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What has three years of Quarterfinals taught us?

 
Morning Chalk Up

April 5   |   POWERED BY

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • What can we learn from three years of Quarterfinals programming?
  • Will 2023 be Griffin Roelle’s breakthrough season?
  • New series: Affiliate of the Month, first up, CrossFit Rincon (nominate your affiliate here)

Hey! The Morning Chalk Up is hiring a new contract writer to cover the CrossFit Games season and elite athletes. Apply now!

 
QUOTE OF THE DAY + Send us a Quote

“Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.” - Will Rogers

 
CROSSFIT GAMES
  Breaking Down Three Years of Quarterfinals Programming  

Breaking Down Three Years of Quarterfinals Programming

The third year of Individual Quarterfinals have wrapped up and the Worldwide Rankings have been updated for the both male and female divisions. As we get ready to move into the Semifinals stage of the season, we’re looking back and breaking down the movements and formats that have been programmed in the past three years of Individual Quarterfinals.

  1. Most popular movements: Five movements have appeared in all three years of the individual quarterfinals.
    • GHD sit-ups
      Rope climbs
      Rowing
      Burpee box jump overs
      Handstand push-up variations
  1. Weightlifting: Looking at the big picture, a barbell has been programmed in seven of the 15 total Quarterfinals workouts. Dumbbells have appeared in three workouts and a medicine ball has appeared twice in three years.
    • Front squat
      Deadlift
      Snatch
      Clean and Jerk
      Clean
      Bench Press
      Overhead squat
      Dumbbell hang power clean
      Dumbbell shoulder-to-overhead
      Dumbbell lunge variation
      Dumbbell snatch
      Wall balls
  1. Gymnastics: Two workouts have consisted of all gymnastics movements (Test 2 in 2021 and Test 2 in 2022). Besides Test 4 in 2023, every other workout that has programmed a gymnastics movement has paired it with a loaded implement. The takeaway? The potent combination of bodyweight movements and lifting is at the core of CrossFit programming.
    • Handstand push-up variation
      GHD sit-ups
      Rope climbs
      Burpee box jump over
      Ring muscle ups
      Single-leg squats
      Chest-to-bar pull-ups
      Bar muscle ups
      Handstand walks
      V-ups
  1. Monostructural: The most commonly programmed cardio movement is rowing, appearing in all three years. The double under crossover made a big splash at the 2023 CrossFit Games and the new jump rope variation was edited and written into this year’s Quarterfinals as a single under crossover.
    • Rowing
      Double unders
      Crossovers
      Shuttle runs
  1. Formats: For simplicity, I’ve lumped ascending and descending rep scheme workouts into the chipper category. The big takeaway is that only three of the 15 workouts that have been programmed for Quarterfinals followed a repeated rep scheme for rounds. It’s also worth noting that this year Adrian Bozman introduced AMRAP’s to the Quarterfinals in two out of the five workouts.
    • Chipper: 8
      Rounds for time: 3
      AMRAP: 2
      Max lift: 2

The bottom line: Quarterfinals has served as an extra stage for more advanced athletes to showcase their fitness and play with higher skill movements since its introduction in 2021. The past three years have provided basic data that help to identify common trends for this stage in the CrossFit Games qualification process.

There may not be a cookie-cutter template, but the repeated programming of movements and formats can help steer training to be more prepared and successful in future years for athletes who may be on the bubble of qualifying for Semifinals. For the everyday CrossFitter, you can use this information to identify what higher level skills and strength levels to work towards if you have hopes of becoming a Quarterfinals athlete in the future.

 
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SPEED READS

😳 👀 CrossFit released its list of penalties and appeals from Individual Quarterfinals, and it’s…lengthy.

Counting Macros: Check out this post on how to track beer (with some great tips about food quality and why eating nutrient dense food is important too).

📉 📈 📉 Is the average age of top Quarterfinals athletes increasing or decreasing? The answer may surprise you.

“Death by”: Don’t miss the new Talking Elite Fitness show hosted by Lauren Kalil. The first episode dropped last night.

ICYMI: “The Crown,” John Singleton’s unique European teen competition, begins tomorrow. Read all about it.

 
PROFILE
  How 2023 is Shaping Up to be a Comeback Season for Griffin Roelle  

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

How 2023 is Shaping Up to be a Comeback Season for Griffin Roelle

The 2015 Sandbag event–where athletes wheelbarrowed sandbags from one side of the Tennis Stadium to the other–caught Griffin Roelle’s eye. Fresh out of college, where he played football and was an NFL prospect, he says that he wasn’t yet done being an athlete.

  • That iconic event, which he witnessed with his uncle, immediately intrigued him, saying, “it was just so ridiculous, I had to do it!”

From there, he was hooked. Determined to become a CrossFit Games athlete, Roelle has worked tirelessly since then and has been on the brink of punching his ticket to the CrossFit Games for years.

Continue Reading...
 
PROFILE
  Hurricane, Blackouts, Pandemic, Earthquake: Resilience in Action for Two Female Gym Owners in Puerto Rico  

Hurricane, Blackouts, Pandemic, Earthquake: Resilience in Action for Two Female Gym Owners in Puerto Rico

After falling in love with the lifestyle, culture and people in Puerto Rico, Cherese Matthews and her now wife Valentina Sollo decided to uproot from the United States and buy a CrossFit affiliate in Puerto Rico.

So in 2016, the couple, who met at a fitness convention in Orlando, FL, got rid of their apartments and cars in New Jersey and Florida to start a new chapter.

But when they got to the affiliate they were slated to purchase, all of the equipment was gone, and the former owner was rolling up the floors.

  • “What happened?” Matthews said of her reaction at the time.

What happened was the old owner hadn’t communicated with his buyers and had sold all of his equipment to other gyms, so ultimately there was no longer an affiliate to purchase or take over.

So, What Happened Next?: Even though there was no gym to buy, Matthews and Sollo were undeterred.

They got their hands on the former members’ contact information and “just called them up” and told them they would be offering CrossFit classes at the beach for free until they figured out their next month.

  • “We had no equipment and no car. We were just walking everywhere,” said Matthews, whose friend eventually gave her and Sollo a pair of dumbbells and a medicine ball, and “rain or shine” they showed up to the beach to train whoever showed up.
  • “We were going to make this work,” Matthews said of their attitude at the time.

Then one day, while walking by a local shopping center, they noticed some shipping containers in the parking lot. Their immediate thought: Why not turn a shipping container into a gym?

  • “We can make that work,” Matthews said.

So she got herself an Amazon Prime credit card and “maxed it out” buying as much equipment as they could for their 400 square foot shipping container gym, and began charging $5 for drop-in classes.

So, Where are they Today?: A little more than six years later, Matthews, a CrossFit Level 3 coach, and Sollo, who was born and raised in Venezuela, are the owners of CrossFit Rincon in Rincon, Puerto Rico.

  • They have a flourishing gym with 135 to 170 members, depending on the season, and are having a “record year” in their 3,500 square foot facility. Further, they have created a community that prides itself on being inclusive, and that focuses especially on servicing minority groups, such as women entrepreneurs and the LGTBQ + community.

But the road to getting where they are today has been anything but smooth.

Continue Reading...
 
THINGS TO...
 

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...LEARN

10 Critical Things To Know About Strength Training for Women Over 35

Who says you can’t build muscle as you get older? NO ONE that’s who. Read these ten things to know if you are a woman over 35 and thriving at the gym.

SHE STRONG.
 
HIGHLIGHTS

Celebrating a PR, hosting a fundraiser, this, that, or otherwise. Send us a tip.

  • Congratulations to Fittest Teen on Earth Olivia Kerstetter on the 257-pound/116.8kg clean PR.
  • :exploding_head: Dylan Cooper from Austin, TX pulls a 300-pound/136.3kg clean, solves a Rubik’s cube while resting the bar on his shoulders, and then finishes the jerk.
  • Congratulations to the three teams from Rhode Island’s Ocean State CrossFit that qualified for, and competed in, Team Quarterfinals: Ocean State Blue (52nd), Ocean State Gold (76th), and Ocean State’s Finest (WD).
  • Congratulations to 9-year-old Brodie Bowen from Florida on the 40-inch box jump PR.
  • :scream: Watch this attempt at a weighted bar muscle-up to bar handstand push-up.
 
 
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