List your goals and your WHY.

It’s easy to write down list of goals “lose ten pounds, get a muscle up, run an 8 minute mile”. WHY is this your goal? Getting to the root of why these are your goals can help you decide if they really deserve to be on your list in the first place.

2. Break your goals into realistic and attainable pieces.

So you want to lose ten pounds in 2018? Focus on one pound at a time. You want to get a muscle up? Then your resolution should really be “work on muscle up drills X times per week”. Maybe aim to get every OTHER double under first. Then work on five in a row.

3. Create shorter timelines.

If the end of the year is your deadline, it’s easy to lose focus. By creating multiple timelines throughout the year, you can focus on a deadline that’s not only easier to focus on, but more realistic to meet. For example, for your ten pound goal: Lose 1 pound per month.

You’re gonna kill it.

You’re a CrossFitter. That means you already know how to grind away at things that are hard. Take the steps to set yourself up for success in 2018 and you will CRUSH your goals.

CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES

Roundup — Melissa Doss is the first celebrity ROMWOD guest for 2018. When bar muscle-ups are just too easy, you do them with one arm instead. Hafthor Bjornsson deadlifts 895 pounds for five reps. Stefi Cohen deadlifts deadlifts 525 pounds. This is basically how we all feel when trying to handstand walk. This 15-year-old at CrossFit Reykjavik hit a 132 pound snatch PR and she also holds the Icelandic Snatch, Clean and Jerk and Total weightlifting records in the Junior U15 – 69kg category.

With your second cup of coffee…Jamie Hagiya’s advice for getting over those holiday calories, “Have a dance party and shake, shimmy, or twerk all those calories off.”

Hiring — Beyond the Whiteboard is looking for a web/app/ux designer. Needs to be legit cool and into CrossFit. Email Moe your portfolio. 

Fun Fact — Goat Tape sold 455 miles of tape in 2017; that’s almost enough tape to cover the distance from San Diego to San Francisco. 

COFFEE BREAK CONVERSATIONS

What to tell your friend who missed the Santa pub crawl this year…

How about replacing cocktails with some cardio, and take a fitness crawl? Welcome to the Pico Fitness Crawl. On January 18 in Santa Monica, CA, the Pico Fitness Crawl starts crawling 2.5 miles through 19 local gyms. Starting at 8:00 AM, participants will jog between studios and gyms offering yoga, Pilates, dance — think Broadway jazz choreography — weightlifting, karate and boot camp style classes, each about 10 minutes long. Maybe someone should take a hint and organize one one for CrossFit affiliates. The Chalk Walk…hmmmmmm.

What to tell your friend who’s having trouble dealing with traffic now that everyone’s back from vacation…

Just wait till you arrive at the 5PM class and see the 90 athletes who showed up to start their annual pilgrimage back to fitness…or basically this photo.

THINGS TO…

EAT: Bacon and Egg Waffle Breakfast Sandwich

We’re clearly not trying too hard to get our diet back on track after the holiday, and if you celebrated the New Year a little harder than you planned, this will come in handy.

BREAKFAST IS THE BESTEST.

KNOW: Five Things in Your Supplements to Avoid

Cause we’re all not scientists and sometimes it’s hard to understand everything on the label, Paleoethics put together this guide of five ingredients to avoid when you’re fueling up. 

BE IN THE KNOW.

BUY: In Vino Veritas

After all your friends and family came over to raid your wine fridge it’s time to replenish. Good thing Margaux Alvarez is offering 30% off your purchase of six bottles or more with code “GAMES2017.”

POUR US A GLASS.

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

CHALK UP AFFILIATES

• FAMILIES AND 50 PLUS — Aycliffe CrossFit in Newton Aycliffe, England kicks off the New Year with two new classes. One is designed especially for families to WOD together and the other for athletes 50+.

1/6: BrickYard Brawl (South Windsor, CT)

1/6 – 1/7: KO in the OK (Tulsa, OK)

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 – 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)

2/10: 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)

2/22: CrossFit Open 18.1 (Worldwide)

3/1: CrossFit Open 18.2 (Worldwide)

3/8: CrossFit Open 18.3 (Worldwide)

3/15: CrossFit Open 18.4 (Worldwide)

3/22: CrossFit Open 18.5 (Worldwide)