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February 9   |   POWERED BY

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

• Will 2018 Regional stand-outs make a play for Semifinals?
• Five AM CrossFit class helps retired Green Beret.
• Closed restaurants helped Nick Warrick lose 100 pounds.

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“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” - Albert Einstein

There and Back Again: Will 2018 Regional Stand-Outs Return for 2021 Semifinals?

In the first two parts of this series, we’ve been looking at the breadth and depth of the Regional athletes from 2018 and the abundance of talent in the European athlete pool. This time we’re addressing the hard-to-ignore fact that when Regionals were removed following the 2018 Games, a large pool of athletes were discouraged and for the most part stopped competing in CrossFit competitions.

The question is, will these athletes come back to competition, and if they do, what does it mean for the landscape of the sport? 

In our analysis of 2018 Regional athletes, we have identified 31 notable men and 23 notable women who had strong performances at Regionals that year who have been largely absent from the competitive landscape for the majority of 2019 and 2020.

Remind me: When the big changes fell in 2018, there was a lot of talk about Open participation being representative of your support for the changes. Basically, if you signed up you were saying you were still supporting the sport, and if you didn’t you were casting your vote in the opposite direction.

The Regional format was beloved by most, getting rid of it was a risky play by CrossFit.

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• The Buttery Bros dropped a trailer for the first part of a three-part series on the 2019 Sanctional season.
• Mat Fraser announced that he will be releasing his workout programming in partnership with Hybrid Performance Method. The HWPO pre-sale is live now.
• Tia-Clair Toomey and Josh Bridges appeared in the Oikos Pro Yogurt Super Bowl ad that aired during Sunday’s game.
• Tia-Clair Toomey also won her first bobsled race last week.
• The Italian Showdown announced that it will not be part of the CrossFit Games season in 2021, but it’s keeping the possibility of offering an event in the CrossFit Games off-season on the table.
• Third Fittest on Earth, Justin Medeiros, joins the NOBULL team. This is now the second major sponsorship deal announced in the last few weeks for the Loud & Live athlete.
• Born Primitive launched their second annual “1000 Heroes Project.” In honor of International Women’s Day, Born Primitive will be giving away 1000 limited edition sports bras to “strong and inspirational women” nominated by members of the community. Nominations are currently being accepted.
• The Community Gyms Coalition gained two major new members yesterday — Classpass and Clubready — bringing the total number of fitness studios and small gyms represented by the organization to 40,000.

Five AM CrossFit Class Helps Retired Green Beret and Bison Union Founder Bert Kuntz Improve Mental Health

Bison Union Apparel Company co-founder Bert Kuntz walked into Cloud Peak CrossFit in Sheridan, WY expecting to perform decently during his first class. He is a retired Green Beret, a “former action guy” who spent his career running, weightlifting, and doing push-ups, sit-ups, and dips while overseas. However, the first workout completely humbled him but ultimately led to major improvements in his life and a challenge to keep attending classes for three years.

Why this matters: Kuntz admits that he made fun of CrossFit in his previous career while many of his peers were getting deep into the sport. He never expected to be someone that shows up for the WOD regularly, but the situation changed after he moved to Wyoming. He fell into a “dark place” in his personal life, but taking CrossFit classes drastically improved his mental state and forced a change in his workout routine.

• “I’m having fun with it. I’m not good at it,” Kuntz said. “It’s great. I never thought that I would be in this position, but it’s actually been a life changer for me.”

Closed Restaurants Help Nick Warrick Lose 100 Pounds in 2020

Pre-COVID-19 life for Nick Warrick meant inconsistent fitness, frequently eating out and drinking with friends — often “obliterating 4,000 calories a day” — and travelling for work every other weekend.

• Each time he was in a new city, Warrick made an effort to try the delicious foods native to wherever he happened to be. That lifestyle left the 27-year-old member of Oxford CrossFit in Mississippi to weigh 302 pounds at 6-feet tall.

The pandemic: When COVID hit and the world shut down last March, Warrick stopped eating out, stopped traveling for work to various college campuses as a leadership consultant, and stopped going out for drinks with friends, as it was no longer an option as restaurants were closed. This provided him the perfect opportunity to reshape his lifestyle, he explained.

• “Having restaurants closed and not being able to go anywhere helped. Suddenly I wasn’t going out with friends drinking all the time, and it helped me learn to control what I ate,” he said.

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How Single-Leg RDLs Can Fix Back Pain

Single-leg RDLs can be a really difficult exercise to do correctly because they require intense core stability and balance. Finding imbalances and weaknesses is easier in single-leg movements though, so you can use RDLs to diagnose and treat lower back pain by strengthening and stabilizing the core.

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Are you Strong Enough to Go to the CrossFit Games

Chances are, the answer is no, but this post on the Misfit Athletics blog is fascinating nonetheless. If you are a data-junky, you will love the charts and the analysis here, and even if you're just a casual fan of the CrossFit Games, this post provides some great insight into just how strong these incredibly fit people are.

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Chalk Up Highlights is our section dedicated to celebrating our community’s wins in the gym. Follow @ChalkUpHighlights and submit your highlight to [email protected] to be featured.

• Trista Smith front squats 207.5 pounds/94kg for a PR.
• Nathan Damron back squats 639 pounds/290kg for a double.
• Daniella Melo back squats 490 pounds/222.5kg.
• Jawon Garrison back squats 722 pounds/327kg for a PR.
• Dylan Cooper deadlifts 615 pounds/280kg for a PR.
• Michelle Basnett clean and jerks 250 pounds/114kg for a PR.
• Joshua Al-chamaa jerks 403 pounds/183kg for a PR.
• Ray Fleser cleans 365 pounds/166kg for a double.

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